The Death of Vertigo... Will DC itself follow suit?

[DragonsChi]

Anybody remember when First Comics and Eclipse Comics seemed to be the major indie companies that could possibly challenge DC and Marvel?

When those came out both companies had all their titles selling more than 20k copies each month. Now there is about 6-7 books sitting at 500 multiple months in a row. Then it wasn't really possible now it's literally around the corner, if they don't change things and fast.

[movieclub]

Wow, what a schmuck.

The industry is much bigger than this but this dude should, in no uncertain terms, lose his store. That kind of service is beyond unacceptable and he has no business owning or running anything in retail.

And, not for nothing, what weird books to laugh at you about. You're damn right to be excited about those books (I dd say that DC is still putting out some excellent stuff right now in my original post) but even if they happen to suck, what the hell kind of brain damaged retailer mocks a customer for their choices.

his reason, "Bendis Speak" !

Yeah that guy was an *******, I would've left the books there and taken my money elsewhere.

Unfortunately there are almost no options. Manhattan has a bunch (Midtown Comics / Forbidden Planet) but Brooklyn has three. One I went to said they only order 3-5 issues of weeklies and another that was on Google Maps I went to had recently closed (not updated on Google Maps). The one with the troll was actually the highest quality shop!

Sorry you had to go through that after your long bike ride to find joy, and instead had to deal with a moron.

Thank you!! And all for your kind words. For what it is worth after coming into DC after a 10 year break I find Action Comics and Wonder Comics to be really great -- but I do not think enough to save DC. That said would love to learn more about the economics of the costs of production and profit margins.

This is the best post I have found of the topic but outdated:

Crisis Management: A Look at the Troubled Present and Uncertain Future of DC Comics
https://sktchd.com/longform/dc-troubles-longform/

[Lee Stone]

Anybody remember when First Comics and Eclipse Comics seemed to be the major indie companies that could possibly challenge DC and Marvel?

The pond was much smaller then, too.
If Diamond was to have been around, the Previews would've probably been about 16 pages. There were fewer publishers and DC/Marvel pushed no more than 25-30 comics each.
(Amazing Heroes' Coming Attractions for the full month of April 2017 was 13 pages.)
Retailers could afford to spend some to support First and Eclipse.
It was the fact retailers 'could' spend that money that led DC/Marvel to flood the market.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

his reason, "Bendis Speak" !



Unfortunately there are almost no options. Manhattan has a bunch (Midtown Comics / Forbidden Planet) but Brooklyn has three. One I went to said they only order 3-5 issues of weeklies and another that was on Google Maps I went to had recently closed (not updated on Google Maps). The one with the troll was actually the highest quality shop!



Thank you!! And all for your kind words. For what it is worth after coming into DC after a 10 year break I find Action Comics and Wonder Comics to be really great -- but I do not think enough to save DC. That said would love to learn more about the economics of the costs of production and profit margins.

This is the best post I have found of the topic but outdated:

Crisis Management: A Look at the Troubled Present and Uncertain Future of DC Comics
https://sktchd.com/longform/dc-troubles-longform/

Thanks for that link. Very interesting, especially considering it was written a few months before Rebirth.

[iron chimp]

The pond was much smaller then, too.
If Diamond was to have been around, the Previews would've probably been about 16 pages. There were fewer publishers and DC/Marvel pushed no more than 25-30 comics each.
(Amazing Heroes' Coming Attractions for the full month of April 2017 was 13 pages.)
Retailers could afford to spend some to support First and Eclipse.
It was the fact retailers 'could' spend that money that led DC/Marvel to flood the market.

It was indies who flooded the comic shops in the early 80s black and white indie boom which led to the indie bust of mid 80s.

[Lee Stone]

It was indies who flooded the comic shops in the early 80s black and white indie boom which led to the indie bust of mid 80s.

Oh, I was referring more to about the time DC and Marvel moved to direct only in the early '90s.
More shelf space, and more competition that could claim that shelf space before them.
And in their eyes, surely retailers only bought Indies because they had too much money and were in need of more 'real' product.

[jetengine]

Its interesting how Disney (tied to marvel of course) is much less involved with the comics, afaik the only things they MIGHT have been involved with were the firing of the "Anti senitic graffiti in x-men" guy and the firing of the "Kavaugnah rant" guy. Though both of those could very well have been editors dealing with it before Disney noticed

[kjn]

From reading the original article, it seems clear that Vertigo really was a walking corpse that DC (or the corporate levels above) decided to put out of its misery. Everything that made the imprint unique seems to have been eroded over time: both the relation to creators and the creative mandate.

The thing about "creator-owned" is interesting. To me it looks much more like the traditional fiction publishing model: the publisher buys the right to sell and distribute the work in its set form, perhaps also with some ancillary rights (like translations or audiobooks). When HBO decided to make A Game of Thrones they had to negotiate with George RR Martin, not with Bantam Books the publisher. There has been lots of talk about "rights grabs" within the science fiction field (and probably other publishing fields), but it seems that the comics world has suffered it a lot more.

