Didio And Lee On The Fate Of Imprints And How DC Looks At Sales

[Yoda]

Yes. When DiDio talks about the variant covers, he's likely referring to Black Cat #1, which has a ridiculous amount of variants. His complaints about nostalgia are probably rooted in his grouchiness about those reprint issues doing better than their new stuff.

Yet, without those gimmicks the industry will probably fall apart like they alluded to. The only healthy solution is to get new readers. It's like an internet forum. They usually become inactive due to a lack of new members coming in. That's the main thing that typically kills them. There just isn't any real interest in their products outside of the people already buying them.

It's hard for me to imagine DC turning this around. If that will happen at all, it will likely take someone with a bigger and better vision than DiDio and Lee to do it.

Even beyond the variants, supposedly Walmart bought a boatload of them to package and sell. So they were seriously inflated sales. I order all my comics online and it's ridiculous how many variants they put out. Immortal Hulk is actually a great book, but it still has anywhere from 5-10 variant covers each month. And since the early issues are so hot on the spec market, that raises the numbers for new issues as people chase variants and whatnot. It's all inflated numbers.

The shift into the younger reader TPB books and those imprints is probably the best step DC has done. But yes, Didio and Lee are not the minds to bridge the gap into the next generation. They are trying with this stuff, but I am more and more convinced Didio simply doesn't have the ideas to bridge this gap. I listened to Tom King's recent Word Balloon interview talking about the Walmart books being all ages and bringing in new readers, then go onto half acknowledge he messed up and half defend his Superman anxiety attack Lois Lane murder issue. An all ages, new reader friendly book isn't the place for that kind of story. They can't grasp that, because they are trying to write the next Watchmen constantly. There's nothing all ages or new reader friendly about that book or King's Superman story in general which has been overly grim, dark and broody. But "DC loved it" he says. Because Didio doesn't get any of this at all.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

DC's biggest problem will always be its fractured fanbases. Too many versions of lots of characters makes it hard for a book to catch on if it stars the not-your version of the character.

We're seeing this again right now with all the chatter about the Legion -- which is unique in that it has lots of replacement versions rather than coexisting versions like Flash.

As far as nostalgia goes, I'm nostalgic for the days when I was excited about the story because the stories were great. Today, we're just being commanded like Pavlov's dog to be excited by the sight of a new number 1 or a variant cover.

When you make us care about the characters so that we want to follow them month in and month out, you won't have to resort to cheap gimmicks, reboots, relaunches, variant covers, and shock value plotting to get people to pick up a comic. Today's readers are trained only to respond to these gimmicks, and it can't last forever.

[Yoda]

DC's biggest problem will always be its fractured fanbases. Too many versions of lots of characters makes it hard for a book to catch on if it stars the not-your version of the character.

We're seeing this again right now with all the chatter about the Legion -- which is unique in that it has lots of replacement versions rather than coexisting versions like Flash.

As far as nostalgia goes, I'm nostalgic for the days when I was excited about the story because the stories were great. Today, we're just being commanded like Pavlov's dog to be excited by the sight of a new number 1 or a variant cover.

When you make us care about the characters so that we want to follow them month in and month out, you won't have to resort to cheap gimmicks, reboots, relaunches, variant covers, and shock value plotting to get people to pick up a comic. Today's readers are trained only to respond to these gimmicks, and it can't last forever.

This is definitely a massive, massive part of the problem with DC in general. They more or less acknowledged this in the discussions surrounding Rebirth's launch, but at the same time in only really took two years to get back to the same nonsense. You can kinda see them trying this with Superman now I suppose. They seem to be getting back to a more "traditional" setup where there's tension between Superman/Clark and his relationships with Lois, bringing back in the Daily Planet and Legion, etc. But at the same time, to get there they are relying on shocking changes.

