What is the name of Zeus is going on?

I am just starting to delve into this so any insight anyone has would be greatly appreciated. As we all know, Diamond Comic Distributors has been in a bit of a mess for a while now and it only appears to be getting worse. Publishers are getting their books hijacked and sold without remuneration? Sparkle Pop?

Weird stuff going on. All of the legal mumbo jumbo is making my head spin.

Books hijacked? Not sure what that means. Last I heard Diamond owed a lot of money to publishers/suppliers, so those companies were no longer sending product to them (product that comic stores had ordered).

That was a month or two ago, don't know the latest.

This is what I'm talking about: The Fantagraphics “We’ve Been Robbed” Sale

This in particular: "Fantagraphics is fighting JP Morgan Chase Bank and former Direct Market monopoly Diamond Comics Distributors, who are colluding to steal our books and use the resulting profits towards the cost of Diamond’s bankruptcy. "

and this: "As if that weren’t bad enough, the latest legal incarnation of Diamond has been selling our books to retailers ever since their purchase on May 16 and not paying us a penny. 100% of the money retailers have paid them for our books has gone into their pockets, none into ours."

Interesting statement. Apparently Fantagraphics doesn't understand how bankruptcy laws work.

Apparently, a number of companies, including fantagraphics, image, dynamite ... Pretty much all of them, had been storing their product in diamonds warehouses. When diamond would sell a book, the publisher would get their cut.

Diamonds new owners are not allowing the companies to request their product returned. It's still the property of the publishers,, but in the diamond warehouses.

Image brokered a deal where they get certain titles back, BIT they have to pick it up, diamond will not ship it.

I'm not a leading expert on bankruptcy filings, but part of the point of doing so is to get out from underneath their debts to creditors, as well as for the ability for a new company to buy the old one without being saddled with the old debt. I'm sure those agreements with the publishers are null and void, and all those books are probably considered belonging to the new company, I would guess. Of course, if the new Diamond wants to continue to do business with those publishers, it would be in their best interest to come to some kind of new arrangement with them regarding the old books, which it sounds like Image has done.