DC's Dan DiDio Out as Co-Publisher

[Starter Set]

That's the best DC related news i have heard in a loooooooooong time.

[The_Lurk]

Karen Berger, yes.

However, if we look at more recent history, you have the whole Berganza situation that festered for years.

But if you don't wanna see, you won't see.

err...?

Not the boss... I think it's the sexual harassment thing. Eddie Berganza stayed pretty long, and some female authors who tried to speak out against it were let go (I don't remember but I think Renee De Liz was among them?). DC only did something about it after the story went mainstream with Buzzfeed.

That said, I don't know if Didio specifically has anything to do with it. Since it's unclear who decided to keep Berganza and firing the authors protesting him, people may blame every DC higher-ups in general for not doing more against it.

What I know is after that case, after the authors speak up on twitter, DC has garnered a reputation in certain circles of being not safe for female workers, and some fans, especially fans of those authors, have refused to continue reading because of it. They're not many, maybe one of every fifty or a hundred posts on Tumblr and Twitter, and sometimes they only say it when their friends asked why they're not reading DC anymore, but every once in awhile, I saw a post about it, because they don't want people to forget that DC has kept a sexual harasser working for long and only act when the news went mainstream.

Thank you! My first search resulted in a lot of information about a over 80y old famous Spanish mezzo-soprano lady!

I don't think anyone will move them to read no matter what outside maybe a public beheading. The harasser had been fired and I guess & hope they issued an apology (a real one; not some hollow J Allen Brack nonpology BS). I do not know what Didio had to do with it aside from both him and Barganza being both promoted to their posts in 2010.

.... reading a bit more into all the background some of the best stuff came under Kahns watchful eyes. So: Bring back Kahn; make DC great again!

[WillieMorgan]

Wow. You go off the grid for a couple of days and come back to find this has happened. That IS big news.

I wish Dan DiDio the best. I'm not saying he didn't have his faults as Co-Publisher but I appreciated his energy and enthusiasm overall. In a job like that you were always gonna end up in the crosshairs of neurotic fanboys. Who will be the big, bad, bogey man now?

No idea wo could replace him. I've had an air of unease about the future of DC since the takeover and this only exacerbates that. I'll have to give it a year and see how things pan out.

[kjn]

err...?

Restingvoice covered a lot of it.

A creep like Berganza can be fired, but he was there for quite some time, and didn't get fired until the whole matter became public. So while Berganza might be gone, the people who hired him and protected him in various ways are still there. That gives very little confidence for women who might have to report sexual harassment or misconduct to DC in that they will be listened to, or that actions will be taken.

[Yoda]

I don't know how many of you guys met Dan outside of panels but I can say pretty confidently that a lot of his "biases against characters" were him playing a "pro-wrestling heel" persona and trolling the fanbase.

I think what confused things was that there was an underlying truth behind them usually but his biases were against Dick Grayson AS NIGHTWING and Cassandra Cain AS BATGIRL because he wanted things to synergize with retro lunchboxes while also telling shocking daytime soap opera style stories.

If he could have put the genie back in the bottle and made Dick Robin again while dealing with stories that ranged from rape to opioid use to infidelity or whathaveyou, he would have done that. He didn't because he saw Tim and Damian as effective characters that couldn't be discarded easily.

That's obviously been his MO for years, on the assumption that it's effective at keeping the fanbase engaged I would assume. But could the problem have been that it actually isn't an effective way to run things? Direct Market comics is probably one of the smaller fanbases in existence. Wrestling and your average soap fanbase are orders of magnitude larger. So when you piss off 1-10% of them enough to have them drop it there's a greater chance of that hole getting filled by new fans (although daytime soaps also seem to be dying off). With comics, you're dealing with likely somewhere between 50,000 - 100,000 fans month to month, with a far greater buy in cost than something like a soap opera. People don't have to pay $5 every week to watch Days of Our Lives or the WCW. So when they get pissed off, they might just go away and not get replaced. His business model has been running the same course for the last 20 years, they drive people away, have some event or relaunch that artificially inflates sales for period, and then it shrinks back to even lower than it was before that last event. Rinse and repeat.

[superduperman]

Whatever direction they plan on going in, we probably won't know for at least another year or so. Weren't they planning on another Crisis type event this year? Wonder if that's out or will be used to establish whatever the post-Didio status quo will be. In terms of specific characters, it will take a lot to clean some of this stuff up. (Wally, Jon, Dick) Right now the fanbase is divided. Didio played no small role in that. There's a lot of housecleaning to do. My guess is people like Bendis will lose a lot of power if not get outright fired. Johns and Lee? IDK. I doubt Kahn wants to come back. Especially considering the mess she'd have to clean up. She'd be in her 70s now.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Yeah! I would rather they don't follow the no multiverse dumb 80s and 90s rule . I don't want to be stuck with a versions of character i don't like. Personally, would love it if they explore metaverse.

Regardless, the 80s and 90s were probably the best decades to be a DC fan. That's when a majority of the classic runs that are celebrated by fans were being published and when DC's editorial was actually committed to experimentation and diverse representation. We had things like the rise of Vertigo and Milestone as imprints that truly signaled how DC was open to new things and telling new stories.

[SixSpeedSamurai]

Woooo, celebrating like it's the end of Return of the Jedi!

Johns getting the big chair?

[lucius121]

I would hold off on the celebration until you learn who will replace him.