Note that being creator-owned never would prevent WB from doing any movie of a Vertigo comic in the first place. It just meant they had to negotiate with the creator first.

To go a bit more into Burbankology, I think this is another result of pressure on DC to increase their profitability. We had the restructuring in January, and now an entire imprint cut. Then we have the talk about moving all of the remaining bi-weekly titles to a monthly schedule (sorry, couldn't find a link). Given their to me ridiculously top-heavy nature and what seems to be frequent management problems, I can understand the pressure from above.

[Vakanai]

I could see the weekly and monthly physical print publishing side of things shutting down, but the comics would continue to survive perpetually in digital copies, and physical graphic novels and trade paperbacks. Which is fine by me, I don't buy the single issue floppies anyways. I don't see those surviving in the future, but (unpopular opinion here) they don't need to. The loss of single floppies might be the end of an era, but won't impact the health of the comics industry in the long run. DC will continue publishing stories forever in one form or another.

[Dark-Flux]

Any talk of Vertigo's or even DC's demise leading to the tanking of the industry is ridiculous.

Were DC to fold their comics division then the direct market would take a huge hit, sure. But there is so much more to the comics industry than the direct market. And that is arguable where the future of comics lies anyway. You only have to look at sales from some of the stuff put out by Scholastic or First Second to book stores to see how tiny the DM is in comparison. DC have already found success with there Ink and Zoom lines and i'd put money on them continuing to push into that market. Comics will survive no matter what, because its just a storytelling medium. And its one that expands far beyond what Diamond distributes to a small range of dedicated comic stores.

[scary harpy]

What is the worst-case scenario?

DC stops publishing comics? DC only makes animations and merchandise?

I really want to know how bad it can get.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Any talk of Vertigo's or even DC's demise leading to the tanking of the industry is ridiculous.

Were DC to fold their comics division then the direct market would take a huge hit, sure. But there is so much more to the comics industry than the direct market. And that is arguable where the future of comics lies anyway. You only have to look at sales from some of the stuff put out by Scholastic or First Second to book stores to see how tiny the DM is in comparison. DC have already found success with there Ink and Zoom lines and i'd put money on them continuing to push into that market. Comics will survive no matter what, because its just a storytelling medium. And its one that expands far beyond what Diamond distributes to a small range of dedicated comic stores.

You're absolutely right. The comics medium ain't going anywhere. And, in fact, I don't even know if Marvel and DC won't just move entirely to digital - though if they do, I'm done. I hate reading comics digitally.

I guess what I really am talking about is the Direct Market and the companies that make heavy use of it. That's generally the "comics industry" that I'm referring to - even though I totally accept that that's a failure on my part. Hell, I've even read and continue to read a bunch of graphic novels released primarily in the bookstore market. In truth, though, I can't help myself: however often I've toyed with the idea of moving straight to trades, I just love the periodical too much to leave it behind. Plus, that is where most of the comics discussion still happens these days.

Here's what I'm really struggling with, though. The graphic novel market is booming, comics are more respected than ever and superhero movies make literally billions of dollars at the box office but DC can't seem to come right. It is true that the periodical, continuity-heavy superhero comics that DC put out may not survive another generation or two - at least not without seriously shifting the way it's handled. Ink and Zoom are brilliant initiatives that do represent the future of both DC and the industry at large. That said, I would think that moving that model to also include both mature-readers and the sort of superhero stories that would be familiar to fans of the MCU would be the next smart move. This is where DC is really dropping the ball.

In terms of their direct market comics, they're actually not in terrible shape. Commercially, yes, things could be much better but that's true across the Direct Market thanks to crappy stunts like charging $5 for 32 page comics, flooding the market with crap and double shipping - practices that Marvel is actually far guiltier of than DC. In fact, when it comes to the massive done to the Direct Market, Marvel is clearly the most to blame. Their business practices may pay off in the very short-term but in the long term, they're disastrous. In terms of quality of their in-continuity comics, though, things aren't massively different for DC from what they usually are: they have some real gems, some total stinkers and a bunch falling right in the middle. Things could be improved further by a few small changes to editorial (like moving Didio and Lee out of creative roles) and that's really easy enough.

The two areas that they're screwing up the most by far, ironically, are the two areas where they can really make a mark and that plays into their strengths just by their nature. Outside of the Direct Market, Black Label and/ or Vertigo should be DC's biggest hitters but they're undermining both at every turn. DC absolutely annihilates not only Marvel but just about everyone on the Direct Market in terms of standalone graphic novels and contained runs by single creators that stand mostly entirely alone. These are ideal for the bookstore market and they already have a large library of very good to excellent titles, aimed from kids to adults, that should be flying off the shelves. Before even getting to their two most important imprints, DC should already be criticized for failing to follow through on reprints of highly acclaimed runs AND in failing dismally to market these initiatives enough. Plus, these could be perennial sellers so even if they don't sell well immediately, they can in the long term. If that means giving bookshops big discounts or promoting them as premium products, then so be it. Sandman Mystery Theatre and Starman don't stand a chance up against the latest Avengers trade so reposition them to go head to head with stuff from Top Shelf or Fantagraphics, with which they have more in common and have a higher chance of competing successfully against them.

