Dick Grayson: Robin, Nightwing, Batman, Agent of Spyral Appreciation 2019

[Arsenal]

Excuse the interruption in today’s regularly scheduled doom & gloom, but I believe we have some (potentially) positive Dick Grayson comic news for once
5A48A3DC-1DAE-4C4E-982D-06650BF93589.jpg

[Restingvoice]

Grain of salt. Grain of salt.

[Arsenal]

962ABFDB-6EA3-4711-B631-90F4DDB8A61C.jpg
There’s Also this. Dick’s name isn’t mentioned but I’m pretty sure the 2nd picture is Disco Dick.

[Grayson - The Dark Heir]

I've more or less just stopped reading comics at this point. Besides Marvel's Thor stuff, GG Power Rangers, and IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog, I'm not really touching anything else.

It really is much easier moving on to other stuff than it is sticking around and holding out imo. It'll take forever, but we should get back to our regular Nightwing fare. But after all this, I'm well aware of how the character and the IP is viewed, so I really don't expect we'll ever get anything special out of it. As a fan, you're likely going to get something a lot more worthwhile from the TV side of things since that's where Dick's biggest fans are working now.

[Pohzee]

Excuse the interruption in today’s regularly scheduled doom & gloom, but I believe we have some (potentially) positive Dick Grayson comic news for once
5A48A3DC-1DAE-4C4E-982D-06650BF93589.jpg

Yay will this be Ric's first appearance outside of Nightwing and that one panel of Batman?

[Godlike13]

That’s funny.

[Restingvoice]

962ABFDB-6EA3-4711-B631-90F4DDB8A61C.jpg
There’s Also this. Dick’s name isn’t mentioned but I’m pretty sure the 2nd picture is Disco Dick.

That does look like multiple panels of a thing

[Pohzee]

That does look like multiple panels of a thing

Minus the side angle of the last pic, it could easily be an 80 years of Dick to go with her WW, BM and SM ones.

[Restingvoice]

Minus the side angle of the last pic, it could easily be 80 years of Dick to go with her WW, BM and SM ones.

Wonder Woman's getting 80 years book? I thought those are for Action and Detective Comics instead of character celebration, so I wasn't expecting Dick and Diana to get one since they don't have titles that last that long.

...oh! Oh! You mean the cover! Now I remember she made a Superman one. (browsing right now) wow I never saw the Batman one

...Oh ...knowing her... and Dick... this cover maybe special featuring one facing backward so we can see his ass

[Arsenal]

That does look like multiple panels of a thing

Multiple pictures of a thing is better than nothing at all.

Baby steps.

[Schumiac]

TBH, I think DC knows Ric sucks and will change it when they can... They aren't sticking to it to save face, they are sticking to it because the reason this was done to him (keeping him out of Batman's current story) hasn't changed AND they have no committed creative team on the titile to take it into a direction, any direction. So they just pretend it is something exciting and would work if we only had an open mind about it blah bla because it is not going to be undone yet. They need to keep on selling it and for that they need to pretend it is good. They can't just say "yeah, you guys are right, this sucks, but you will have to suffer 6 months of this suckfest because we can't yet bring Dick Grayson back". So Dick is in limbo and we are stuck with Ric till
1) till at least King's Bane stuff is done and over with
2) they can find a new permanent team for the title and decide on where to go with him from here (I don't think Jurgens is necessarily permanent, right?)

and this is of course assuming Didio isnt as horrid, petty and unprofessional as I sometimes think he is.

[Ascended]

I don't expect DC to knock its own product. The book is crap and the sales back that up, but you can't expect the company to admit it while the direction is still on-going. That's just not done.

Once Ric is well and truly in the rear view, you *might* get someone from DC to acknowledge that it didn't go over with fans the way they had hoped. Which is as close to admitting fault as they're likely to get, and as close to an apology as we'll ever see. And they probably won't even admit that much and will just blame the character and/or the fans.

Someone on the last page said that the comics are out of our hands. Which is true. We're not producers, we're consumers and the only choice we have is to buy the product or not.

But sometimes I wonder.

