New interview with Dan Didio and the state of the industry

[ohfellow]

When he said you only have to know the first appearance and last appearance of a given character, I was like "wow, no wonder DC doesn't have any sort of handle on its continuity right now."

I might be misremembering this, so correct me if I am wrong, but I thought DiDio was talking about how Marvel handled continuity. That as long as the character is basically true to the origin and true to the last appearance, it doesn't matter what happened in between, and I guess he was implying that's what Marvel does and is where he is suggesting DC has failed.

Doesn't make complete sense, because if each appearance was consistent with the last one, then by definition all would be true to the origin.

I didn't even know Marvel had alt universes until recently, so can't say how they do their continuity. Cap was frozen in ice; it's a different Human Torch. Is anyone else but Namor left over from the Golden Age? (And how is his endurance explained?)

(Apologies if this is a double-post. I thought I posted it hours ago but don't see it here.)

[Zero Hunter]

As someone who has been around for long enough to remember when I could go to the shop and fill up on .75 cent comics the ever rising price has been a major factor in me leaving the hobby. The higher the price went the fewer I found myself buying. For me the true tipping point when when comics went from probably 2.50 to 3.00. Before that I could go and and pick up 8 comics for a 20 dollar bill which I never batted an eye at. A lot of times I would pick up 30 or 40 bucks a week worth and have a fat stack of new books to read. Then the price kept on going up, and I started having to pick and choose more and more what I was reading so instead of getting 8 or 10 books a week I was getting maybe 3 or 4. That meant new books that in the past I would have probably picked up to take a look at got left on the shelf and it is all about cost.

[scary harpy]

When he said you only have to know the first appearance and last appearance of a given character, I was like "wow, no wonder DC doesn't have any sort of handle on its continuity right now."

I might be misremembering this, so correct me if I am wrong, but I thought DiDio was talking about how Marvel handled continuity. That as long as the character is basically true to the origin and true to the last appearance, it doesn't matter what happened in between, and I guess he was implying that's what Marvel does and is where he is suggesting DC has failed.

Doesn't make complete sense, because if each appearance was consistent with the last one, then by definition all would be true to the origin.

I didn't even know Marvel had alt universes until recently, so can't say how they do their continuity. Cap was frozen in ice; it's a different Human Torch. Is anyone else but Namor left over from the Golden Age? (And how is his endurance explained?)

Didio was talking about Marvel's continuity; he said Marvel did it right.

He could be correct; I don't follow Marvel so I don't know.

I follow DC; I know DC does it wrong.

[Godlike13]

I agreed with him about character stagnation, but what DC seems to overlook is creator stagnation. You can try shake things up with a big changes to a character, but when you have an over reliance on old creators with formulaic and stagnate styles it undermines the whole thing. You just end up with **** like Ric.

[skyvolt2000]

I agreed with him about character stagnation, but what DC seems to overlook is creator stagnation. You can try shake things up with a big changes to a character, but when you have an over reliance on old creators with formulaic and stagnate styles it undermines the whole thing. You just end up with **** like Ric.

Well FANS have to be willing to give new blood a shot versus some of the nasty behavior to some we have seen.

BEFORE they even get to start on the book.

Fans (and ESPECIALLY retailers) have to be willing to give all writers a shot once the work comes out. And that includes those of different races and sexual orientation.

Lodbell gets shots because no matter how bad he might do-depending on who the book is about-he won't hurt sales.

[married guy]

Say what you will, he's such a likable bastard. I'd love to have a beer with him sometime.

This!
While I don't agree with a lot of his business decisions, he really does seem like a good bloke. Would definitely shout him a pint

[scary harpy]

Say what you will, he's such a likable bastard. I'd love to have a beer with him sometime.

This!
While I don't agree with a lot of his business decisions, he really does seem like a good bloke. Would definitely shout him a pint

It was his business decisions that affected what I read...and my favorite characters.

[Ascended]

It was his business decisions that affected what I read...and my favorite characters.

Yeah, but he still seems like a real likable guy. Has nothing to do with his business acumen but he still seems like a decent dude.

Don't get me wrong, if I got the opportunity I'd be all "Nightwing!! The f*ck??!! Why???!!!!" but he seems like that fun uncle who always tells good stories and lets you drink a beer before you're old enough.

[Pinsir]

Me to. BTW love your avatar Jar Jar on steroids.

Thanks! My avatar is the true face of Jar Jar!

