Quote Originally Posted by Ascended View Post
But that has nothing to do with what you were saying. You talked about how they were new characters who got big. And they did. Decades ago. New characters showing up *today* struggle a lot more. The point of contention here is the difference in the market since the 80's, and you're not addressing that.



The differences between mainline DC and Vertigo are many, and while many of Vertigo's classic titles are still trade sellers today, look at how the modern Vertigo imprint is doing. Again, you're using examples from decades ago, but the changes to the market make these comparisons moot.



The quality of New Age was easily on par with most of DC's titles, and above a whole lot of them. But New Age still sold poorly. So no, it's not the quality that made a difference there, otherwise most of those books would still be going. And saying that the line failed because it was riffing Marvel doesn't stand up either when both companies have been very successful when stealing from each other, from Marvel's early days right up to the modern era.



The quality *was* there. So was the marketing and high profile push. So yeah, I'm blaming the readers.



And what DC books right now are on the same level as Gaiman's Sandman? Or Ennis' Preacher? These are some of the most well crafted titles the company has ever made, so what exactly is DC pushing right now that equals them? If your argument is that "new/PoC characters have to be on the level as DC's greatest and most celebrated hits to be viable" then I'm pretty sure you're just proving my point, since a lot of other books can get away with much, much lower quality and still do fine.
The reason its a strughle is because the current rosta arent as good as previous rostas. DC failed to replace the writers of dmz, fables, preacher, watchmen etc with writers of the same quality. They had a huge string of breakout hits of new and c list properties then those writers left and the hits dried up. Modern vertigo failed because all vertigos main writers left to go to image. Thats not readers fault - thats bad management, bad contracts, bad recruitment.

And surprise surprise those writers kept having hits with new work at Image because they were top talent while a whole new generation of DC readers are left reading 20 and 30 year old reprints of these same writers because 90% of current DC rosta cant manage a hit between them.

Re: naoh - the same quality as most of DCs output isnt good enough to break new characters. It has to be better than most of the rest of the output - thats been proven. The bar for breaking new characters has been set - if you cant match it then youre going into the 25c box. If you cant offer better than a mediocre mid tier DC book as your alternative to a mid tier DC book then you cant complain when people say ermm.. i will take my custom elsewhere. Would you rather read new stuff by steve orlando or ennis, robert venditti or alan moore... people have made it quite clear who theyd rsther read.

Sorry but a whole generation of DC readers were used to a lot better. Their only fault is they are used to extremely high quality work at DC.


Even then garth Ennis still easily managed to break a new black hero at DC - 80 issues, more than 10 top selling trades, omnibus and a tv series - not hard for him to do. Thats what a proper writer does - thats their job.

A whole generation jumped ship or just read reprints because most of the new stuff is of lesser quality. Youre the publisher- you lost all your best talent - which was stupid in the first place but its your job to replace them with equal or better and they totally failed to do it for a lot of readers.