Burbankology, or the State of DC

[kjn]

Some more Burbankology, via Bleeding Cool:

Harvey Richards (associate editor) has left, I don't even know which titles he worked on.

Pat McCallum (executive editor, in this case boss to editors, as I understand it) has also left. BC comments:

Bleeding Cool has heard reports that, well, it’s a bit of a sh-tshow in DC editorial of late, with lots of competing power bases, publisher demands in the wake of Batman Damned, and possibly a case of too many cooks. Well here is one fewer.

Rebecca Tay (editor) also seems to have effectively left DC, even if she isn't mentioned in the headline.

Given what Bleeding Cool said here, I guess the earlier big reshuffle this year failed to solve the management problems that DC had…

[HunterX]

Sooner than later someone at Warners or AT&T are going to start asking where is our counter to Black Panther, Miles, Ms Marvel, Saga, Hulk, GOTG and so on. Because shelves at stores don't tell lies.

?

GL John Stewart, Cyborg, GL Jessica Cruise, Aqualad kaldur'ham???

[BohemiaDrinker]

GL John Stewart, Cyborg, GL Jessica Cruise, Aqualad kaldur'ham???

None of which are a big deal right now or are being set up to be.

No one would be crazy to say that DC has no black heroes/characters, but they dropped the ball with them in the last decade, that's for sure.

[skyvolt2000]

Some more Burbankology, via Bleeding Cool:

Harvey Richards (associate editor) has left, I don't even know which titles he worked on.

Pat McCallum (executive editor, in this case boss to editors, as I understand it) has also left. BC comments:

Rebecca Tay (editor) also seems to have effectively left DC, even if she isn't mentioned in the headline.

Given what Bleeding Cool said here, I guess the earlier big reshuffle this year failed to solve the management problems that DC had…

Harvey was the editor for Static Shock-where he let the artist take over the book from a VETERAN writer and produced one of the worsted edited books in the history of comics.

He also did Cyborg and chased off David Walker on volume one and volume axed with Marv Wolfman.

He also did Katana & Black Lighting's Cold Hands.

No book with a person of color as the lead was successful under his watch.

As far as I know he was one of the few black editors at DC.

[Gaastra]

And DiDio, he's just ridiculous, thinking people want content like Identity Crisis, Heroes in Crisis, and these absurd storylines that more or less destroy your favorite characters. I'm really surprised he's lasted as long as he has in his position. It's mind boggling.

HOC sold like crazy that's why. People complain and called it trash then went out and bought the next issue anyways. You tell what you think with your wallet. You buy trash they make more trash. Stop buying trash to let them know what you think. If hoc had bombed it would have sent a message to dc but everyone bought it so they will make more.

He also worked on Beast Wars (Season 3) and Beast Machines. For the former, he apparently told Marv Wolfman to cut loose and do what he thought would work, then told the main writers for Beast Machines to ignore continuity as much as possible.

And beast machines was so hated by transformers fans it lead to some of it's writers to leave the animation field due to the backlash and attacks by fans over messing up the beast wars and G1 history! It's the second most hated transformers show behind energon by transformers fans!

[kjn]

HOC sold like crazy that's why. People complain and called it trash then went out and bought the next issue anyways. You tell what you think with your wallet. You buy trash they make more trash. Stop buying trash to let them know what you think. If hoc had bombed it would have sent a message to dc but everyone bought it so they will make more.

This is going off-topic, but I think a huge problem here is that the default market mechanisms for superhero comics are broken. Between the distribution format (specialty shops largely focusing on a specific demographic), the distribution system having low elasticity (note how the success of Harleen led to delays of both #2 and #3), the focus on high-continuity both within and between titles, and the large impact of variants and collectors/speculators, I think it's very hard for quality writing to be recognised and sustained.

I also believe that even if HiC didn't bomb, it certainly didn't reach DC's expectations in sales. It is not having much impact on the rest of the DC universe right now, outside of some specific titles.

[Vordan]

Harvey was the editor for Static Shock-where he let the artist take over the book from a VETERAN writer and produced one of the worsted edited books in the history of comics.

He also did Cyborg and chased off David Walker on volume one and volume axed with Marv Wolfman.

He also did Katana & Black Lighting's Cold Hands.

No book with a person of color as the lead was successful under his watch.

As far as I know he was one of the few black editors at DC.

He was that editor? Thank God he’s gone, he sucked at his job. Sucks that he’s one of the few black editors at the company but maybe now the next black hero DC decides to push won’t be DOA.

