Direct market vs. book market, round ... whatever: At ICv2.com, comics retailer Buddy Saunders gets it, at least when it comes to Marvel's book-market distribution deal:

"Marvel, as with any publisher or manufacturer, has not only the right but the obligation to market to as many outlets as possible. The question is not one of loyalty; Marvel is not betraying us by cultivating other markets. A vendor will and should go where the money is. We direct market retailers, by the way, do the same."

But Ilan Strasser doesn't like the "special deals" that Marvel, DC and other publishers give to the "big boys":

"In the end, those of us who are portrayed as being angry or negative or whatever --well, that's our right. I, along with hundreds of other dedicated, hard-working retailers carried Marvel, DC, Image and everybody else on our backs for the last 20 years or more. We carried them through every stupid decision, every inept marketing scheme, every management changeover, and every change in editorial and marketing direction. And the thanks we get is being shunted aside.

"Adapt or die? That notion is painfully obvious to all of us and no retailer with any sense at all would quibble with it. But it is impossible to change and adapt when you are left to clean up the mess that others create. It is also impossible to compete and thrive when you routinely get product weeks after everyone else does; my sales of manga trades has dwindled to nothing since Barnes & Noble and Borders gets them three weeks before I do."