DC's Dan DiDio Out as Co-Publisher

[SixSpeedSamurai]

6 to 9 months. A certain amount of it is already written and being drawn.

[youthoftoday]

Big companies do this all the time. Because the money it's bringing in isn't worth the effort. You could divert the resources for something that might make you bigger money.

Agreed. I remember reading that in the years leading up to when Disney bought Marvel, the publishing division only accounted for less than 20% of the company's revenue. Who knows from that 20% what ended up being actual profit. While I assume they aren't losing money, the profits probably aren't that big. It could all go away and not hurt either's bottom line.

[LordUltimus]

I still miss Marvel Adventures.

[Restingvoice]

Based on this math, it would be over 38 years since comics were aimed at kids. Or to put another way, the majority of readers today have had their entire comics-reading life AFTER comics were kids-oriented.

Pointing this out because I feel like the argument that the comics industry has a problem because it's not drawing in this imaginary kids readership is baloney.
My 5 godsons all got interested in their young teens and wanted the slightly more adult stories...which doesn't have to mean rooftop Bat-sex and frequent archer dismemberment. I think the new young adult novels are the perfect way to go because it addresses that entry point without dumbing down the material.

Similarly WB needs to be less afraid of taboo stuff like the Bat-peen. Let the adult material live in Black label for the older readers to pick up (hint: also the demographic with the most money to spend on their habit), keep the YA Novels as an entry point for younger readers, and the monthlies and trades as the common ground where everybody can find something.

Speaking of Bat peen, the same book has a guy mutilated and crucified inside a vandalized church and THAT's what they're worried about.

[Vampire Savior]

Well, I can literally tell you what it was like being a kid. I never wanted to read Justice League Adventures because it was a throwaway Happy Meal type comic and cheap. It had no continuity with anything and was just a waste of time. I would want to read "the real" Justice League comic despite it not resembling my favorite show where as the Justice League Adventures did. I was able to discern that one seemed dumbed down and didn't seem to have much effort put into it. Besides, the adventures were mostly one and done throw aways that left me feeling empty. Nothing of substance. Had it been as good as the cartoon it was based on (which wasn't dumbed down at all), that would be a different story, but it clearly wasn't.

What I wanted to happen was for the "real" Justice League comic to resemble my favorite show more, but done with the level of effort and ability as "the real" Justice League comic. By the way, I never really got what I wanted. EVER. Typical with me and DC Comics

[Vordan]

Interestingly, while they both peg 5G as the final straw, they disagree over the specifics. ComicsBeat says WB got scared because they hated the idea of a new generation of heroes who don't resemble the ones the company is utilizing in movies and TV shows (specifically citing the replacement of Batman and Wonder Woman right as they both have new movies in the works), while Bleeding Cool says the exact opposite, that WB was onboard with 5G from the beginning as fodder for future media projects, and that it was specifically Didio's micromanaging on the event and the resulting negative impact on workplace morale that got him canned.

I think Beat has the more accurate assessment. The idea that they’re approving Luke Fox Batman because they plan on having him take over for Battison smacks of bs to me. They’ll just keep rebooting these characters.

[Holt]

Depends. Certainly not across the board, no, but we've already seen the MCU begin to utilize elements from the whole All-New, All-Different Marvel era (Sam Wilson as the new Captain America, Kamala Khan being introduced, Jane Foster as Thor). It's not taking the entire change wholesale, but using some of it. Particularly once you notice the extremely strong influence the New 52 has had on the DCEU movies (Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner and Margot Robbie have pretty much all said Birds of Prey was very heavily inspired by the New 52 Harley stuff), I could see there being some truth to the idea that the company is interested in mining some of it for future properties.

Alternatively, WB being scared of the comics not looking like the movies seems somewhat suspect to me, as, unlike Marvel (who are extremely aggressive about synergy), WB has historically been less concerned about matching up the comics and movies. There's definitely some crossover, but not to the same extent as it is over at Disney/Marvel.

[Vampire Savior]

You have to be pretty damn dumb to have a major motion picture with a white Batman, but when you look in the comics it's some black Batman you've never even heard of before. I'd fire DiDio over that, too, because at that point, it's like, "How stupid are you?" Maybe one of the reasons movies don't seem to impact comics sales much a lot of the time is because the comics put people off with stuff like that going on. Again, I can literally tell you I experienced the same type of thing as a new reader. I watched a black Green Lantern on TV, bought a comic book and saw a white one. Amazingly, somehow I'm still here, but I'm a huge exception. Most people would have just noped out of that immediately.

