imagigrafx_logoThe last time I mentioned American game printer Delano Service was on January 8, after I had received a press release from Ben Clark at Delano saying that they are up to date on all the required regulations for lead levels. Ben also wrote a blog for Delano called Game Pieces.

That very night, Delano fired their entire night staff, and a week later, locked the doors on the company, summarily firing every employee. There was no indication given as to whether this was temporary or permanent. There was  bit of confusion as to how (and if) the employees would pick up their last paychecks, as well as what happened to insurance payments that were collected from the employees but never made their way to the bank.

Lots of discussion from ex-Delano employees as you get deep into the comments at Topix. Many blamed CEO Juan Mendez, who purchased the hundred year old company with $3.4M in yearly revenues in 2006; others blamed the bank.

It may be worth mentioning that Delano’s website is still up and appears to be inviting business, and has an up-to-date events page. Calling their offices yields no indication that they are closed. Nevertheless, no one is working there.

Delano’s closing affected a slew of game companies, from biggies like GMT and Avalanche Press, to sggc’s like the SAT Game for Dummies. In late February, Ben indicated in this BGG thread that Delano was not accepting new orders, but would still fill out existing print runs. And that he was going to work for Imagigrafx, a company not too far away from Delano.

Around April, Imagigrafx announced that it was going into the game printing business. Right after I posted that news tidbit, Ben, now Director of Game Development at Imagigrafx, wrote me with a slight change to their press release regarding the sizes of print runs they would undertake.

I’m still not sure what happened to Delano’s assets, but it now seems that not only Ben, but a few other key employees of Delano had also taken up positions at Imagigrfx. Imagigrafx promised to fill any orders that Delano didn’t, and that they have continuing strong relations with Mayfair Games and Decision Games, at least. And business is good: they’re looking to hire up to ten more workers by October.

And guess who writes the blog for Imagigrafx?