During a recent Youtube livestream, Peter Simeti of Alterna Comics announced that he is in the midst of launching an all-new way for indie comics creators to get their books into comic book shops across America. He is dubbing this service “Alterna Distribution.” Currently the service exists simply as a web domain, but the plan is for this endeavor to be fully functional in mid-2020.

The current state of comic book distribution sounds a little bit like a monopoly as all comic book distribution is exclusively handled by Diamond Comic Distributors. Every major comic book publisher and most independent comic publishers are required to submit their products to Diamond before local comic retailers can pre-order them from the catalog. It’s just the way it’s been done for years. This gives Diamond a lock on all periodical comic books distribution.

Peter Simeti mentions in the video below that Diamond has been up to 3 months late in sending payments to Alterna on more than one occasion. The distributor has also made errors in accepting shipments from Alterna Comics, even refusing a damaged pallet of books in its entirety despite only part of the shipment being damaged, which also causes shipments to be late. Simeti has also stated that Diamond claims to have “lost track of a shipment” causing additional delays.

According to an interview with The Splintering, Peter Simeti has been considering launching his own independent comic distribution company, but a recent email exchange with Diamond ramped those plans up to the point he decided to pull the trigger.

Here’s the announcement, and Peter’s description of what prompted this and what it will include when it kicks off: