Sunrise Distribution
IndustryComic books
Founded1980s
FounderScott Mitchell Rosenberg
Defunct1988 (1988)
FateBankruptcy
HeadquartersCommerce, California
Key people
Dave Olbrich
Brian Marshall
David Campiti
Tom Mason
ServicesDistribution, Publishing
SubsidiariesEternity Comics
Imperial Comics
Amazing
Wonder Color
Malibu Comics

Sunrise Distribution a.k.a. Sunrise Comics and Games[1] was a Commerce, California-based comic book distributor which operated in the early-to-mid 1980s. Owned by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, the company was intimately connected to a number of small comic book publishers from that era, including Eternity Comics and Malibu Comics, as well as three extremely short-lived publishers: Amazing, Imperial Comics, and Wonder Color.

History

Sunrise Distribution evolved from Rosenberg's mail-order comics business, Direct Comics, which he had founded when he was 13 years old.[2]

Publishing ventures

Eternity Comics

In early 1986,[3] income from Rosenberg's comics distribution business allowed him to privately finance Eternity Comics,[3] originally based in New York City[4] and helmed by Brian Marshall.[3][5] Writer/editor David Campiti worked as a packager to supply content for Eternity.[3][5]

Amazing and Wonder Color

Beginning in the summer of 1986, after disputes arose between Marshall and Campiti,[3] Rosenberg (along with fellow investors Paula Brown, Mitch Everitt, and Jules Zimmerman)[5] provided capital for Campiti to form two new small publishers: Amazing and Wonder Color,[5] with business offices for both publishers based in the same location in Long Beach, California.[3] (Marshall, meanwhile, retained control of Eternity.)

Amazing and Wonder Color were affiliated with another publisher with which Campiti was involved: Pied Piper Comics. The plan was that Campiti would package comics for all three publishers through his studio Campiti and Associates,[6] with Pied Piper handling "special projects such as posters and graphic novels; black-and-white [comics] were Amazing's domain, and Wonder Color would product strictly color comics."[5]

Wonder Color's staff included investor Paula Brown as Publisher, editor-in-chief Campiti, and Consulting Editor Roger McKenzie.[7] Writer David Lawrence edited a few titles.

Malibu Comics and Imperial Comics

Near the end of 1986,[5] Rosenberg and his investors financed two new publishers: Imperial Comics, based in Brooklyn, New York, and helmed by Marshall; and Malibu Comics, based in Calabasas, California, headed by Dave Olbrich (previously an employee of Sunrise Distribution)[8] and cartoonist Tom Mason.[4] John Arcudi served as an editor for Imperial Comics.

Mergers

In the spring of 1987, Sunrise announced that due to cash flow issues, it would not be able to pay its client publishers until July.[9]

Concurrently, Rosenberg revealed his connection to Amazing, Eternity, Imperial, Malibu, and Wonder Color, and declared that he was assuming direct control of all five publishers.[10][5] At this point, Rosenberg shut down Amazing, Imperial, and Wonder Color, while keeping Eternity Comics as a Malibu brand. Some Imperial titles moved to Malibu/Eternity; a few Amazing and Wonder Color titles were retained by Campiti and moved to Pied Piper Comics.

Sunrise Bankruptcy

Sunrise went bankrupt and abruptly folded in the summer of 1988, during the "black-and-white implosion." This left a number of small publishers without the cash flow to continue, and they, too, went out of business.[11] Two of Sunrise's clients, the West Coast publishers Blackthorne Publishing and Fantagraphics, sued the distributor,[12] but ultimately, neither publisher was able to recoup its losses.[13]

Rosenberg continued with Malibu, which survived into the mid-1990s, with many ups and downs, before being acquired by Marvel Comics in 1994.[14]

Analysis

In 2015, Tom Mason, a co-founder of Malibu Comics, described Rosenberg's operations this way:

He secretly financed four (yes, that’s right) comic book companies with the idea that they would publish comics, he’d push them through his existing distribution channel at Sunrise, then sell individual copies by mail order through yet another company of his called Direct Comics. Having a distribution company that distributes books from multiple publishers, then expands to publishing its own books while also running a mail order division isn’t a bad way to create a vertically-integrated company without many assets. Unfortunately, he did it in secret, and had been trying to manipulate the market to create “hot” comics that could be sold at higher prices post-publication, and it all went bad when the bubble of inflated high-priced “hot” comics burst. Sunrise was bankrupt and shut down leaving behind a trail of bad debt that hurt a lot of small publishers at the same time Malibu was launching.[4]

