Distilling the Value of DSTLRY
It’s a tale of the tape, as we explore what’s what when it comes to the new publisher from a pair of former Comixologists.
Most new comic publishers don’t earn a New York Times feature for its announcement, as DSTLRY did.
Then again, most new publishers don’t arrive with this kind of star power, with the co-founder of Comixology in David Steinberger and the former head of Comixology Originals in Chip Mosher behind it and a glitzy lineup of creators — including folks like James Tynion IV, Scott Snyder, Becky Cloonan, Elsa Charretier, Jamie McKelvie, and more — to its name. That’s to say nothing of the unusually high-powered investors backing it, including French comic publisher Groupe Delcourt, manga giant Kodansha, film producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, and assorted others. DSTLRY has more visible oomph behind it than any new American comics publishing house in recent memory. 13
It wasn’t just the starry names that made DSTLRY a hot topic when it was revealed. While some aspects were polarizing to say the least, its unique approach to direct market comics certainly differentiates it. Some of those features include:
- The DC Black Label-style format it’s using, with the focus being on “premium, oversized limited-edition single-issues”
- Its…uh….innovative approach to digital, with single-issues only on sale for one week before all sold inventory can enter a resale market, if a customer decides to do so 14
- Its unique offer for creators, with the talent retaining ownership of their IP and getting a 3% equity share in the company that’s split amongst each of them
- The promise of “premium limited-edition merch” for fans of the publisher and its projects, presumably 15
There are a bevy of other atypical attributes to DSTLRY’s approach, but the point is it all adds up to a formula that’s quite unlike what other publishers are currently doing. “New” and “different” aren’t necessarily good in a vacuum, of course. But they do help you gain attention, especially when you have big names backing you up. That’s important in a market bursting at the seams with publishers and titles.
That’s a lot of sizzle. So far, there hasn’t been much steak. While the publisher has announced its first release — an anthology one-shot called The Devil’s Cut featuring its founding creators and more that’s set to arrive on August 30th of this year — no individual titles are on the horizon. The story so far has been a lot of talk and little else. It makes the whole thing feel…weird. I don’t even know what to make of a publisher that starts selling logo wear before a single comic is announced, outside a preview book of sorts. While DSTLRY has a different approach and exciting names behind it, all this is why its early days have left me a little flummoxed as an outsider.
As an exercise to help both myself and readers understand what the deal is exactly with this new publisher, I’m going to try and distill the value of DSTLRY with some of the founding creators sharing a little insight on why they signed up. We’ll be breaking down the good and the…well, maybe not bad, but the question marks about the overall approach in the process. It’s a good old-fashioned tale of the tape, with the newest game in town getting the focus.
subscribers only.
Learn more about what you get with a subscription
Random House Graphic probably gets the closest of any semi-recent comic venture. Also, Substack doesn’t count, because it was at no point a publisher, and Frank Miller Presents just doesn’t have the names outside Miller and Dan DiDio.↩
Collections will not have the same structure. They’ll always be available.↩
Limited-edition is a prominent phrase for them!↩
Who, per Steinberger in an interview with The Beat, have no contractual relationship with DSTLRY outside investment, although that seems to have evolved given that Delcourt was announced as a foreign licensing partner with first look rights.↩
It’s sort of like those amazing Apple TV+ commercials Timothée Chalamet did, in which he’s crestfallen over not having a show or movie on the platform.↩
I will say, some of the external messaging on this side has left me a little confused. The team told Forbes and The Beat that it will “participate on media” and be a “profit participant in the IP.” It’s unclear how that works if creators own 100% of the IP, which is why I reached out for confirmation.↩
Whether that’s in the form of funding or through founding editor Will Dennis.↩
And I like it myself!↩
Including storage or shelving, just the general shape of it, or its atypical, unusual nature. Comic people are often fairly rigid creatures of habit. I even once had a reader dub it “the bad format,” which made it difficult to identify at first.↩
Or $375 if you want one of the title’s still unrevealed variants from Golden Apple!↩
They even include language about it in the boilerplate part of press releases at this point.↩
DSTLRY’s “drop culture” angle doesn’t work for me, though. Two key elements of drop culture is the zero-sum game that comes when you own something that no one else can and your ability to show it off. Both exist in a new colorway of a sneaker; neither exists for its limited time only digital releases — unless it’s about unrevealed physical products.↩
Random House Graphic probably gets the closest of any semi-recent comic venture. Also, Substack doesn’t count, because it was at no point a publisher, and Frank Miller Presents just doesn’t have the names outside Miller and Dan DiDio.↩
Collections will not have the same structure. They’ll always be available.↩
Limited-edition is a prominent phrase for them!↩