Looking Back 5 Years Later
It’s hard to even remember everything that happened as the Covid pandemic swept across our area. It’s been five years since the official reaction began. It’s amazing how quickly everything seemed to develop. Here’s a brief timeline of all the changes that occurred.
16 March 2000, Monday – Our Bethesda store closes to the public for 2 days a week, the days when our founder Joel (who was in a higher risk category) works.
17 March, Tuesday – Our Vienna and DC locations close.
18 March, Wednesday – Virginia issues stay at home order.
20 March, Friday – Big Planet Comics starts asking for customers to let us know if they want anything we are preordering that arrive in three weeks’ time, as we will probably be cutting extra orders since we don’t know if we will be open.
26 March, Thursday – Our Bethesda location closes, and our College Park location is open by appointment only.
30 March, Friday – Maryland issues stay at home order.
31 March, Tuesday – In response to other states issuing stay at home orders that prevented stores from even receiving shipments, Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest distributor of comic books, stops sending out comic books everywhere. Big Planet Comics starts a 25% off sale on all the graphic novels we have in stock at that time!
1 April, Tuesday – Washington DC issues stay at home order.
21 April, Tuesday – Kevin hosts the first Big Planet Comics online auction of classic comics on Instagram Live video!
29 April, Wednesday – Miranda hosts the first Big Planet Comics online graphic novel book club, for Outer Darkness by John Layman and Afu Chan, on Facebook Live video! You can still watch it here:
https://www.facebook.com/bigplanetcomics/videos/664906304343673
2 May, Saturday – The annual Free Comic Book Day is postponed (and does not take place this year at all).
20 May, Wednesday – Diamond Comic Distributors starts shipping comic books again after 8 weeks of no new publications.
Our stores are mailing comic books to regular customers and special orders from new customers all over the world. Eventually we have curbside pickup for people to get comic books outside of our stores. Japanese manga comics have a surge in popularity (probably because of the chance to read long storylines in big chunks), but the continued paper shortage and disruption of the worldwide publishing distribution means that when a volume goes out of print, it can take months for a reprint to come from whatever printer is reprinting it somewhere in the world.
2 August, Sunday – A new company, Lunar Distribution, starts taking orders for DC Comics, who have left their exclusive distribution deal with Diamond Comic Distributors, breaking Diamond’s voluntary monopoly on most of the big comic book publishers.
17 October, Saturday – Unable to negotiate a new lease for these changed times, our Bethesda store announces that it is moving to new location.
29 October, Wednesday – Bethesda reopens at its new location right around the corner at 7939 Norfolk Ave.
21 March Thursday, 2021 – Marvel Comics announces it is also leaving its exclusive distribution deal with Diamond Comic Distributors to go with Penguin Random House in October. Diamond will still be allowed to sub-distribute Marvel Comics.
23 March-29 March – The Ever Given runs aground in the Suez Canal, further impacting the global supply chain. (Rumor was a big shipment from a comic book publisher was actually on the boat!)
2 June, Wednesday – Customers are allowed in College Park, DC, and Vienna stores again in limited numbers.
14 August, Saturday – Free Comic Book Day returns, postponed from its usual May date.
1 October, Friday – Penguin Random House becomes distributor for Marvel Comics.
The first few months after the first stay at home orders were obviously very low in sales, especially when the regular shipments of weekly new releases were paused for 8 weeks. Thank you again to everyone who made hard sacrifices to keep everyone safe, and take care of themselves, and for all the support you gave Big Planet Comics to make it through!