IDW Comics: The Issue is in Doubt

IDW may be going out of business

A couple of years ago IDW decided to stop using Diamond as a distributor.  Understandably so, Diamond was well known for being a source of no innovation and having stopped disbursements to publishers during Covid.

So, IDW contracted to Penguin Random House to be their new distributor… Who immediately turned around and subcontracted that to Diamond.  Good joke or mean trick depending on your point of view.

The company has been circling the drain for a while.  In 2023, the CEO was fired, the CFO was fired, the entire marketing and PR department was eliminated. Half the editorial staff was fired.  In 2024, the head of HR was making noises about the entire human resources department being disbanded soon, makes sense, you don’t need human resources if your company doesn’t have any humans in it. Also in 2024, IDW publisher Mark Doyle was fired.

For the past few years, IDW has been getting by as an IP development factory.  Since no Hollywood studio will even consider throwing the dice on a new IP, IDW would publish a few issues of a script writer’s work and then pitch the idea.  Usually, to Netflix.  While Netflix would frequently buy, they would also frequently cancel.  The money was never coming in as fast as it was going out, and that source of revenue appears to have gone dry.

The company still has contracts with other entities and owns some IPs outright like 30 Days of Night, but at this point, IDW’s primary asset appears to be its debt which is allegedly about nine million dollars.  There is a rumor going around that Disney is interested in picking up the company but now, they’d be nuts if they spent real money on it when it looks like it will be available at fire sale prices.

Diamond’s bankruptcy has cast doubt on the future of the struggling publisher… 

Well, actually no.  There is no doubt about IDW’s future and there hasn’t been for a while.

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