Its a hard time to be a DC fan ?

[leo619]

The old Wally sold his comic well for many years. The company didn't even try to give the new Wally a comic, and you know why. It's just mind-boggling that DC did that.

And your statement is still false. You stated the new wally didn't sell comics. That's false. You have no proof indicating new wally didn't sale comics because new wally never had a comic, period. Now you can play mental gymnastics and ASSUME it wouldn't sell, but your original statement is not true. It's that simple.

There's always some reason why pushing aside classic characters and replacing them with minorities never sells, isn't it? Usually the writer gets the blame. I'm surprised anyone ever agrees to write these comics. It's a good way to kill your career. The people who demand this don't appreciate your efforts, even though they're the ones who don't back up what they say by buying the comic.

And once again false. Before the legacy heroes took over, primarily from the late 2000's, that's when minority heroes didn't sell, reaching to cancellation levels very quickly.
Now Marvel has plenty of heroes that do sell enough to maintain their own series, from Miles Morales, to Thor, to Iron Heart, to Totally Awesome Hulk, they've all been selling. But of course, that goes against your narrative so.

Hal is selling at his historic low, and I've gone into great detail about why that's happening. Meanwhile, I'm sure DC is offering the comics shops free returns on unsold copies of Green Lanterns. Baz and Cruz haven't helped sell Justice League either, have they? What a sweet gig they had -- their own comic and Justice League membership! But DC of course will get the blame for "not doing enough" to push them.

You can put enough excuses to block the sun to put the blame on replacement heroes if you want, the point still stand that the Green Lantern dynasty, (and comics as a whole) is not selling well. So to try and single out like the issue lies specifically with Baz and Cruz is a false association.

No, I didn't "make up" one bit of that.

Um, yes you did.

New Wally didn't sell comics? False. New Wally never had a comic, as such never had to opportunity to show if he could sell or not.

Earth 2 didn't sell? False. Earth 2 sold well until World's End. From there, sales started dwindling, which means the sale drop must be associated
with what happened from World's End forward, not Earth 2 itself.

Baz and Cruz not selling? False, seeing as they are still above the cancellation location, and Hal comics are also not selling, it's pretty obvious the fault doesn't lie with Baz and Cruz.

DC is not collapsing. It's doing OK. The formerly dominant Marvel is collapsing. And anyone who states plain facts about that gets crucified. It's just wacko.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...enated-readers

And once again false, DC, like Marvel, is steadily dwindling in sales. They are near New 52 levels back which means, the rebirth didn't do squat besides providing a temporary boost in sales, which is exactly what I said it was going to do. The fact that they rebooted New 52 was because it was low in sales, so if Rebirth is getting to New 52 levels, what do you think they're going to do?

In the end, the direct market will crash. It's unavoidable, the combination of reliance on strictly classic readers while not able to attract in new readers will essentially be the death of the comic book market.

[AquaLantern]

In the end, the direct market will crash. It's unavoidable, the combination of reliance on strictly classic readers while not able to attract in new readers will essentially be the death of the comic book market.

Agreed. The old guard attitude of "Don't do anything new. Keep things exactly like my childhood" is gonna do more harm than good. Nothing can survive on nostalgia alone.

[Zainu]

Agreed. The old guard attitude of "Don't do anything new. Keep things exactly like my childhood" is gonna do more harm than good. Nothing can survive on nostalgia alone.

Isn't that what brought us the n52 though? Bring back Dan's childhoodthe silver age?

[baycitybomber]

In the end, the direct market will crash. It's unavoidable, the combination of reliance on strictly classic readers while not able to attract in new readers will essentially be the death of the comic book market.

This isn't a DC or a comics-only problem, print media as a whole is dying. Comics (and Diamond) are only a section of a larger industry and won't escape the fate of print media no matter what they publish. DC will have to reinvent itself digitally or go down with everyone else.

[Colossus1980]

In the end, the direct market will crash. It's unavoidable, the combination of reliance on strictly classic readers while not able to attract in new readers will essentially be the death of the comic book market.

Post this on the Marvel forums. You will get quite a few posters who lament that sales are healthy and it doesn't matter that new series get cancelled because it doesn't account for digital and trades.

[AquaLantern]

Isn't that what brought us the n52 though?

Yeah and it's a big reason why I gave comics a chance.

[leo619]

Isn't that what brought us the n52 though? Bring back Dan's childhoodthe silver age?

The new 52 concept wasn't technically bad though. It essentially had some much needed ideas as well as some really good concepts (changing the founding members of the justice league for example.) It was it's execution that grade a horrible, a trait commonly seen with DC when it comes to new concepts and ESPECIALLY their handling of black male characters. It's the execution that essentially destroyed the new 52, and so when Rebirth came in, now they are working back in their comfortable wheelhouse, not realizing their inability to change will be one of the biggest things that will crush them.

