You'd Think With an Extra Week . . .

I may be jumping the gun here and Diamond may very well bend over backwards in an attempt to get this fixed, but it appears that West Coast comic shops are receiving roughly 10-15% of their Civil War #6 orders this week (with the rest presumably to follow next week). Any number of things could cause a problem like this, from a shipping issue which prevents most of the books from getting there (as happened last week for almost every DC book on the west coast and a few titles like Army of Darkness in the West and South) to a personnel error to a buggy computer (trust me, it's been an issue with Diamond recently). The real issue here is that it's a problem in a certain region of the country that could severely damage a shops sales on what should be a best selling title. Not to give anyone ideas here, but a reader on the West Coast could easily order from an East Coast mail order comic shop and receive the book before their West Coast shop does, cutting into the sales potential on a non-returnable product that I'd guarantee will be one of that stores largest single issue orders of the year (2006 or 2007).

I really don't have much more to say about this (although Johanna has a few thoughts), and I wouldn't be surprised if Marvel stepped in to make sure Diamond does something to try to get this fixed as quickly as possible, but considering the holiday and the potential shipping complications involved, it's entirely possible that West Coast fans will be finding out what happens in Civil War #6 via the Internet.