Jenny Blake has written a story for DC Pride 2025. Diamond has filed a motion for new owners. DC’s Free Comic Book Day books will be released online.
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Episode Transcript:
Jenny Blake writes DC Pride story.
Diamond reveals new owners, maybe.
DC Free Comic Book Day books to be released online.
This is Comic Book Club News for May 1, 2025.
Jenny Blake Writes DC Pride Story:
DC Comics‘ DC Pride is an annual event in and of itself. But in between the lauded superhero stories, the collections have also occasionally included phenomenal, personal stories about finding your identity, like 2022’s “Finding Batman” by Kevin Conroy and J. Bone, or “Spaces” in 2024 by Phil Jimenez and Giulio Macaione. And now, DC Pride 2025 will complete the hat trick with “Master Planner,” a new story by Jenny Blake, who recently came out as trans.
Written by Blake with art by Sara Soler, and letters by Jodie Troutman, “Master Planner” will touch on how Blake — a writer known for her work on Black Goliath, Black Panther, Ghost Rider, and more — explored, per a press release provided to Comic Book Club, “identity, authenticity, and the universal quest for self-understanding.”
Said Blake, “When I came out as transgender, the comics community was overwhelmingly loving and supportive. Being asked to contribute to this anthology was unexpected and so affirming. I’ve done a lot of cool things in my 50-plus years in comics, but this story is one of the things I’m most proud of. I see myself in this story and I hope readers see something of themselves in it. I had a wonderful time writing my story, and I hope the readers enjoy it as much as I did.”
DC Pride 2025 hits stores on June 4, 2025.
Diamond Files Motion For New Owners, Universal And Ad Populum:
The Diamond Comics Distributors saga continues. Per Graphic Policy, Diamond has filed a motion to be purchased by Universal Distribution and Sparkle Pop LLC, which seems to be a holding company for Ad Populum.
As The Beat explains, this deal is being made for significantly less money than the deal offered by Alliance Entertainment, and even less than the joint deal Universal and Ad Populum were offering a few weeks back. In total, the companies are intent on purchasing Diamond’s assets for $50 million, versus the previous bid of $69 million.
While this isn’t a done deal by any means, if it goes through, then Universal will own Alliance Games Distributors, and Sparkle Pop will own Diamond Comics Distributors, CGA, and Diamond Select Toys. Under a separate deal, Universal is also expected to buy Diamond UK.
However, this still leaves questions about the future of other divisions of the company, most notably Free Comic Book Day, which has yet to be mentioned at all during this drama. Most folks believe that this upcoming Saturday will be the final Free Comic Book Day, at least in its current form.
And in fact, there’s a pretty significant wrench in the gears. As of this recording, Alliance Entertainment has filed a motion to prevent the sale, given they now consider themselves creditors of Diamond with the sale not going through — and Alliance expects damages from a pending June court case.
More on this as it develops, though I’d love it to stop developing, if possible.
DC’s Free Comic Book Day Books Will Be Released Online Early:
Can’t make it to your local shop for Free Comic Book Day? DC Comics has you covered. Per Bleeding Cool, you can snag DC’s books for the May 3rd celebration starting at 12:01 am on the Kindle.
That includes the DC All In Special, Superman’s Good Guy Gang, and Kanga-U, all of which will hit stores likely later that morning, once they open.
However, a friendly piece of advice: maybe don’t do that? Or at least, if you do download the books on Kindle, head to your local comic book shop anyway? The purpose of this potentially final Free Comic Book Day is to get foot traffic in stores. So read the books digitally if you like, but still head out to your LCS and purchase something for cold, hard cash while you’re there. They need your business more than Amazon — free, or otherwise.
For Comic Book Club News, I’m Alex Zalben. And seriously, I’d love this whole Diamond thing to be settled already, that would be rad.
Got tips or stories you’d like us to cover? Email us at comicbookclublive@gmail.com.
For more comic book news, reviews, and interviews, check out comicbookclublive.com.
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