Valiant Comics has reportedly shuttered its New York City headquarters.
A new report from Comic-Watch claims, “Valiant Entertainment, home to such properties as X-O Manowar, Harbinger, and recent Hollywood breakout Bloodshot, closed the doors on its New York City Headquarters location recently.”
Valiant Comics responded to the report telling Comic-Watch, “
Flying Sparks creator Jon Del Arroz discussed Valiant’s decision to shut down their New York City headquarters stating, “When you close your headquarters office and you actually do shut down things like that, it is a sign that you are in cost cutting measures and you are actually having some issues, and you are trying to mitigate them. That is what is going on here.”
Del Arroz added, “I’ve kind of given an analysis over the last couple of years where Valiant has really tanked in sales. What happened originally is that Valiant sold to this company called DMG. And the people who were in charge of really making Valiant great from 2012 up until that point, a guy named Dinesh…and Chief Editor Warren Simons…they were let go.
He continued, “And they were really the people who were really driving things creatively and bringing in great creators…like Matt Kindt and Tomas Giorello, all these wonderful writers and artists who you no longer see working for Valiant Comics.”
In fact, Del Arroz showed just how far Valiant had fallen earlier this year where he detailed that their average sales between 2018 and 2020 had fallen 48%.
At the time Del Arroz claimed that the decreases were the result of Valiant’s editorial team.
He wrote in March, “You look at their editorial across the board and it’s people who are promoting political ideology over great content that the fans want, which is what happens when the core business gets replaced with a company that cares more about holding onto movie IPs than they do producing an excellent comic line.”
“The higher-ups don’t understand comics, and aren’t interested, so they bring in names like Antos to direct without really checking on what made the books great in the first place,” he added.
Related: Valiant Comics Senior Editor Heather Antos Claims “America” Has The Worst Fans
In fact, Valiant Comics’ Senior Editor Heather Antos recently claimed that America has the worst fans.
In response to a Twitter user asking “what thing has the worst fans,” Antos replied, “America.”
Antos would double down stating, “What can I say…the worst fans.”
Not only does Antos seem more concerned about her own political ideology rather than Valiant Comics and comic books in general, but since she joined Valiant Comics, the sales across the board tanked.
As Bounding Into Comics reported back in March, Antos joined Valiant Comics in January 2019.
The year before she joined Valiant Comics shipped a total of 61,448 copies over 7 titles in January 2018. They shipped an average of 8,778 copies per title.
In January 2019, they shipped a total of 27,451 copies over 5 titles. That’s an average of 5,490 copies per title.
More recently in January 2020, Valiant shipped 32,024 copies over 6 titles. That’s only an average of 5,337 copies per title.
As Del Arroz noted, sales to retailers from January 2018 to January 2020 decreased by nearly 48%. The average number of copies shipped decreased by nearly 40%.
While Valiant claims the closing of their headquarters is business as usual, one has to wonder as Del Arroz does if it isn’t another sign of Valiant’s struggling publishing arm.
What do you make of Valiant Comics shuttering their headquarters in New York City? Do you think they are just adapting to new workplace standards in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic or do you think it is a sign of possibly struggling financials?