[Johnny]

Well if people get put off because the character in the comics doesn't share the same color as the character in the cartoon, that probably says something more about those people than the publisher in this particular instance.

[Ascended]

Big companies do this all the time. Because the money it's bringing in isn't worth the effort. You could divert the resources for something that might make you bigger money.

The question then is whether the publishing, which maintains legal ownership and provides dirt cheap storyboards and ideas for larger adaptations, could be replaced by a more profitable venture.

Myself, I believe the publishing constitutes a valuable loss leader. Well, not exactly a loss leader since as far as I know the publishing still turns *some* profit, but something along those lines. The comics might not generate much direct revenue or profit, but they're what everything else is based around and continue to generate new ideas for adaptations. We figure a single title will go through two main stories a year right? There's what, anywhere from 40 to 50 something titles a month? So in a single year DC generates roughly 80-100 stories that could be adapted by the movies, cartoons, video games, or tv shows. Plot, character involvement/development, settings, it's all there, ready to be quickly re-written for a new medium.

So how much would it cost WB to have script writers and storyboard artists knock out 100 stories to pitch? Not the more detailed scripts and storyboards you get once you're into production, but the rough cut treatments?

And for WB, with the publishing they actually *make* money from this, rather than having to spend it like they would to hire people to do the same thing. And that's not getting into the free focus groups that are us, the fans. Not that we carry much weight in the decision making process, but WB looks to see what comic stories are popular, and that's what tells them what might be worth adapting. You don't see an animated version of Superman's Grounded, now do you?

WB/AT&T *could* take whatever money DC's publishing requires and turn it towards something that would generate more direct profit. Probably wouldn't take much honestly. But would that new venture generate as much indirect profit? I can't say for sure but I'm guessing no.

[iron chimp]

No, he's not saying its a 10M investment, he's saying it's about 10M in overhead; the cost of payroll and utilities and advertising, etc etc. And the 5B includes merchandise, toys, and whatever else, not just comics.

I don't know how much it costs to run just the publishing, but comichron lists end-of-year unit sales for DC, and we can easily find the average pay rate for talent and could probably ballpark advertising expenses, so it wouldn't be too hard to figure out a very rough estimate of the publishing's overall profit. It'd be a very, very rough estimate, but if anyone cared to sit down and compile the data it wouldn't be that hard. To time consuming for me to want to bother with it, but someone could.

So they pay for an office, it, editorial, a board, pre production, advertising, licensing dept, press dept, about 200 artists and writers and all their royalty payments out of $10m.... yes of course they do.

They wrote two cheques of $250000 each to gibbons and moore just to get before watchmen off the ground.

Jim lee charges 250k for a commission- hes not sat on that DC board earning chump change

[Holt]

Well if people get put off because the character in the comics doesn't share the same color as the character in the cartoon, that probably says something more about those people than the publisher in this particular instance.

I didn't see what you were responding to, but my point was less about skin color and more that I don't think that's terribly relevant to WB as a whole because comics haven't actually been able to turn movie popularity into more readers. The comics not matching the movies isn't a big deal because the comics are chump change in the grand scheme of things. Like Ascended mentioned, the true value Marvel and DC have to their parent companies are as IP farms.

[superduperman]

Kids aren't stupid. They know the difference between the main books and the kiddie books, and they want to read the main books. But the main books haven't been written for kids in 20 years. To use Dan DiDio's own words, the main books are for 45 year olds, and the Scooby-Doo books are for kids. If you really want kids to get back into comics, do what Marvel and DC did from the Golden Age up until the DiDio/Quesada years and make the main books accessible to kids. And that doesn't mean dumb them down and turn them into kiddie books. It means write each book as if it were someone's first, tell timeless "hero vs. villain" stories with characters kids can relate to, and - most importantly - sell the books in places where kids have access to them at prices they can afford.

I honestly don't think kids want a monthly book they have to keep buying to get a complete story. It makes sense to set up a line that makes actual books aimed at kids. Manga is huge among teenagers because it doesn't require a monthly investment. You buy the books as they come out in complete volumes. If you think that we can get kids with the same model we have now, I disagree. I think we need to use what they are already use to.

[Vampire Savior]

Well if people get put off because the character in the comics doesn't share the same color as the character in the cartoon, that probably says something more about those people than the publisher in this particular instance.

And what it says about the people is that they're looking for characters they know and recognize.
Also, I said nothing about people sharing the same color as anyone, so don't even attempt to put that on me.

[Holt]

We've repeatedly had the discussion about trades being a more viable source of getting comics to kids and teens, but I think the price is still an issue there too. Especially when you compare it to your average manga collection, which offers more content at a cheaper price point.