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News: Diamond Expands Into UK
posted June 7, 2004
 

June 7 -- Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. opened up a United Kingdom office today, further expanding their business from dominance of the North American hobby and specialty markets for comics and into Great Britain. The Diamond office will now constitute a its own division in the Maryland company's larger corporate structure. John Hitchen, a 12-year veteran of the company's United Kingdom comics operations, will serve as the general manager. The division was put into place by Kuo-Yu Liang, the Sales and Marketing Vice President at Diamond Book Distributors, tipping the company's hands as far as the emphasis of the new division.

In addition to an active presence at the summer book and comic book convention, Diamond has also been busy solidifying its book operations. In June the distributor announced that its operations had changed so that specialty and hobby shops would receive new Diamond client Tokyopop's books at the same time bookstores did. The delay in when material was available was a concern for comic book retailers, many of who have admitted to considering the notion of opening up an account with a book distributor to receive the books earlier, and on a returnable basis.