Thursday, July 11, 2024

BOOM! Studios Bought by Penguin Random House

I've been a fan of BOOM! Studios since the company's early days. One fun fact is there were the first, "Bigger," publishers to be willing to put my blog on their press list years ago for news updates and such. That was a mini-honor for me to feel recognized in that way. Well, it seems the people behind BOOM! Studios have decided to sell, with the company now bought by Penguin Random House. PRH is known for publishing a lot of books and being the main distributor for Marvel Comics. BOOM! will become part of the Random House Worlds portfolio of imprints alongside Del Rey, Inklore, and the RH Worlds licensing program and weirdly enough will still be distributed by Diamond (for now) due to previous deals, I surmise.

This makes me concerned because too often a smaller company is acquired by a larger one only to lose whatever made it special--or eventually closed/taken apart. Think about all the game studios that get bought up and then stripped for parts by larger companies. Consider how Amazon bought Comixology and eventually destroyed it. I have a desire for PRH to do right by BOOM! Studios, but I worry. There will obviously be a chunk of layoffs during this acquisition AKA "Redunacies," but let's hope things stay (mostly) stable.

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