Subject: Curtain falls on Diamond competitor FM International | Author | Messages | 
Brent Frankenhoff
Posts: 3930
 | Posted: 3/10/2006 9:56:46 AM | After discontinuing its catalog in late 2005, dropping new products from its offerings, comics distributor FM International closed its Madison, Wis., warehouse at the end of February. CBG's call to FM March 10, revealed that the company's phone had been disconnected. The company's website is also offline.
According to one of FM's customers in the immediate area, Westfield Comics, FM had effectively ceased operations at the end of January and worked through February to move all remaining products and supplies out of its location on the southeast side of Madison.
Unlike Cold Cut Distribution, whose mission was as a back-issue distributor, FM concentrated on offering non-exclusive new products to retailers, with local shops able to visit the company's warehouse at any time to pick up additional products. Westfield Comics Product Manager Gregory Schaben said that the closure would prove inconvenient for his firm, with a retail location in Madison and its mail-order service located in the nearby suburb of Middleton. "Having a distributor right here in town where we could pick up what we needed at any time was great," he said.
The firm was a direct descendant of Madison-based Capital City Distribution, which was purchased by Diamond Comic Distributors in July 1996. FM employed former Capital City employees and was housed in a former Capital City warehouse. FM President Wayne Markley managed the New Orleans warehouse for Capital City for three years prior to moving to Madison where he was a buyer for Capital City for the next five years. After a two-year stint at DC, where he worked in marketing/editorial, he returned to Capital, as the new product development director before founding FM in 1996.
Another former Capital City employee, Jerry Stoltenberg, worked at FM from its founding until the end, mainly in purchasing and packing. He had been employed at Capital City for more than 10 years at the time of FM's founding.
Schaben said that while he didn't know the future plans of FM's employees, "hopefully, they'll land on their feet."
Earlier stories on FM can be found here and here.
More details as they become available...
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