Last week was a hard week.
The July issue of PREVIEWS went to press. #442, my 217th issue.
Except. It didn’t go to press. Not really. This issue is PDF-only. We had to buy the paper for the catalog when the sale of Diamond’s assets to Universal and Ad Populum closed, and the decision to buy the paper wasn’t made in time. We had all the same deadlines and all the same work — when I was asked about it, I said it’s an avalanche; there are other people who depend on things, like the data, happening at a certain time and things get messy if they don’t — just without a physical product, to say nothing of fewer people due to departures from layoffs or other offers. The decision on August’s paper needs to be made next week, and there’s optimism. Everyone is looking at July’s PDF-only state as a one-off glitch.
I wasn’t entirely happy with my writing on the July editorial copy.
That’s not last week was hard.
On Monday, work crews began tearing down the cubicles.
The office flooded two months ago, soaking the carpet rather thoroughly. A water pipe leading to a coffee machine outside the executive suite burst over the weekend, and when people came in Monday morning they found water everywhere. Carpet was taken up, some of the drywall was removed, things were thrown away, blowers were running everywhere (including in my office, which had taken no damage) — it was chaos. Reconstruction work began a few weeks later — carpet replaced, new drywall installed — and it was then left in a half-complete state, with some areas still uncarpeted, some halls with a kind of saran wrap laid on the carpet to prevent damage while the crews worked, when the Ad Populum sale closed.
In addition to all of my writing and editorial duties, I had to box up my office to move downstairs, into the old Diamond Select Toys space on the third floor. I took down my artwork and my photos. I bagged up the figures that were on top of the bookshelf and boxed up the comics and books. I went through the supplies on my desk. Over the course of the week, I took it all home.
Except the eighteen years of my PREVIEWS run. I have no space for it at home. My work product. My “run.” I made my peace with it, and I left it behind. To be scavenged, to be thrown away. I took five issues — my first, April 2009 (with my interview with William Shatner), my 100th, my 200th, and the latest (June 2025).
But that’s not why the week was hard, either.
On Wednesday afternoon, while waiting for others to complete some work I needed done, I made up the order form for the UK Supplement, which we make for the UK team. Their fate has not, as yet, been determined, though they may end up with Universal, who bought Alliance Games. As I was working on the spreadsheet for the order form, it occured to me that the next Supplement will be in early July, and I felt a great sense of finality.
Because, as of right now, my work with Diamond ends on June 30th.
My employment is part of a “Transition Services Agreement”–Diamond is still operating semi-independently as the new owners, Ap Populum, take control. What their plans are, I have no idea. Communication has been non-existent. Ad Populum hasn’t even sent an email welcoming us Diamond refugees to the company. Whether they intend to go on distributing comics and toys, I cannot say. More importantly, we’ve lost a great deal of manpower and institutional knowledge, to the point where even I’m uncertain that we’d be able to produce an August catalog. (Marketing has the people. The problem is on the Purchasing side.) It’s possible Ad Populum has a need and a role for me, and I will find out more as June 30th approaches. But at the moment, all the signs point toward being cut loose on the 30th.
Working on the UK Supplement brought all that into focus — the relationships with colleagues, some of whom I’ve never met, that stretch back years; my role in the comics industry as one of the anonymous yet important cogs in the machine — and how these are all drawing to a close.
It was hard, I got emotional.
I didn’t want to let it go.
The slow death of Diamond — because that’s what this is — has been an ongoing grieving process for me, and grief is never linear. I know, I’m spending too much time in my own head, I’m still struggling with the survivor’s guilt. Some days I’m fine, some days it hits, and when it hits I wallow with the depression.
Last week it hit hard. This week, who knows?
You know what? I like Paul Wesley as James Tiberius Kirk.