In this age of social media and digital.....would it be possible for fans to create a free Nightwing comic (can't charge, because that's a lawsuit) that got enough attention that it actually bit into DC's profit margins? I've probably mentioned this elsewhere in the forums before, but we have some damn clever and creative people here. What would happen if a free fan-based product became popular enough that people stopped buying the actual comic and switched to the fan-made one? How would DC react if a free comic actually cut into their revenue? They can't sue over fanfic or demand the creators stop. How would DC handle such a situation? I cant imagine how DC would handle it, but if it were me, I'd probably offer the person responsible a job. If they're talented enough to steal business from a company like DC they're someone I want in my office.

I almost think this scenario is inevitable; at some point (tomorrow? Years and years and years from now?) the stars will align and some random dude drawing pictures on his day off will end up getting serious attention from the fan community and it'll upset the sales on a struggling title no one wants to read. And that'll start a whole conversation about public domain and publication rights and company structure and all kinds of things. I hope I live to see it happen because it sounds like one of those crazy "glitch in the Matrix" moments that you only ever see happen once.

[Restingvoice]

Well, they gotta start to learn how to write detective stories first because the fan comics I saw are either family sitcoms or romcoms, with people wishing there's a Batfam comic of them doing daily family stuffs.

[Godlike13]

Oh, they know. They also know readers aren’t happy. They just don’t give a crap, and no one cares enough to make them give a crap. They have seemingly committed to this to a set point. That seems evident. Best guess was that ya they are holding out till something in Batman, and they wanted Dick off the table for whatever King was doing, but as we are learning there are those within DC that don’t like the current Batman and that’s now become a whole thing. Batman plans seem rather up in the air. So not sure what that means for Ric or what their intentions really are or even were with Ric. I was even thinking they were holding out until a Bat line relaunch, but seems thats not the case. From the beginning Ric seemed like something they were winging as they go. And since there seems to be no accountability or standards with the character, and they seem perfectly ok with letting the Nightwing team’s work and recruiting turn the book into now DCs lowest selling Bat family book. Honestly I’m not sure it’s about whats going on in King’s Batman anymore, or if it even ever even was.

Still until whenever this ends they are going to protect their work, they are going to caution creators about what they say about it, and they are going to protect themselves as they create and execute it. Unfortunately for us though it seems we’re going to have suffer closer, and possibly over even, a year of this with no compromise or improvements. Which shows how little anyone at DC actually cares. 6 months is one thing, a year or more though under this reception is just wow.
Now I have no doubt they’ll change it when they reach the point they want this to last to, and whats more I fully expect them to throw Ric under the bus when it’s time is up even. Cause Ric is an easy mask and target, and it’ll sound better for those responsible to say Ric didn’t work, and eventually even admit that readers didn’t like Ric, then say readers didn’t like our work or that we recruited poorly, lazily recycled ideas, and didn’t give a crap if what we put out was actually anything of quality or if anyone even liked it.
This is why Dick is truly screwed. Ric isn’t really the true problem. The real problem is the people behind Ric, who’s work and ideas made Ric such crap, and who are likely going to be the same people responsible for Dick’s return. So when Dick does return guess what we’re probably gonna get. Poor recruiting, lazy recycled ideas, and no one giving a crap if what they put out is anything of quality or if anyone likes it.

Man I’m just going on and on. I really need to stop ranting about this whole Ric situation.

[Robanker]

Well, they gotta start to learn how to write detective stories first because the fan comics I saw are either family sitcoms or romcoms, with people wishing there's a Batfam comic of them doing daily family stuffs.

That reminds a bit of that Batman and Sons webcomic.

This is the sort of thing people claim to want, but generally doesn't seem to sell. It's easy to want something you see in fan art, but when you're paying $5 for it, well the sales stagger. I love the small character moments but I don't think they can sell a book alone.

I honestly don't know what you can do to make Nightwing sell. I thought Bludhaven was a good idea in Dixon's run (though with a silly name) and bringing it back to re-establish him in Rebirth was a good idea. Giving him a new character as a love interest who wasn't Barbara/Kori was asking for trouble, though. Dick's love life is a Gordian knot best left unaddressed for a while. I would argue his most recent sidekick, Damian, is similar. He needs to be given a new direction that is independent of other characters, but Bludhaven seems burned.

Who knows? At least we can all agree Ric isn't the answer.