As for Vertigo and Black Label, these should be DC's premier lines in the bookstore market but how can they be when they have no vision and are constantly undermined by their own publisher! If DC can't offer competitive contracts for creator-owned comics then Vertigo should drop new creator-owned comics entirely (existing ones can be branded as Vertigo Visions or something) and go back to offering what made them viable in the first place. Make Vertigo a place where big-name creators can work on any DC characters of their choice with no creative restrictions others than they should be a) designed to be complete stories that can be solid in a few volumes or as a single graphic novel in bookstores and b) should have the sort of literary and boundary-pushing content that make them not only fit in the bookstore market but genuinely stand out from the sort of stuff Marvel, DC and all but the most literary of publishers puts out. Vertigo created the graphic novel market through company-owned characters like Sandman. I see no reason why they shouldn't do so again. It just requires a bit of a risk and actual investment in long-term sales.

As for Black Label, it should simply be the home of all the excellent contained mainstream comics that DC have put out over the years and what they should still be putting out. They are sort of vaguely doing this but there is currently no rhyme or reason to how it works. Why was the critically acclaimed Mister Miracle maxiseries not put out as a Black Label book or at least collected that way? What age group are they actually aiming at? Personally, I think Black Label (though maybe renamed? - DC Prestige maybe?) should highlight all of their non-Vertigo self-contained comics that deserve to be highlighted in a bookstore market. This can include OGNs, collections of mini and maxiseries and extended runs like Starman and Hitman. It won't apply to individual, periodical comics (and enough with the weird prestige format middle ground) but to collections that are curated according to critical and fan reception and the requirement that they must stand alone. It should cater to audiences from young kids to adults but each volume should be marked clearly with an easily understandable suggested age-restriction (similar to movies but maybe modelled after the BBFC rather than the utterly retarded MPAA ratings system) and content warnings. As such, when complaints come out about a naked Batman in a 15 or 18 rated book, the only response needed should be "tough ****, it's aimed at adults and marked as such".

I'm no marketing expert (to say the least) but surely these ideas aren't that far-fetched or complicated?

Nah, bollocks. No-one ever does any thing instead of telling good stories. They might fail at telling a good story, but they always try.

But quotes like "shoving identity politics" make it sound like you might be a Comicsgate nutjob.

Absolutely. And I say this as someone who is, at the very least, wary of identity politics for largely committing the same crimes against which they're fighting. In other words, racism is defined by stripping an individual of their humanity and boils them down to the colour of their skin (ditto sexism and their genitalia, religious bigotry and where they pray, homophobia and who they love etc etc) and, for all of its good intentions, identity politics and its accompanying political correctness often do precisely the same thing. Anyway, even with my distrust of identity politics, I have zero time for these brain-dead and flagrantly racist Comicsgate people and those who attack comics or other art forms for having the audacity to include, say, gay characters, people of colour or, heaven help us, women. In short, I absolutely despise using "straight white male" as an insult but I equally despise the viewpoint that stories (not to mention societies) should only be the purview of straight, white males.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

What is the worst-case scenario?

DC stops publishing comics? DC only makes animations and merchandise?

I really want to know how bad it can get.

DC itself is too important a home for invaluable IPs so more obvious money spinners like films and toys based on these characters aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

They may even keep digital comics as part of their streaming service but the real worry is DC's print comics, its existence as a comics company that produces new and varied content or even being micromanaged to the point where it becomes an empty shell of itself.

[Coco Loco]

It’s just an imprint. Vertigo has a great history but it’s been moribund for a long time. They’ve tried multiple relaunches that have failed. The brand has zero cache at this point. This doesn’t mean DC stops publishing mature titles; it just means they no longer have a Vertigo label on them.

This doesn’t herald the end of DC’s publishing division any more than the end of the Helix, Focus, Wildstorm or Paradox Press imprints did.

[scary harpy]

I could see the weekly and monthly physical print publishing side of things shutting down, but the comics would continue to survive perpetually in digital copies, and physical graphic novels and trade paperbacks. Which is fine by me, I don't buy the single issue floppies anyways. I don't see those surviving in the future, but (unpopular opinion here) they don't need to. The loss of single floppies might be the end of an era, but won't impact the health of the comics industry in the long run. DC will continue publishing stories forever in one form or another.

I would miss the floppies. I guess I will miss the floppies because the world is progressing forward.

At least, this will justify my subscription to DC Universe Online (or whatever it's called).