Publishers financed by Sunrise/Scott Mitchell Rosenberg

Publisher nameFounder(s)Initial locationYear beganYear closedFateNotes
Eternity ComicsBrian Marshall
Tony Eng		Boulder, ColoradoSpring 19861988Became an imprint of Malibu, in use until 1994Moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1987, and then Newbury Park, California, by the end of 1987
AmazingDavid CampitiLong Beach, California (business office)Summer 19861987A few select titles moved to Innovation PublishingFull name: Amazing Publishing Company; Camptiti ran the company from his home of Wheeling, West Virginia
Wonder ColorDavid CampitiLong Beach, California (business office)Summer 19861987A few select titles moved to Innovation PublishingOffice of Publication address (listed in indicia): 1841-B East 65th Street, Long Beach, CA 90805; Camptiti ran the company from his home of Wheeling, West Virginia
Imperial ComicsBrian MarshallBoulder, ColoradoFall 19861987Some titles moved to Eternity/MalibuMoved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1987
Malibu ComicsDave Olbrich
Tom Mason		Calabasas, CaliforniaFall 1986c. 1996Acquired by Marvel Comics in 1994Didn't start publishing until 1987; defunct by 1996

Amazing Comics titles

Wonder Color titles

  • G.I. R.A.M.B.O.T. #1 (Apr. 1987)
  • Hero Alliance #1 (May 1987) — moved to Pied Piper Comics
  • Power Factor #1 (May 1987) — moved to Pied Piper Comics
  • Terraformers (2 issues, Apr.–May 1987) — art by Kelley Jones

Imperial Comics titles

  • Battle to the Death #1 (1987) — moved to Eternity Comics
  • Blackstar (2 issues, Dec. 1986–Feb. 1987) — by Jenkins, Matthews, and Phred
  • Dark Comics #1 (1987)
  • Nazrat (4 issues, Nov. 1986–Apr. 1987) — by Jerry Frazee; moved to Eternity Comics
  • Probe (2 issues, Feb. 1987–Apr. 1987) — by Frank Turner; moved to Eternity Comics

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Groth, Gary (July 1987). "Black and White and Dead All Over". The Comics Journal. No. 116. pp. 10–14.
  2. ↑ Ehrenreich, Ben. "PHENOMENON; Comic Genius?" New York Times magazine (November 11, 2007).
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 David Lawrence (w). "An Explanation" Lawrence & Lim's THE NEW HUMANS, vol. 1, no. 1 (July 1987). Pied Piper Comics.
  4. 1 2 3 Vaughn, J.C. (2015). "Dinosaurs for Hire: Tom Mason interview..." Overstreet Comic Book Marketplace Yearbook 2015-2016. Diamond Comic Distributors. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Distributor Finances Five Publishers". The Comics Journal. No. 115. April 1987. pp. 12–13. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  6. ↑ "Campiti and Associates entry". Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999. Retrieved Dec 25, 2021.
  7. ↑ Hero Alliance, no. 1 (May 1987). Wonder Color.
  8. ↑ "Black and White Explosion Slowing Down, According to Comics Distributors". The Comics Journal. No. 114. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books. Feb 1987. p. 26.
  9. ↑ "Sunrise announces it may not pay some publishers until July". The Comics Journal. No. 115. April 1987. p. 24.
  10. ↑ Rosenberg, Scott (March 1, 1987). "New Goals... New Directions... New Management...! A Re-Organization of Amazing Comics". Amazing Comics Premieres. No. 5.
  11. ↑ MacDonald, Heidi (January 17, 2013). "The utterly insane world of Platinum Studios". The Beat.
  12. ↑ "Two Publishers Sue Sunrise Distributors". The Comics Journal. No. 120. March 1988. p. 8.
  13. ↑ "Sunrise Creditors Meet". The Comics Journal. No. 122. June 1988. p. 22.
  14. ↑ Reynolds, Eric (December 1994). "The Rumors are True: Marvel Buys Malibu". The Comics Journal. No. 173. pp. 29–33.
  15. ↑ Andy (November 25, 2009). "Wacky Comic Wednesday: Barney the Invisible Turtle #1". ComicAttack.net. Archived from the original on 12 Sep 2013. Retrieved 10 August 2013.
  16. ↑ "Charles S. Roberts Award Winners (1985)". Archived from the original on 2008-08-28. Retrieved 2008-06-11.

Sources

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