I think what has been lost is that they don't seem to have figured out a way to keep the core of many of their characters intact and modernize or tweak them for the present market. TV and movies have with the MCU, DCUniverse shows, and even Arrowverse and the later DCEU movies. But comics just can't grasp it. Instead they try to drastically alter them in ways that is off putting to long time fans and is either to generic or too "try hard" to bring in new ones. Trying to hard to be edgy and different was like the New 52 mission statement, and they course corrected a little bit with Rebirth, but still seem to fall back into their old habits quickly. For all they say, I don't think the truly get that yet. They still want people angry and think that pissing off a fanbase is going to retain readers and bring in new ones in the long run.

[kingaliencracker]

Digital sales are still just a fraction of the physical sales. I think it is more likely that we will see a shift from monthly issues to Graphic Novels at some point.

Digital sales are a fraction because old-time fans like us still primarily purchase floppies. I would venture to guess most digital sales are more casual fans than long-time ones. Part of the reason for this is because digital comics cost exactly the same as floppies so hardcore fans have no incentive to switch. If DC and/or Marvel were to offer a monthly subscription that included up-to-date published material or if the market shifted to completely digital, then the current fan base would shift towards that direction. Digital is just a better, more cost effective option for the industry.

[Aahz]

I don't know that the "New Age of Heroes" can be blamed on the new characters. Most of their big name creators lasted 2-3 issues, best case. That was a creative, editorial, and planning disaster. The Jim Lee book had him for what, 1 and 1/4 issues?

Sales most of these books started somewhere in the 30-40K range, which meant that the books were basically DOA.
I assume DC was expecting much higher numbers for the #1 issues of such such a big initiative.

And by issue #3 most books were already close to the cancellation line when it comes to sales.

[kingaliencracker]

I've always wondered about digital issues.
Why wouldn't you try something like having the issues read by voice actors?
Make it something different to encourage people to give it a whirl.
Hell, how many people would buy a digital Batman comic if DC had Kevin Conroy reading Batman's lines?
Mark Hamill reading lines for the Joker and Trickster.
Michael Ironside reading Darkseid?

I know, big names big costs. But it wouldn't take very long to read for 6 issues worth of lines.
Take advantage of the medium, they don't HAVE to be static when they're on the digital platform. Take advantage of it!

The problem with digital sales currently is that a single digital comic book costs exactly the same as a floppy, the difference being that the digital comic will always be worth the price it was paid for while the floppy has a chance to increase significantly in value. Even if you're not a speculator, purchasing a floppy at $3.99 that suddenly becomes worth several hundreds of dollars just a few months or years later is still a strong enough incentive to stick with floppies despite that being an uncommon occurrence. We saw this recently happen with the issue that had Wolverine's daughter and the Jane Foster as Thor books.

But sales on floppies are dwindling and it's just a matter of time before running a publishing company is no longer cost effective for WB especially when they can continue to push the characters digitally.

[kingaliencracker]

As a correction to my prior post, digital comics are in fact worth nothing once you purchase and/or read it. You can't resell it or return it.

Even if you pay $3.99 for a comic book and decide to trade it in or sell it to a shop 10 years later for a $1 even just to create space (as I've had to do), at least you're getting SOMETHING in return. But again, the numbers are pointing to the end of the publishing side of the industry which will leave digital as the only viable option even if it's just for IP's.

[Frontier]

I wonder how long this company will go before AT&T more or less wipes them out. People have been talking about doom and gloom for a while,yes, but with this change in ownership, I can actually see it happening this time around. I guess because we can actually watch DC folding in on itself, and I'm sure that's mostly to do with AT&T not being terribly interested in the comics publishing business. The only thing of real value to them are the IPs. This comics literature doesn't do anything for them.

The incentive to retain the comic side is the same as it is for Marvel from Disney's perspective, as a farm for new ideas or concepts that can be utilized in the MCU or in other media.

I've always wondered about digital issues.
Why wouldn't you try something like having the issues read by voice actors?
Make it something different to encourage people to give it a whirl.
Hell, how many people would buy a digital Batman comic if DC had Kevin Conroy reading Batman's lines?
Mark Hamill reading lines for the Joker and Trickster.
Michael Ironside reading Darkseid?

I know, big names big costs. But it wouldn't take very long to read for 6 issues worth of lines.
Take advantage of the medium, they don't HAVE to be static when they're on the digital platform. Take advantage of it!

