The Comic Industry Collapse Continues As Boom! Studios Is Rumored To Be Teetering On Bankruptcy

The comic industry has been undergoing massive struggles this year. Fandom Pulse has covered the woes of IDW Publishing, as it looks like the company is losing a number of its licensed properties. However, now an industry insider has told us that Boom! Studios is undergoing similar problems.

The end of 2023 showed a massive drop for mainstream comic industry retailers, with many reporting the lowest sales in years. Several more have gone out of business this year, with one retailer making a public video about how Q1 2024 was even worse than the end of last year, a trend that seems to be spelling the end of mainstream comics.

This hasn’t been helped by Marvel and DC Comics creating lackluster events this year with Blood Hunt and Absolute Power, which retailers are reporting have record low pre-orders and sales, leading into a slump of a summer. Even Marvel’s Ultimates line with Jonathan Hickman’s Ultimate Spider-Man, creating a giant wave of comic purchases, failed to generate enough buzz to carry a line. The follow-up of Deniz Camp’s Ultimates #1 is reportedly even lower than Black Panther and Ultimate X-Men, as the line appears to be dying on the vine outside of Spider-Man.

What does this have to do with Boom! Studios? The global landscape of what happens with Marvel and DC Comics does trickles down to the smaller publishers. The Big 2 main events are what draws people into the comic shops every week, where they might then go check out a book from Boom! Or IDW if they see it on the shelves, but those C-Tier comic companies rarely draw people into the comic shops with their own products.

The word from industry insiders is that Boom! Studios was in the middle of selling their company. During the due diligence process, the buyers allegedly learned that Boom! Studios had over $20 Million in debt with only $15 Million in company value, a ratio that is not attractive to a potential investor. Because of this,  the buyer is said to have backed out of the deal, which is leaving Boom! scrambling to try to find a solution for their debt problems.

Amplifying these rumors, is President of Publishing Filip Sablik leaving Boom! Studios suddenly, which was reported on June 25^th from Bleeding Cool. This comes right after IDW Publishing’s Editor in Chief, Jamie S. Rich, left the company suddenly amidst their persistent problems. High-level publishing executives jumping ship seems to be a sign of larger troubles at a comic book company.

How Boom! Studios came into such a large amount of debt isn’t known. The company has done a number of successful Kickstarters, leading the way among mainstream publishers in recent years with incredibly successful campaigns for BZRKR with the help of Keanu Reeves, as well as The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Farscape. This year, Boom! Studios has raised over $1 Million on the platform in addition to their standard retail business.

Comic book production, however, is expensive, as are licenses for a lot of these larger brands. It’s very easy to lose track of how a project fares and to blow budgets, but $20 Million is still an incredible amount of debt, if true. Fandom Pulse will be following to see what happens to Boom! Studios in the coming months.

What do you think of the reports another comic industry publisher is in trouble? Leave a comment and let us know.