Warren Simons and Dinesh Shamdasani

[Editor’s note: to clarify, for years, Valiant has been listed by Diamond on their indie publisher charts  (although that chart has been renamed “non-premier publisher”) and just what constitutes an “indie comics publisher” is an ongoing issue that The Beat has addressed before…and will address again. Valiant is not publicly traded and the majority owner is one person. The only publicly traded comics publishers are Marvel, DC and IDW.]

Last Monday, Valiant Entertainment held their 3rd annual Valiant Summit, where they teased and celebrated some of their most exciting titles for the ongoing year. Proudly, the company boasted of the success with their X-O Manowar #1: Soldier comic, which as of that day had sold more than 90,000 copies. Valiant claimed this a record for them: “the bestselling single issue by an independent publisher” for 2017.  This claim hasn’t gone with without argument, as many question Valiant’s independent status. I met with Valiant’s CEO & Chief Creative Officer, Dinesh Shamdasani, and Editor in Chief, Warren Simons after the summit and asked them to respond to the claims made against them.



Dinesh: And they have a swat team to do it.




Dinesh: A “spork-shank.”

Warren: So yes, we are unquestionably an independent publisher.



This also brings up another contentious claim by other detractors, who feel that Valiant is only putting on a front when they say that storytelling comes second to sales numbers. When further asked about this, the two men stood by their statements, reinforcing that the story is what truly matters to Valiant, and that not every book has the power to reach extravagant sales numbers like X-O Manowar.








  1. I don’t understand the claim, personally — are they not counting Image as “an independent comics publisher”?? WALKING DEAD has broken 90k by several multiples (like 300k+, on regularly priced issues), multiple times.

    I’d swear that several books from the B&W boom (most particularly TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES) had regular circs (not one time first issue bounces) in excess of 100K? I also think at one point it was announced that Dark Horse’s ALIENS sold well over 100K?


  2. Per Brian’s point, I’m willing to guess all issues of The Walking Dead have surpassed 90k in sales of more than one month is taken into account. If someone wants to check those figures, please do.

  3. I’m willing to accept “Independent” as a label for Valiant, as in they’re not a corporate-owned behemoth.. Not “small press” or “self-published” by any means though.

  4. To me they are all publishers and the term indy and premiere are silly labels. Some are corporate owned, some are huge companies and some are just a dude at home. I’ve self published a few comics myself, I know I’m not in any of these categories, but at the end of the day we are all targeting the same consumers.

  5. Technically, ok but Indie and Independent mean creator owned now. I think they’re trying to hijack the terms for PR purposes. If the majority of your catalog comes from WFH work and the publisher owns all the rights to all the characters then you’re not an indie. You’re just a small corporate publisher. I know a lot of brands like Valiant, IDW, Boom!/Archaia try to PR themselves away from that fact, but that’s kind of what they are.

  6. In music, there’s been a lot of controversy over whether “indie” specifically only refers to business/company ownership arrangements or whether it’s more about an aesthetic.

    Many, if not most, well-known “indie rock” bands are on major labels or move to major labels after they get famous. REM, Green Day, Radiohead, and Pearl Jam are examples of bands that released all or at least their most well-known work through major labels.

    Conversely, there are also independent labels that primarily release music meant for mainstream top-40 pop charts. This is particularly true in Nashville, where there are lots of independent labels in the glossy pop country game.

    I see Valiant analogous to this latter category: They may be independently owned, but they’re primarily competing with DC and Marvel for the super-hero market instead of competing with D&Q and Fantagraphics.

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