Aren't those basically motion comics? Haven't those pretty much died out by this point?

[kingaliencracker]

The incentive to retain the comic side is the same as it is for Marvel from Disney's perspective, as a farm for new ideas or concepts that can be utilized in the MCU or in other media.

Aren't those basically motion comics? Haven't those pretty much died out by this point?

The problem with hiring real actors to read comic books is that it's just not cost effective based on sales. You'd have to dramatically cut titles and other costs.

Besides, DC or Marvel could just hire real actors to read lines for an animated movie that is likely to generate far more revenue than a monthly comic book.

[Yoda]

As a correction to my prior post, digital comics are in fact worth nothing once you purchase and/or read it. You can't resell it or return it.

Even if you pay $3.99 for a comic book and decide to trade it in or sell it to a shop 10 years later for a $1 even just to create space (as I've had to do), at least you're getting SOMETHING in return. But again, the numbers are pointing to the end of the publishing side of the industry which will leave digital as the only viable option even if it's just for IP's.

You’re not even buying a digital comic. You’re paying for the license to read it. If DC ever cuts off comiXology all your digital books could vanish in an instant. This has happened with movies on like iTunes. People don’t realize you don’t own digital copies. I buy a lot of digital books, but I buy physical copies of stuff I really want to keep. Cause inevitably the digital ones are going away.

[kingaliencracker]

You’re not even buying a digital comic. You’re paying for the license to read it. If DC ever cuts off comiXology all your digital books could vanish in an instant. This has happened with movies on like iTunes. People don’t realize you don’t own digital copies. I buy a lot of digital books, but I buy physical copies of stuff I really want to keep. Cause inevitably the digital ones are going away.

Good point.

I use digital as a platform to read a lot of old stuff. When I was younger and my budget was tighter I only really read 3-5 characters regularly. Now I've expanded my regular pull significantly but I'm not going to go back and purchase comic books from 30 or 40 years ago for a lot of money when all I really want to do is read it versus reading about it.

[cgh]

You’re not even buying a digital comic. You’re paying for the license to read it. If DC ever cuts off comiXology all your digital books could vanish in an instant. This has happened with movies on like iTunes. People don’t realize you don’t own digital copies. I buy a lot of digital books, but I buy physical copies of stuff I really want to keep. Cause inevitably the digital ones are going away.

Some companies like Image allow you to download drm-free PDFs of the issues you’ve bought, which is great.

[Lee Stone]

I think the problem that Didio sees, is the lack of success of their new charcters.

I mean just look at "New Age of Heros". They had lots of their big name creators involved with these books, but the only book that had somewhat decent sales was Terrifcs, which was the only book featuring established characters.

And basically all the new characters that had at least some success, were legacy characters or otherwise part of bigger franchise.

Yeah...
Terrifics was the proper way to expand.
It's a tried and true method of growing a team or character's popularity.

Launching new books with zero lead-in, almost always fails. Especially in the modern age where there's so much competition.

In the old days, one of the tricks was to pair new characters with the established characters for a few years to develop a following. That was one of the benefits of books like JLA and Avengers. Take Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, throw in a Zatanna and just wait for readers to get used to her before adding someone else.
Then, by that time, she should be familiar enough to branch out in a mini-series or back-up series.

With New Age of Heroes, they should really check their perspective on things.
Instead of being butthurt that their personal creations didn't take off, they should be exploiting the Terrifics and focusing on it.
But they won't. Because it's not their baby.
They'll just let it tread water until it finally sinks and drowns.

[Lee Stone]

I don't know that the "New Age of Heroes" can be blamed on the new characters. Most of their big name creators lasted 2-3 issues, best case. That was a creative, editorial, and planning disaster. The Jim Lee book had him for what, 1 and 1/4 issues?

This, too.

Losing a creator after one arc or less is a bad sign and readers will quickly abandon if they think the creators already did.

[Gaastra]

Uh-oh! Has this been posted yet?

https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/...dia-under-att/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robsalk.../#e4aa7aa79b79