Steve Geppi & Bob Montana

[Aman619]

Nonsense.

Geppi was extremely aggressive in putting smaller distributors out of business- Comics Unlimited, Crown, the outfit in Connecticut, amongst others.

Publishers were forced to go to him and he completely changed the terms they could get.

When I had my store, I had many distributors to choose from and got discounts of 50 to 53%, depending on my order, free shipping and more promo material than I could use. These days LCS owners are little more than unpaid employees of Geppi. Say a wrong word and he cuts you off. Try to publish something Gemstone doesn't like and they won't distribute it. Store owners rarely get any credit consideration and Ind. publishers are often made to wait months for payments.

Classic example was when Dave Sim wrote an editorial about Geppis business practice and Geppi refused to carry Puma Blues, a book whose only crime was to be published by Sims company. Geppi knew fans would be outraged by his not carrying Cerebus, so he decided to hurt Sims publishing company by screwing writers and artist who he had no beef with.

Before geppis monopoly, there were over 6,000 comic shops and the independent comics market thrived. Now there are roughly 2,000 and the big four or five companies take up a much bigger piece of the pie.

 

 

Have you ever looked into what it takes to get Geppi to distribute a new book from a new company?

 

Well, that's a pretty aggressively anti Geppi point of view. I have talked to many retailers who also blame him, but the history of comics distribution isn't quite as you portrayed it. Marvel went on their own as you say, buying Snyders company in a mistake by an overly optimistic and greedy Perelman led Marvel. That left the two almost equal remaining distributors to seek survival by signing exclusives with what was left. DC made Geppi a very one sided deal where Geppi was only a sales middleman, that he had to accept for fear that Capital Cities would take the offer.

 

At the time all that mained was Image. It was at San Diego that year that Geppi announced he had made the deal with Image, and it was game over for CC. I think only Kitchen Sink stayed with CC in an effort to forstall a Geppi monopoly... And of course, because he had a lot more leverage with the loser than he did with Geppi at that point!

 

But without Marvel, Geppis comics business was actually smaller because Marvel was the biggest market share.

 

However, Geppi lucked out when Marvel pulled the plug on their distribution and then went to Diamond

 

The other point you make that I don't agree with is you leave out the 90s comics industry collapse entirely and how it forced the end of comics on credit. Stores now had to pay upfront. Which is a natural business decision when your client list shrinks from 5000 healthy stores to 2000 shaky ones in a cratering industry. You start demanding money up front and tightening the ship to avoid ballooning outstanding receivables from soon to be bankrupt comics stores.

 

No?

 

But yes stores tend to hate Geppi and bemoan the lack of choice. That's understandable.

[genrlzod]

So I guess the next question is, what happens if Diamond fails? Who can/would take over?

[ComicConnoisseur]

What amazed me is how they stated in the article how Geppi went from a networth of 20 million in 2007 to 1 million in 2011!

[Tony S]

What amazed me is how they stated in the article how Geppi went from a networth of 20 million in 2007 to 1 million in 2011!

 

If true, that would be quite a fall.

 

But somehow I doubt it.There are lots of ways to count wealth and in the article he would have been under oath (it was during a depostion) that he said his net worth was one mill. But Steve Geppi is part owner of the the major league baseball team Baltimore Orioles. In 1993 when a group of investors purchased the Orioles for 173 million, Geppi was listed as the third largest investor in the group. It's hard to believe his share of the Orioles isn't worth multiples of the one million dollar figure.

 

 

[dem1138]

He sold his share in the Orioles awhile ago...

[comick1]

What about the museum? I just went to visit it in early July. It was ah-MAY-zing. Any one of the lesser rooms of that museum would be worth in the hundreds of thousands.

[toro]

[ Not bad to have pocketed $100,000 for that effort (assuming it was paid). May he rest in peace.

 

I was thinking the same thing.

 

 

Hopefully Jerry's family received the money if he didn't.

[Tony S]

He sold his share in the Orioles awhile ago...

