DC is lacking...

[Raijin]

i also feel like DC would love to do more genre stuff. But fans have to want it, they have to meet them halfway. Fans have to want it to succeed.

[Killerbee911]

People aren't coming to DC or Marvel for stuff other than Superheroes stuff. And since War, Magic and Western don't really fit into the superhero universe they have create a new line for them and then what is the point of them being in DC? Instead of going after smallpiece of the market they are sticking to what they are doing well. If you are looking for more genre stuff then Image, Boom, or Manga will give you that stuff,Their main focus is not to push out a monthly book to keep on feeding the corporate beast. And when you think about those types of books are better in where they can be as mature as need it to be, They aren't forced into a monthly format or trying to hit sales numbers which don't make sense for them.

[Jim Kelly]

It's just sad, because DC used to be this big tent operation putting out titles that served all interests. It's disappointing to see them abandon all that to follow one market that might be here today gone tomorrow.

And it's not like the skills aren't transferable. Writers and artists are good at what they do--they can just as easily do a steamy romance comic as a jungle adventure yarn. Genre hopping is easy and it's kind of a waste of talent if they get stuck just doing the costumed crimefighter stuff all the time.

[MajorHoy]

I was just using them as an example of genres in a medium making a comeback after everyone wrote them off as never being marketable ever again.

But they aren't comic books.
Comic books may be a bit more niche-related and doesn't get as wide an audience as TV/video.

MajorHoy may have more info on the Dynamite Pulps.

From what I can tell, there's been no long-term commitment for any of the characters these days. Just infrequent, hap-hazard limited series. (At least in terms of the properties I'm more interested in.)
Even characters like Red Sonja may get a series that last no more than 12-or-so issues before being relaunched with different creative teams / different directions.

It's just sad, because DC used to be this big tent operation putting out titles that served all interests. It's disappointing to see them abandon all that to follow one market that might be here today gone tomorrow.

But in all fairness, the market changed drastically from what it may have been back in the 1960s and 1970s. More independent publishers have developed offering quality products and having less focus on superheroes. The rise and growth of comic book shops (versus limited-space spinner racks in variety stores) and Diamond (as opposed to more general magazine distribution) increased the chances that customers could find/order these products from other publishers. And well-know comic book talents then made the move from DC (and Marvel) over to working with the independents.
It's a different world, and both DC and Marvel have to keep changing how they do things to survive in it.

[Jim Kelly]

It seemed to me that there was a symbiotic relationship between DC and the other publishers. Not just Marvel, but Charlton, the British publishers, the American independents, the Canadian ones and other foreign publishers. Creators that developed their talent with these other companies were drafted over to DC where they may have done super-heroes but they also were allowed to do the kind of projects they had done for their former bosses.

I never felt that the American indies offered work of the same high quality as DC or Marvel. And a lot of the indies died out or got absorbed back into the big two. Also, why did Marvel and DC try to kill off their competitors in the comic shops if they could really all live together in harmony? Their aggressive practices pushed the smaller indies off the shelves. So they must have seen the independents as taking away business, rather than merely filling a gap left by Marvel and DC.

I would think with digital-only comics, without the costs of production and distribution, it's easier for the big two to try out other kinds of comics that don't need to sell in such high numbers.

[LP22]

It's not that they don't do anything good outside of comic's it's the fact that all they do that is good is related to batman....

[mrbrklyn]

Looking back to the '80s...
Let's take January 1984...

DC had 36 comics released that month.
Roughly, about 21 were traditional superhero titles.

The other 15 were:
Fantasy - Amethyst, Arion, Warlord
Western - Arak, Jonah Hex
War - Blackhawk, G.I. Combat, Sgt. Rock
Horror - Swamp Thing
Sci-Fi - Atari Force, Omega Men, Star Trek
Crime - Nathaniel Dusk
Anthologies - Best of DC, New Talent Showcase

I think that the main reason DC doesn't still have the same ratio of superhero:non-superhero today is because with the rise of comic shops as the main (read: sole) distribution of comics in the '90s, indies became more prominent and they mostly focused on non-superhero stuff. And they arguably tend to do genre fiction comics better than DC or Marvel. If only because they're not tied to having to maintain a continuity outside of the comic, itself.

Then combine that with how DC (and Marvel) learned they can make a lot of money with superhero events (especially crossovers) and variant covers. So superheroes got DC's attention. This began roughly with Death of Superman, but the seeds of it really started with Crisis on Infinite Earths and Dark Knight Returns. With a lot of help from Marvel's X-Men showing that an expansive franchise could test the limits of how many comics a reader would follow for one team or group of characters, leading to more and more multi-title franchises.
Before New Mutants, Alpha Flight, X-Factor and Excalibur came along, there were only a few multi-title franchises: Batman (Batman, Detective, Brave and the Bold, World's Finest, Batman Family), Superman (Action Comics, Superman, DC Comics Presents, World's Finest, Superman Family), and Spider-Man (Amazing Spider-Man, Spectacular Spider-Man, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Tales).

So, while DC and Marvel are producing almost three times more comics than they were in the '80s, there's less variety because a lot of franchises have expanded into multiple titles and, aside from Vertigo and the occasional tester, they both leave non-superhero titles to Image, Dark Horse and Dynamite.

I think with the boom that superhero fiction has been enjoying since the MCU and the CW shows began, it's not going to change anytime soon.
If we do get any genre fiction from DC, it'll be like Justice League Dark: a superhero comic with undertones of another genre. Because they have accepted that their current audience is superhero-specific.
Otherwise, they'll let Vertigo limp along as a tester or just leave the non-superhero fiction to Image, Dark Horse and Dynamite.
At least until the current boom runs its course. Which, it eventually will, just like the Reality Show and the Procedural Law/Forensics Drama booms.

Another way to look at it is that during those times when DC did put out strong non-superhero comics alongside their superhero offerings, those other genres were just hotter than superheroes outside of comics.
Currently, the superhero genre is hot outside of comics, so DC is simply doubling down on the genre since it's the one that they do best with.

Independents are skimming the profits from movie licenses, which was very profitable. The other stuff, you can't find an audience if you can't reach a spontaneous audience. No newstands. No pulp stories. That leaves one with low run independents like Optic Nerve.