I've written before about Josh Blaylock.  Blaylock was the head of Chicago-based Devil's Due Publishing, a comic book company that ran Drafted, Hack/Slash, G.I. Joe, Family Guy, and Ninja Town.  Blaylock fell majorly behind on paying the talent (Tim Seeley is the guy who did Hack/Slash.  It was creator-owned, and when he jumped to Image, that pretty much nailed DDP's coffin shut.  Both Blaylock and Seeley are going to be at the Kankakee Fantasy Con.  I hope my table is waaaaaaaaay away from those two, I can't imagine the results being pretty).  Blaylock took to the Internet, attacking Diamond for basically killing off his company with lost product, delayed product, high product returns...in other words, pretty much every complaint every shoestring publisher Diamond carried had just before they went under, although those of us in the trenches were shocked to hear it happened to a higher player.

I've also written about Checker Publishing.  Run by Mark Thompson, Checker specialized in reprints of stuff like Supreme, Steve Canyon, and Star Trek.  Checker also felt they were getting jerked around by Diamond and pulled their stuff from their catalogs and was talking all kinds of interesting shit.

There are a few different competing e-comic formats and distributors, such as Comixology.  Diamond decided to start its own digital distribution initiative recently for comic shops to sell to fans (why bother?).  IIRC, DC is allied with Diamond, Marvel has it's own model (yeah, that worked out real good when they bought Toy Biz and that one comic distribution company).  Now, here comes Blaylock and Thompson, teaming up to form Devils Due Digital – A Checker Digital Company.  According to the announcement email, they have control over a “substantial amount of successful digital content".  And they are looking for more.  Their goal?  To go head to head with Diamond Digital and put them in their place.  Well, they didn't say that, but let's face it, who in their right mind would think anything else?

Stay tuned....