[Ascended]

I don't know how many of you guys met Dan outside of panels but I can say pretty confidently that a lot of his "biases against characters" were him playing a "pro-wrestling heel" persona and trolling the fanbase.

I think what confused things was that there was an underlying truth behind them usually but his biases were against Dick Grayson AS NIGHTWING and Cassandra Cain AS BATGIRL because he wanted things to synergize with retro lunchboxes while also telling shocking daytime soap opera style stories.

I never met him, but he always seemed like a happy, nice guy. I would've liked to have had a beer with him one day, I think he'd have good stories to tell. And I get his bias is against "Nightwing" as opposed to "Dick Grayson" (same with Cass and Wally, etc) but that doesn't really excuse things. Sure, in business you've got to use your intuition to inform some of your decisions because accounting and business theory will never paint the whole picture, but there's a big difference between that and purposefully damaging and/or minimizing a product that shows signs of have more revenue potential just because you don't like it. And unless there's data we don't have access to that shows otherwise (which there easily could be) it looks to me like Didio all but sabotaged the characters he has a bias against, even when (perhaps especially when) they looked like they could make a lot more money for DC than they are.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

ikr. A man who loved what he did and supported creators lost his job and comic nerds are out popping champagne b/c it means maybe their favorite fictional character gets a creative team or direction they want...

Uh, well, the point of the comic-book industry is to produce stories that people want to read, so...

Also, you're making it sound as if people here are getting their torches and pitchforks out because they just personally hated Dan Didio. I don't know if any of us have even met Dan Didio, so this is not personal. From what I've heard Dan Didio himself is actually a very nice guy. HOWEVER, a cardinal rule of business is that if you're bad at your job, you shouldn't have that job. Simple as that. All the reports coming through are suggesting that Dan Didio was creating an increasingly hostile work environment at DC and alienating a LOT of creative and editorial talent (ya know, the people you need to write and edit your comic books).

And, honestly, that's not new. We have known for years the stories of Dan clashing with writers and artists over stories he didn't like. Everyone has heard the story of when 52 was being published, during which time Dan would apparently storm up and down the halls at DC telling everyone how much he hated it and made it difficult for Waid, Morrison, Johns, and Rucka to do their jobs. Waid even once told the comic-book press that there's at least one issue near the end of 52 that was written almost entirely by Dan and Keith Giffen because apparently "nobody [on the creative team] could plot it to his satisfaction."

I wish Dan Didio all the success in the world. However, I don't think he's a good fit to head up DC Comics. If anything, you can really argue that DC actually suffered a severe hit to its reputation because of his creative choices.

I'll never forget, I think it was SDCC 2011? DCU panel, girl in audience asked when they'll hire more female creators. Morrison responded (paraphrasing), "when will more apply?"

Yeah, I don't see how Didio being let go has any relevance for women working at DC.
If they got the chops, they can get the work.

That's at least somewhat dismissive of the issues women have actually faced in this industry. Anyone remember how the higher-ups at DC (including Dan Didio) engaged in a cover-up of Eddie Berganza's predatory and sexually harassing behavior?? And how, instead of just firing Berganza, they decided it was just better to put in place a policy that no women were allowed to work in the Superman office (Eddie's office)? So, yeah, women have faced at least a few barriers when it came to working at DC in the past.

[Hypestyle]

Bring in Christopher Priest as an editor and writer.

[Dazai_Osamu]

Personally, I have nothing against Didio, and I do hope that professionally, he lands on his feet.

But I also recognize that my interest in DC comics started to decline right around 2004, and the return of Hal, Barry, and storylines like Flashpoint, New 52, and Rebirth made it even worse.

DiDio's rising is the beginning of the decline of DC.

[Frontier]

Yes but I highly doubt Bendis is going to get fired. His sales are about the norm for Superman these days. What’s more likely to happen is that he’ll lose a lot of the power he had, and stuff like Wonder Comics will get slowly shut down.

Now that you mention it, aside from Naomi, Wonder Comics isn't doing so hot. If Bendis doesn't have major pull, they might not see the need to push it.

Loeb is terrible though. He ran the Ultimate Marvel line into the ground. He butchered Marvel animation, cancelling the excellent EMH show for cheap and crap MCU Avengers Assemble cartoon. The Netflix Marvel shows were mixed at best, with only Daredevil really succeeding.

In fairness, Disney pushed for a new Avengers cartoon that better matched the movies, but Loeb was the one who seemingly spearheaded the changes that led to the decline in quality across the board for Marvel cartoons.

BREAKING NEWS!

Snyder just posted his reponse

https://twitter.com/Ssnyder1835/stat...11463781093378

The general gist I'm getting from the reactions are that a lot of people respected Didio even if they more often then not argued with him.

Come to think of it, I don’t like Johns for the job. The guy is fixated on telling stories about the DCU. What we need is stories about the heroes of the DCU.

I think Johns does both.

You know, that's probably what comics actually needs. Easily digestible content that anyone can understand with the characters they are looking for. Not these dumb ass direct market driven events and gimmicks that only a handful of highly passionate hardcores can understand and will bother following. If it takes a yes man in a suit to do that instead of comic fans who have been in the industry for decades, then great! Bring on the yes man. Get these nerds in line. The comics industry has become some bizarre niche bubble and it's time an outsider came and popped it and exploited the billion dollar characters found there to their potential.

If this means Marvel level of synergy...I'd rather not.

[Johnny]

So, can we take Barry and Hal behind the woodshed yet?

Already happened. What would that accomplish again at this point.