 

Are you certain? I can find no mention of Geppi selling his stake on the internet. Wiki article on Geppi lists him as part of the group headed by Attorney Peter Angelos that purchased the Orioles. Geppi listed as the number three investor after Angelos and author Tom Clancey. Article states Geppi attends nearly every home game.

 

Current articles written about the Orioles list Angelos as the owner. Angelos is the investor that headed up the team of investors mentioned above. At the time, the 173 million paid was the most ever for a sports franchise.

 

An article in Scoop - Diamond's online magazine - dated Jan 2008 quotes Geppi talking about his minority ownership of the Orioles

 

An April 9, 2010 article in the Baltimore Sun about Geppi's mansion failing to sell at a foreclosure auction for a bank acceptable price refers to Geppi as "publisher of Baltimore Magazine and investor in the Baltimore Orioles",

 

So when did he sell?

[RockMyAmadeus]

What I find most distressing about this is that Jerry Weist's name is dragged through the mud posthumously.

 

Original art is an incredibly difficult market to price. How do you value a market in which each and every single item is unique?

 

Consider the piece that was valued at $2,000 but "only" sold for $286 at Heritage. Why was it auctioned? Auctions are a risk. There are many things that I sell for much more than they would bring in an open auction. The piece very much MIGHT have sold for $2,000, or more, to the right buyer.

 

When a third party is assigned to give a value, they do so on a piece by piece, "market value" basis. And with so very little Bob Montana on the market beforehand with which to compare, Jerry did his typical good job with what he had to work with

 

The article leaves an outsider with the impression that Jerry wasn't as competent as he really was. That is a shame.

[esquirecomics]

What about the museum? I just went to visit it in early July. It was ah-MAY-zing. Any one of the lesser rooms of that museum would be worth in the hundreds of thousands.

 

A portion, and I do not know the amount, of the contents is on loan to the Museum. Geppi does not own everything.

 

Whatever one may think of Geppi in his role as a distributor, the Museum is his love and it opened in 2006, and remains open today, solely due to the true passion he has for comics and this hobby/industry. (thumbs u

 

 

[shadroch]

Nonsense.

Geppi was extremely aggressive in putting smaller distributors out of business- Comics Unlimited, Crown, the outfit in Connecticut, amongst others.

Publishers were forced to go to him and he completely changed the terms they could get.

When I had my store, I had many distributors to choose from and got discounts of 50 to 53%, depending on my order, free shipping and more promo material than I could use. These days LCS owners are little more than unpaid employees of Geppi. Say a wrong word and he cuts you off. Try to publish something Gemstone doesn't like and they won't distribute it. Store owners rarely get any credit consideration and Ind. publishers are often made to wait months for payments.

Classic example was when Dave Sim wrote an editorial about Geppis business practice and Geppi refused to carry Puma Blues, a book whose only crime was to be published by Sims company. Geppi knew fans would be outraged by his not carrying Cerebus, so he decided to hurt Sims publishing company by screwing writers and artist who he had no beef with.

Before geppis monopoly, there were over 6,000 comic shops and the independent comics market thrived. Now there are roughly 2,000 and the big four or five companies take up a much bigger piece of the pie.

 

 

Have you ever looked into what it takes to get Geppi to distribute a new book from a new company?

 

Well, that's a pretty aggressively anti Geppi point of view. I have talked to many retailers who also blame him, but the history of comics distribution isn't quite as you portrayed it. Marvel went on their own as you say, buying Snyders company in a mistake by an overly optimistic and greedy Perelman led Marvel. That left the two almost equal remaining distributors to seek survival by signing exclusives with what was left. DC made Geppi a very one sided deal where Geppi was only a sales middleman, that he had to accept for fear that Capital Cities would take the offer.

 

At the time all that mained was Image. It was at San Diego that year that Geppi announced he had made the deal with Image, and it was game over for CC. I think only Kitchen Sink stayed with CC in an effort to forstall a Geppi monopoly... And of course, because he had a lot more leverage with the loser than he did with Geppi at that point!

 

But without Marvel, Geppis comics business was actually smaller because Marvel was the biggest market share.