[superduperman]

I wonder if AT&T taking over would be a bad thing at this point. All we've heard coming out of there for the last several years is how nobody gets along and competing visions. They need a handler of some kind. Someone needs to be the adult in the room.

[Zero Hunter]

What I will never understand is how Bob Harras still has a job as EIC. This is the man who ran Marvel comics into the ditch so bad in the 90's they almost went out of business and yet somehow he landed the EIC job at DC and has held onto it for so long. Just look up what was going on at Marvel when he was EIC and the amount of total garbage he was letting out of the door. Really if you look at almost everything he has done at DC it is recylcled marvel ideas. If DC is ever going to get serious about the their comics again he is one of the top 3 that have to go along with Didio and Lee.

[Lee Stone]

What I will never understand is how Bob Harras still has a job as EIC. This is the man who ran Marvel comics into the ditch so bad in the 90's they almost went out of business and yet somehow he landed the EIC job at DC and has held onto it for so long. Just look up what was going on at Marvel when he was EIC and the amount of total garbage he was letting out of the door. Really if you look at almost everything he has done at DC it is recylcled marvel ideas. If DC is ever going to get serious about the their comics again he is one of the top 3 that have to go along with Didio and Lee.

It's pretty much a given that if you didn't care much for Marvel in the '90s, you won't find much of anything of interest at DC right now.
I'm ready for new blood or a fresh outlook, myself.

[kjn]

Some stuff from Dan DiDio, via Bleeding Cool. One thing in particular struck me, about the DC Young Reader line (formerly Ink and Zoom):

I’m happy to say that we’re very comfortable with what we’ve seen from the young [reader] line. We had two breakout hits: Diana, Princess of the Amazons and Teen Titans: Raven performed very strongly for us. The good part about [ Raven] is there are two more volumes. We are making one slight tweak to our delivery of this material. We’ve been putting out three a month, we’ll probably bring that number down by the middle of the year to two a month. I think we need a little more breathing space, more time to promote and market these books properly.

First, note that "market" from the point of DC here probably mainly means selling them to booksellers, comic stores, and distributors, not marketing to readers.

Another is that three books a month is a boutique imprint. I can understand reducing the number of books per month due to editorial capacity, but to be able to market them properly? That makes no sense. Especially for a publisher the size of DC. I read it much more as the result of struggles and turf wars between DC, with the goal of preserving the power of the old hands (who in this case works on the classic floppies); whether they admit it or not. Of course, I might be wrong about that, and there is some other reason.

[skyvolt2000]

Some stuff from Dan DiDio, via Bleeding Cool. One thing in particular struck me, about the DC Young Reader line (formerly Ink and Zoom):

First, note that "market" from the point of DC here probably mainly means selling them to booksellers, comic stores, and distributors, not marketing to readers.

I would say that is more sales to customers. Books like those don't really need marketing as much because most will end up at school libraries and public libraries. Because the names are Wonder Woman & Teen Titans-they already got marketing.

If you are doing 3 books a month and folks KNOW it. That helps.

[skyvolt2000]

What I will never understand is how Bob Harras still has a job as EIC. This is the man who ran Marvel comics into the ditch so bad in the 90's they almost went out of business and yet somehow he landed the EIC job at DC and has held onto it for so long. Just look up what was going on at Marvel when he was EIC and the amount of total garbage he was letting out of the door. Really if you look at almost everything he has done at DC it is recylcled marvel ideas. If DC is ever going to get serious about the their comics again he is one of the top 3 that have to go along with Didio and Lee.

It depends on what the expectations are of his bosses.

If you only care about Batman and his entitled friends doing well-he is doing his job.

If you think flooding the market with Batman books is fine-he's doing his job. Harras did the same thing with the X-Men (and others) at Marvel.

If you don't care who is being ignored by your employees-he is doing his job.

I just know if it was me-I am NOT worried about Batman and his friends selling. I don't care. I want to know why I see Batman books being outsold by Squirrel Girl and that lot at times.
I see Black Panther and Miles-where are DC's black heroes?
Why are guys like Wally in crappy books and such a turn off to fans?

I am greedy I want ALL fans to come to my company for whatever and I don't want to hear it can't be gone when I see Marvel take trash and make it work.

[superduperman]

I've said this on other threads: I think floppies will be phased out in the next 20 years just because the price cap is unsustainable. We're up to $4.00 a book now. They'll either go all digital (most likely possibility) or they'll slowly move to OGNs. So it doesn't matter what the "old guard" wants, the market just won't sustain it.