[Ascended]

Thanks! My avatar is the true face of Jar Jar!

You have no idea how much that avatar creeps me out.

[PennyDreadful]

He’s not wrong about Rebirth being nostalgia bait, but when you bait people in with the promise that things will be similar to the status quo they like only to drop that midway and do a complete 180, of course people are going to be mad. Should’ve just gave Wally his wife and kids and let him sit on the sidelines until someone had a story for him.

And yes I agree with Didio that DC does need to do new things, but Didio is guilty of running in circles himself. Killing off Titans, telling events where “the villains win!” is the main premise, how many times have we seen this stories. Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Forever Evil, Year of the Villain, they’ve all got the same basic plot of “the villains win and the heroes have to come back somehow”. Didio can see the problem but he wasn’t exactly fixing the problem.

I mean good God man, how many events with the goal of fixing continuity can we get before you realize something needs to change? Either embrace the insanity like Marvel and just ignore the contradictions or go back to the Carlin days when DC was utterly anal about continuity.

DiDio was also the one who wanted to bring back "iconic" versions of heroes he read about as a kid. And he's talking about the company needing to try new things? Wow. Could the pot call the kettle any blacker?

[kjn]

DiDio was also the one who wanted to bring back "iconic" versions of heroes he read about as a kid. And he's talking about the company needing to try new things? Wow. Could the pot call the kettle any blacker?

What I believe is that DiDio's ideas on marketing and on narratives were near-constantly at odds with each other.

[sunofdarkchild]

I've felt that Didio is a good marketing guy but who was terrible on creative decisions and especially at writing. But with all the contradictory things that have been said over the years it's impossible to know what's true. Overall I think he did more harm than good to DC and its brand. I think consistent bad decisions and mistakes by DC editorial in the 2000s are what ultimately led to the decline in the quality of the writing and the rut that caused the 2011 reboot.

[RJT]

I totally disagree with Dan Didio on the consumer being price insensitive. I purchase the comics I really like, and read the rest online for free, because I do not want to be paying $50.00 dollars a month to be reading 12 series, and I am an older comic reader, so what does that mean for young teenage readers?

If your 14 years old, and you can only afford three titles a month, is that going to be enough to entice you into the DC universe, than say the teenagers of the 80's and 90's who could easily afford ten titles? Small wonder there is so many middle aged comic fans.

Plus he openly states that they have less of a casual reader because of distribution, and implicitly states that prices are higher to make up for that shortfall. I'm a casual reader, not a collector!!! I read everything digitized, comics take up space and are not worth much collector wise today. If there were creative minds at DC thinking about how they can expand distribution, than they would probably have a lot more casual readers!

I really hope Didio's thinking is not the status quo at DC and Marvel, because if it is, lights out for comics.

The thing is there were two separate times under Didio’s tenure where DC made a point of lowering their prices—in 2010 they did the “Holding the Line at $2.99” campaign after having raised prices on some books to $3.99 (and Marvel offering the majority of its line at $3.99, and again in 2016 with Rebirth where all the regular titles (both monthlies and bi-weeklies) were dropped to $2.99 (although the monthly books jumped up to $3.99 about six months in.) DC kept those bi-weekly books at $2.99 for over two years, including the best-selling ongoing book in the industry,Batman. When in the Summer of 2018 DC raised the price on those biweeklies to $3.99 there wasn’t a substantial, higher than standard attrition drop in the sales of those titles.

All of that to say that if Didio says that consumers are relatively price insensitive, he probably has the data to back that up. While all consumers would like cheaper comics, making them cheaper doesn’t necessarily make consumers purchase more of them. Obviously there is an upper limit (and since Marvel has been at $3.99 for about a decade now, maybe $3.99 is that upper limit) but it’s probably most likely that if comics prices dropped by say 25%, the net effect would be that most readers’ monthly spending would drop by that amount instead of their pull lists increasing—they’ll just keep buying more or less the same number of titles, just spending less on them.

[SiegePerilous02]

DiDio was also the one who wanted to bring back "iconic" versions of heroes he read about as a kid. And he's talking about the company needing to try new things? Wow. Could the pot call the kettle any blacker?

What's weird is he'll say the iconic stuff, but then have the Teen Titans in the New 52 be the YJ kids in horrible Tron outfits and not the actual Teen Titans. Because they are not even close to the iconic lineup for that property.

Ditto Babs being back as Batgirl, but Dick wasn't Robin. Like be consistent with it at least.