 

However, Geppi lucked out when Marvel pulled the plug on their distribution and then went to Diamond

 

The other point you make that I don't agree with is you leave out the 90s comics industry collapse entirely and how it forced the end of comics on credit. Stores now had to pay upfront. Which is a natural business decision when your client list shrinks from 5000 healthy stores to 2000 shaky ones in a cratering industry. You start demanding money up front and tightening the ship to avoid ballooning outstanding receivables from soon to be bankrupt comics stores.

 

No?

 

But yes stores tend to hate Geppi and bemoan the lack of choice. That's understandable.

 

Geppis deal with DC gave him a percentage on every book DC sold. He had no risk, whatsoever. The thing that drove distributors like Crown and Glenwood out of business was trying to buy more than their clients ordered, so they would have them in stock for reorders. With the DC deal,Geppi eliminated this huge liability,

Pre- Heros World, distributors bought books at 60% off, and sold them at 45-55% off, with distributors picking up the shipping cost. After DC signed off with Geppi, he eliminated the need to buy the books and acted as the middleman, maintaining his profit margins for the most part and eliminated the free shipping- saving him hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I agree his deal with DC was one-sided. We just disagree on which side got the best of the deal.

You see the collapse of the comic market and think Geppi did what he had to do to save his business. I blame his decisions for helping cause the collapse, along with Marvels idiotic management.

 

[Designer Toast]

Good read, thanks for the post.

[thehumantorch]

Great link, thanks for posting.

[Aman619]

Nonsense.

Geppi was extremely aggressive in putting smaller distributors out of business- Comics Unlimited, Crown, the outfit in Connecticut, amongst others.

Publishers were forced to go to him and he completely changed the terms they could get.

When I had my store, I had many distributors to choose from and got discounts of 50 to 53%, depending on my order, free shipping and more promo material than I could use. These days LCS owners are little more than unpaid employees of Geppi. Say a wrong word and he cuts you off. Try to publish something Gemstone doesn't like and they won't distribute it. Store owners rarely get any credit consideration and Ind. publishers are often made to wait months for payments.

Classic example was when Dave Sim wrote an editorial about Geppis business practice and Geppi refused to carry Puma Blues, a book whose only crime was to be published by Sims company. Geppi knew fans would be outraged by his not carrying Cerebus, so he decided to hurt Sims publishing company by screwing writers and artist who he had no beef with.

Before geppis monopoly, there were over 6,000 comic shops and the independent comics market thrived. Now there are roughly 2,000 and the big four or five companies take up a much bigger piece of the pie.

 

 

Have you ever looked into what it takes to get Geppi to distribute a new book from a new company?

 

Well, that's a pretty aggressively anti Geppi point of view. I have talked to many retailers who also blame him, but the history of comics distribution isn't quite as you portrayed it. Marvel went on their own as you say, buying Snyders company in a mistake by an overly optimistic and greedy Perelman led Marvel. That left the two almost equal remaining distributors to seek survival by signing exclusives with what was left. DC made Geppi a very one sided deal where Geppi was only a sales middleman, that he had to accept for fear that Capital Cities would take the offer.

 

At the time all that remained was Image. It was at San Diego that year that Geppi announced he had made the deal with Image, and it was game over for CC. I think only Kitchen Sink stayed with CC in an effort to forstall a Geppi monopoly... And of course, because he had a lot more leverage with the loser than he did with Geppi at that point!

 

But without Marvel, Geppis comics business was actually smaller because Marvel was the biggest market share.

 

However, Geppi lucked out when Marvel pulled the plug on their distribution and then went to Diamond

 

The other point you make that I don't agree with is you leave out the 90s comics industry collapse entirely and how it forced the end of comics on credit. Stores now had to pay upfront. Which is a natural business decision when your client list shrinks from 5000 healthy stores to 2000 shaky ones in a cratering industry. You start demanding money up front and tightening the ship to avoid ballooning outstanding receivables from soon to be bankrupt comics stores.

 

No?