This isn't a DC or a comics-only problem, print media as a whole is dying. Comics (and Diamond) are only a section of a larger industry and won't escape the fate of print media no matter what they publish. DC will have to reinvent itself digitally or go down with everyone else.

Agreed. The old guard attitude of "Don't do anything new. Keep things exactly like my childhood" is gonna do more harm than good. Nothing can survive on nostalgia alone.

Oh completely agree, to clarify, when I say the comic book market is going to crash, I'm referring to the direct market. The direct market cannot sustain itself, as print in general cannot last much longer. To put it to you this way, if Barnes & Nobles, which is the biggest book store in America, had laid all literally all of their full time staff to save money, how in the world are you to expect the comic book printing market, which is incredibly smaller, to survive.

In the 2010s Barnes & Noble has reduced its overall presence. It closed its original flagship store in early 2014.[42] Mid-2014 it spun off the Nook Media division.[43]

On February 12, 2018, after poor sales for the 2017 holiday season, the company laid off approximately 1,800 employees nationwide, comprising nearly every full-time employee in every retail location. The move was said to be an effort to save US$40,000,000 annually.

Aka, it won't, and the death crip that classic fans and comic book shops have on comics is making it too difficult for Marvel, DC, and others to bring in the necessary new clientele to survive.

So I know that the direct market will crash, probably in the next 5 years. The key question would be, will DC and Marvel obtain enough new readers to support a fully digital comic book medium? Or will comics from the big 2 just belly up entirely. That's the only thing I'm not sure about.

[leo619]

Post this on the Marvel forums. You will get quite a few posters who lament that sales are healthy and it doesn't matter that new series get cancelled because it doesn't account for digital and trades.

It depends upon what sales they're referring to? Digital Sales continue to increase, yes. But it's pretty obvious that physical floppy sales across the board is down. The key question would be, will digital sales pick up enough of the slack to keep the companies a float once the direct market eventually crashes.

[Lemurion]

For me it's an easy time. There are lots of books I like to read, more shows on TV than I have time to watch, and movies that I enjoy even if others don't.

DC is also making a huge investment in the future of its characters with the whole DC Super Hero Girls initiative and now the expansion into Zoom and Ink.

Marvel's Netflix shows are quality television, but when it comes to broadcast TV Agents of Shield is being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of DC product. DC has 6 superhero TV shows, two superhero-adjacent shows in Gotham and Krypton and I think three Vertigo shows.

[Agent Z]

There are good and bad comics from rebirth. Same any other era.

[adrikito]

I saw Jay Garrick 2 times in rebirth and nothing of Legion of Superheroes..

And this:

There are good and bad comics from rebirth. Same any other era.

... Your favorite characters situation is the key of this for consider if this is a good or bad time...

[Comic Book Addict]

I've pretty much lost all hope for the DCEU but I'm still liking the comics/TV shows a lot. So I would say that it's still a very good time to be a DC fan.

[mkieffer]

Overall I think it's a good time to be a DC fan. I have been a high school teacher for the last 7 yrs or so. When I first started teaching, kids were really into the Avengers, Iron Man, etc.... Now, I see kids wearing stuff for The Flash, Green Arrow, etc. I don't know many kids that are reading period (let alone comics), but they seem to know a crapload about The Flash, The Justice League, etc., from shows they can watch on Netflix on Youtube vids.

[superduperman]

I think both companies are in a weird place right now. DC's biggest problem are the constant reboots. Rebirth may be it for a while but a decades worth of starting from scratch every few years takes it's toll. Marvel is in a bind because they can't deviate from the movies without pissing off retailers who have new fans wanting to read the books based on the movies and they aren't. Marvel may be killing it at the movies but DC is killing it on TV. And in terms of the DCEU, I honestly don't think it's long for this world. WW was the only movie out of five to do well. That's not a track record you can run on. I had even heard a rumor that WW put them in a weird bind because they wanted to restart and her success meant now they had to keep what they had. That's why I think they are proposing stuff like this Joker movie that has no connection to the DCEU. To sort of move away from it and maybe test the waters elsewhere. The Flash movie is supposedly a soft reboot by adapting Flashpoint. What they will change remains to be seen.

[Osiris-Rex]

I think the best bet for WB is to pretend the DCEU still exists, but make stand alone movies like Wonder Woman was. Instead of using the Flash movie to try to salvage the DCEU, just make a Flash movie.
with just Ezra Miller as Flash in it. Make a Shazam movie about Shazam and only Shazam. Make WW2 about Wonder Woman part 2. Make Suicide Squad 2 a stand alone movie about the Suicide Squad.
If they ever make The Batman, and Affleck isn't Batman, just make The Batman with who ever they cast and don't bother to explain why it's someone else. After Keaton, Kilmer, and Clooney most people
will be smart enough realize that sometimes the role just gets recast. Can't really base business decisions on people too stupid to be able to separate fantasy from real life.