Absolute madness, and basically destroys the international zine and records and indie comics mail order ecosystem in one fell swoop Not at the top of our country's current atrocities and crimes, but god this is fucking stupid and shortsided
Replies
they want to kill us culturally as well as physically
aug 29, 2025, 2:21 pm • 3 0 • view
To be clear: it doesn't destroy those systems of course, it just 86s a big customer (us damn Americans) and leaves Americans sidelined and cut off from our friends and partners in publishing and culture
aug 28, 2025, 4:55 pm • 28 1 • view
It also risks the livelihoods of business who can no longer mail good to/from the USA. I’ve received emails from small businesses involved with my hobby who are adversely affected by this decision.
aug 29, 2025, 2:18 pm • 5 0 • view
i was wondering if itll lead to US small presses just securing permission to print & sell foreign work locally in the artists stead
aug 28, 2025, 6:45 pm • 0 0 • view
I doubt it. Even if you’re going to onshore printing (expensive, and everyone will be trying to do it at the same time), there’s never been money in small press for second editions. Almost nobody is doing translations of works, for example, unless it’s big publishers and popular books.
aug 29, 2025, 4:23 pm • 0 0 • view
i was thinking more about anglophone stuff. it’s not really a “second edition” either? and what do you mean by onshore printing?
aug 29, 2025, 8:53 pm • 0 0 • view
I know, I was just using translations as another example of doing a print run for a specific country. Unless you’re talking VERY small press (like, self-published minicomics or zines), the biggest expense in printing is setting up the machine and turning it on. After that, the per-unit cost is small
aug 29, 2025, 10:20 pm • 0 0 • view
This means that after you’ve printed your 1000 books or whatever, if you want to print another batch, either because you ran out, you need it in another language, or you want to subvert tariffs by printing books for Americans in America, you have a big new expense you have to eat.
aug 29, 2025, 10:20 pm • 0 0 • view
Big publishers (Marvel, Scholastic, Random House, Image, etc) do extra print runs all the time for all sorts of reasons, because they sell so many books. Anyone smaller than those has to have a big meeting each time and consider whether they can afford it.
aug 29, 2025, 10:20 pm • 1 0 • view
a second run is going to always be necessary
aug 29, 2025, 10:33 pm • 0 0 • view
i was talking about minicomics and zines yes. are you saying the foreign artist pays someone to print their work in the US? or that the US-based small press printing the work of a foreign artist is always going to want to print a second run? i was talking about the latter, and I don’t know that
aug 29, 2025, 10:33 pm • 1 0 • view
I was talking about the former, as a Canadian who’s going to have problems getting my Canadian-residing, Chinese-printed books in the hands of Americans. If there were an American interested in printing and distributing foreign zines in the US that would be amazing, but I’m not holding my breath.
aug 29, 2025, 10:37 pm • 0 0 • view
oh right yeah, absolutely not the kind of thing i was talking about then. im thinking more in the way of things like zine libraries, less profit-driven stuff
aug 29, 2025, 11:08 pm • 1 0 • view
Too many of us mellenials and zoomers grew up on the internet and interacting with people from other countries. We realized that there is no American exceptionalism and that other people exist. They want to isolate us so we go back to thinking no one else matters.
aug 29, 2025, 9:05 pm • 0 0 • view
We're run by evil idiots who think they're going to "make America strong" by isolating it. Like setting a house on fire for an insurance scam, but forgetting to leave the burning building.
aug 29, 2025, 2:14 pm • 7 0 • view
it also completley kills hobbyist/small batch electronics, ebay selling, physical releases of music, and so many other industries. the only reason i can think of why ebay in particular isn't lobbying hard against it is if they want to force everybody to use their (terrible) Global Shipping Program.
aug 29, 2025, 8:03 pm • 4 1 • view
100%
aug 29, 2025, 8:06 pm • 0 0 • view
For small things, like individuals selling zines, i'd hope it doesn't end because i've been seeing in multiple articles that people can send gifts worth less than $100 to each other.
aug 29, 2025, 1:54 pm • 2 0 • view
I'm being cautious myself and completely disabled any transaction from the US. Things are likely to be chaotic for at least a few days and I don't want to have any package lost or overcharged.
aug 29, 2025, 4:06 pm • 2 0 • view
For sure, not to whine about little purchases but right now i have an order from UK's Lock Books that is halted and lost in transit, and couldn't make planned orders from Kus or HDK records this week I wanted to support
aug 29, 2025, 4:08 pm • 1 0 • view
You are well in your right to complain, no one ask for that and it will represent a significant loss for a lot of people.
aug 29, 2025, 4:17 pm • 0 0 • view
At the moment you can only send letters though, no parcels. I believe in a month or two it will be possible again, but probably it will be more expensive.
aug 29, 2025, 3:44 pm • 5 0 • view
We can still send individual envelopes to each other and personal packages under $100 in value
aug 29, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view
For sure, it feels like a small workaround but the uncertainty alone is extremely chilling
aug 29, 2025, 2:26 pm • 1 0 • view
Oh yeah for sure! But when I first saw the headlines I thought ALL mail would be stopped and I wouldn't be able to send zines to my overseas pen pals
aug 29, 2025, 3:55 pm • 0 0 • view
Wait silly question but it occurred to me do we know if this effect flat oversized envelopes or maybe it’s more about boxed items of certain dimensions ? Not that it doesn’t suck either way but what if zines and comics go under the radar cause they’re flat?
aug 28, 2025, 6:58 pm • 0 0 • view
it's literally ALL shipments that aren't letters, as I understand it - at least temporarily. the uncertainty will remain even if they roll this back. as someone who has done mailorder for 15+ years, not being CERTAIN a package will make selling to that country (and that risk) tough to justify
aug 28, 2025, 9:09 pm • 2 0 • view
i know what you mean though, i'm certain you could get away with shipping a single issue of something in a "large envelope" without any customs paperwork, but the hassle and risk makes it super annoying (as someone who sends zines to Australia as "large envelopes" under the radar) A STUPID MESS
aug 28, 2025, 9:10 pm • 1 0 • view
Yeah a mess and a travesty First they squeeze out brick and mortar shops and now they’re ruining peoples home businesses, on top of bankrupting the the postal service
aug 29, 2025, 12:26 am • 0 0 • view
In France, for the moment, only postal mail declared as gifts with a value of less than 80 dollars can be sent.
aug 29, 2025, 3:31 pm • 2 0 • view
Definitely not at the top of the all the the current things that are happening list but certainly will have a lasting impact on small businesses, major cultural shift
aug 28, 2025, 5:05 pm • 2 0 • view