 

But yes stores tend to hate Geppi and bemoan the lack of choice. That's understandable.

 

Geppis deal with DC gave him a percentage on every book DC sold. He had no risk, whatsoever. The thing that drove distributors like Crown and Glenwood out of business was trying to buy more than their clients ordered, so they would have them in stock for reorders. With the DC deal,Geppi eliminated this huge liability,

Pre- Heros World, distributors bought books at 60% off, and sold them at 45-55% off, with distributors picking up the shipping cost. After DC signed off with Geppi, he eliminated the need to buy the books and acted as the middleman, maintaining his profit margins for the most part and eliminated the free shipping- saving him hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I agree his deal with DC was one-sided. We just disagree on which side got the best of the deal.

You see the collapse of the comic market and think Geppi did what he had to do to save his business. I blame his decisions for helping cause the collapse, along with Marvels idiotic management.

 

I say it was one sided in DCs favor for a few reasons, the biggest was the leaked DC memo where the longtime DC Pres who was let go a few years ago for Dideo defended his deal to the WB bosses as having Geppi over a barrel because they not only limited Geppis upside to a fixed percentage of sales, but also had the power to BUY Diamond after ten years if they chose to do so. Meaning if Marvel owning their own distributorship turned out to be profitable and an advantage over Dc, DC could opt to do the same PLUS they'd be selling all other publishers books. They never acted on it though. But DC clearly forced Geppi to take their deal cause he knew he was dead if he didn't. As dead as Capital Cities as soon as Geppi made his DC deal.

 

But I say it was in DC favor because prior Geppi was fine with buying the comics from DC. At the time he was already ordering based on preorders from the stores, so his risk was already low. But he had a little upside by owning the actual comics that he lost in the new deal and he was getting them cheaper . Cheap enough to throw in free shipping. Suddenly charging for shipping is proof that his margins were suddenly a lot smaller than when he ran the show.

 

 

As for who killed the new comics market in the nineties? I don't think Geppi or Marvel were solely responsible. They just filled orders by stores that greedily ordered more than they would ever sell. Remember that crazy time after Image exploded on the scene? Suddenly you could sell a million copies of a hot number one book. And this was just as baseball cards were peaking and crashing so the card stores now jumped on comics cause kids and adults were buying multiples as investments and none of them ever read the books! Just wanted what "would go up!". The baseball cards guys really accelerated the end, as in a few years 1000s tanked owing Geppi etc millions. ( but having made so much he could absorb it)

 

I don't blame the publishers alone, or the distributors. It was the greed of the whole system. Or should I say, human nature? Free markets at work until the bubble finally burst. I think they knew it was an unsustainable craze... But none of them would or could afford to singlehandedly back off from dipping in. Easy money is easy and we all can't resist it even when we know it will kill us eventually.

 

Lots of people blamed Jemas for killing non sports cards. My answer is the same there. Is he to blame for cashing in on a flaming demand spike by creating more and more cardsets to meet demand? If he limited Marvel to 4 sets a year, would Topps and Upper Deck also hold their fire? Or fill the void and make more money at Marvels expense? All the card companies would have had to agree in a secret cabal to limits. Fat chance. Maybe illegal. Actually, didn't the comics publishers finally start preaching to only buy what you read in the late nineties? Coincided with the near death of the comics biz as speculative went away and readers did just that... Be careful what you wish for, huh?

 

Anyway. Geppi was. Tough competitor. But blaming the messenger (or delivery boy in this case) misses too much else going on that has nearly killed comics, and comic stores.

 

 

 

 

[Aman619]

I blanked on Levitz name as the DC Pres whose letter was leaked and published in Comcs Journal.

 

Also, I am guessing that charging for shipping was due to diamonds reduced profits under the new arrangement. If he tacked on shipping profit for no good reason, i agree it was a move and retailers should resent it.

[dem1138]

He sold his share in the Orioles awhile ago...

 

Are you certain? I can find no mention of Geppi selling his stake on the internet. Wiki article on Geppi lists him as part of the group headed by Attorney Peter Angelos that purchased the Orioles. Geppi listed as the number three investor after Angelos and author Tom Clancey. Article states Geppi attends nearly every home game.

 

Current articles written about the Orioles list Angelos as the owner. Angelos is the investor that headed up the team of investors mentioned above. At the time, the 173 million paid was the most ever for a sports franchise.

 

An article in Scoop - Diamond's online magazine - dated Jan 2008 quotes Geppi talking about his minority ownership of the Orioles

 

An April 9, 2010 article in the Baltimore Sun about Geppi's mansion failing to sell at a foreclosure auction for a bank acceptable price refers to Geppi as "publisher of Baltimore Magazine and investor in the Baltimore Orioles",

 

So when did he sell?

 

Just something I've heard several times. That and that the museum owes years in back rent.

[esquirecomics]

He sold his share in the Orioles awhile ago...

 

Are you certain? I can find no mention of Geppi selling his stake on the internet. Wiki article on Geppi lists him as part of the group headed by Attorney Peter Angelos that purchased the Orioles. Geppi listed as the number three investor after Angelos and author Tom Clancey. Article states Geppi attends nearly every home game.

 

Current articles written about the Orioles list Angelos as the owner. Angelos is the investor that headed up the team of investors mentioned above. At the time, the 173 million paid was the most ever for a sports franchise.

 

An article in Scoop - Diamond's online magazine - dated Jan 2008 quotes Geppi talking about his minority ownership of the Orioles

 

An April 9, 2010 article in the Baltimore Sun about Geppi's mansion failing to sell at a foreclosure auction for a bank acceptable price refers to Geppi as "publisher of Baltimore Magazine and investor in the Baltimore Orioles",

 

So when did he sell?

 

Just something I've heard several times. That and that the museum owes years in back rent.

 

A deal was ultimately worked out with the City of Baltimore, at least as reported by the press.

[Mike's Rack]

What I find most distressing about this is that Jerry Weist's name is dragged through the mud posthumously.

 

Original art is an incredibly difficult market to price. How do you value a market in which each and every single item is unique?

 

Consider the piece that was valued at $2,000 but "only" sold for $286 at Heritage. Why was it auctioned? Auctions are a risk. There are many things that I sell for much more than they would bring in an open auction. The piece very much MIGHT have sold for $2,000, or more, to the right buyer.

 

When a third party is assigned to give a value, they do so on a piece by piece, "market value" basis. And with so very little Bob Montana on the market beforehand with which to compare, Jerry did his typical good job with what he had to work with

 

The article leaves an outsider with the impression that Jerry wasn't as competent as he really was. That is a shame.

 

Agreed. It is tough that he did the appraisal just before the economic collapse and the books were sold after. That may have something to do with it. Also, it seems that Weist and Geppi failed to consider the effect that opening this find to the market would have on prices. It seems that keeping the art warehoused created a false perception of scarcity and unloading this large find on the market would naturally drive prices down.

[shadroch]

Geppi eliminated free shipping because he could.

Eliminate your competition, and you can eliminate your customer service. You either bought from Diamond or you could try and get by selling only Marvel,Kitchen Sink and a few minor publishers.

Why bother having a large accounts recievable department when you can simply ship everything COD? Why keep 20 local warehouses where owners could pick up books when one central warehouse worked better for you. Why not lay off hundreds of workers while your business is expanding.

In all seriousness,what makes you believe Paul Levitz or any of the suits at DC understood the distribution business any better than their counterparts at Marvel?

Leviitz and crew might have thought they were making a great deal for DC, but I assure you no one dragged Geppi to the table kicking and screaming.

If DCs option to buy Diamond was a good deal then, shouldn't it have been an even better deal a few years later when Diamond had a complete monopoly on the field?

 

[adamstrange]

If Diamond was not purchased by DC then it indicates that it's profit margins and business prospects were not as lucrative as the other opportunities DC had for investing their money. That indicates that those efficiencies/reductions that Diamond pursued and the price increases that they passed along were at least partly due to staying in business.