DC's real problem

[cranger]

I think the problem is over reaching fans. . .

Sometimes something comes up that is an example of bad behaviour that plagues society in general and is somewhat newsworthy. Sometimes it is just someone who went through an experience that did not work out for them and maybe has gotten caught up in the bigger concerns people are having. Either way, it rarely is anything fans have the slightest expertise on to be able to weigh in at all.

Or maybe its just me. I really give 2 flips about what's happening at DC's "office" as long as the stories are great, the charcters are held to SOME kind of stable identity, and that the
books arrive on time. . . It doesn't matter at all what dc is doing outside of that to and end use and its almost to the point that companies need to have a nda and stronger penalties for them.

Someone will disagree, but to that person I say... then give up your cell phone.

There is a reason we never hear bad stories coming from Marvel, and it is not because it is a model of workplace harmony.

[godisawesome]

thats literally how corporate comics work. Every single person working for dc and marvel has that story to tell.

If you dont like it, and literally thousands of creators dont then go write your own work for another publisher.

If yr expecting an invite into event planning or the future direction of a topline character while on trial on a side book... yeah you are grossly over estimating your importance. You are temporary freelance chump until your work proves otherwise and youre going nowhere near highly confidential topline strategy planning to fight off x-men and push the multi billion dollar flagship franchise forward into the next decade. You'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise.

You sound a bit like the speech from Glengarry Glen Ross, insisting that the system works fine and people just need to work harder and be more exceptional at a job where one of the key ingredients to success is at the mercy of someone else who can deny them to you at any moment.

A lot of the big name guys who sell books didn’t get their job by coming on for a short job on a company book and immediately lighting up the sales charts - they either established themselves elsewhere, or have a “patron” looking out for them. And those who have shown potential and done a good job have sometimes been sabotaged and discharged in spite of success out of capricious editorial changes in direction and favoritism (Miller, Percy, Simone.) But to get the chance to build your rep, you need *someone* to let you exploit creative freedom - and if you keep cutting off and denying someone that creative freedom, you’re going to keep them from showing what they can really do.

And a strictly logistical standpoint, you’d want everyone present just to cut down on wasted work, troubleshoot more ideas from more perspectives, and figure out what things out and others can do to make the overall product stronger. Excluding members of the creative staff is a needless exercise in power-tripping and micro-management.

[skyvolt2000]

thats literally how corporate comics work. Every single person working for dc and marvel has that story to tell.

If you dont like it, and literally thousands of creators dont then go write your own work for another publisher.

If yr expecting an invite into event planning or the future direction of a topline character while on trial on a side book... yeah you are grossly over estimating your importance. You are temporary freelance chump until your work proves otherwise and youre going nowhere near highly confidential topline strategy planning to fight off x-men and push the multi billion dollar flagship franchise forward into the next decade. You'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise.

Prove your work? A lot of these folks have had success elsewhere. Funny the brick wall seems to only happen at these two places.

What more does Priest have to do to get offer A-list books?

Dwayne McDuffie had a resume and still got passed over while guys like Lodbell, Krul and others flooded the market with badly done books.

Marighread Scott 's resume does NOT read chump. Funny Marvel & Hasbro don't have issues with her. Nor does DC animation. She has done more than the guy ruining Nightwing right now.


She was NOT talking about telling folks what do, she wanted to be there so she knew what changes may need to be done to Batgirl. To stay within the company line. Was her book going to be needed? What could she write and could not write to prevent spoilers or inconsistencies.

Maybe to prevent that a change in corporate comics is needed.

Because what is going on now is not working and the competition is taking advantage.

[skyvolt2000]

Sometimes something comes up that is an example of bad behaviour that plagues society in general and is somewhat newsworthy. Sometimes it is just someone who went through an experience that did not work out for them and maybe has gotten caught up in the bigger concerns people are having. Either way, it rarely is anything fans have the slightest expertise on to be able to weigh in at all.


There is a reason we never hear bad stories coming from Marvel, and it is not because it is a model of workplace harmony.

Because most folks just say screw it and leave.

Which is what most are doing.

companies need to have a nda and stronger penalties for them.

Word of mouth would still get around even if names are not tossed out there.

When you create a hostile enviroment all that does eventually lead into that final product be it a book or movie or tv show.

Because while that Batman story might be great-there waas probably someone who could have done better. yet because of the enviroment never came.

That is why folks say the culture in some of these places need to change.

I should never have to keep folks away from you because of your antics. If I have to do that maybe you need to be the one to go.

Someone will disagree, but to that person I say... then give up your cell phone.

Here it is.

Now what? Where is YOURS?

[cranger]

Because most folks just say screw it and leave.

Which is what most are doing.

I was pointing out the rumor/whatever that Marvel has creators sign a contract that prevents them from bad mouthing the company.

And this is not new. DC New 52 is famous for editors telling writers (and artists) what to do and then the talent eventually getting fed up with it. George Perez had enough of it, and if no one stood up for that guy, who was Scott expecting to have the clout to fight for her?

[kjn]

I was pointing out the rumor/whatever that Marvel has creators sign a contract that prevents them from bad mouthing the company.

And this is not new. DC New 52 is famous for editors telling writers (and artists) what to do and then the talent eventually getting fed up with it. George Perez had enough of it, and if no one stood up for that guy, who was Scott expecting to have the clout to fight for her?

NDAs are blatantly misused throughout business. They have their place, but that place is probably at about 1% of what they have right now. They should most definitely not come out from a place of gross power disparity.

And Scott is not complaining about having to write to spec—that's something any franchise writer needs to do. But she was denied the chance to network with her peers—the writers of other Bat titles—and chat with her various bosses. She was denied the chance to get early warning on how DC's plans would impact her own titles. She was denied the chance to pitch her own ideas in the same way as her peers, and to give her input on DC's plans.

What DC said was basically that she could only be a small exchangable cog within their machine, with no way to grow.

[cranger]

NDAs are blatantly misused throughout business. They have their place, but that place is probably at about 1% of what they have right now. They should most definitely not come out from a place of gross power disparity.

And Scott is not complaining about having to write to spec—that's something any franchise writer needs to do. But she was denied the chance to network with her peers—the writers of other Bat titles—and chat with her various bosses. She was denied the chance to get early warning on how DC's plans would impact her own titles. She was denied the chance to pitch her own ideas in the same way as her peers, and to give her input on DC's plans.

What DC said was basically that she could only be a small exchangable cog within their machine, with no way to grow.

I do not disagree with the first or last part. I only hesitate to jump to conclusions about why she was excluded, and I think the middle paragraph is a little dramatic, to be quite honest.

[Godlike13]

"You know the day I knew I’d never be able to make it big in comics? The day I bumped into another writer in an airport and accidentally learned he was heading to DC’s Burbank"

Maybe you should have realised it was when you couldnt take one of DCs underperforming characters and make the book a break out and add good numbers to sales....?

Or maybe you could have thought... you know what im not doing much at DC, I will try making a go of my own original work somewhere.

But no.. its because someone who managed an unremarkable run of 13 issues of batgirl couldnt attend the summit on the future of the line...

Welcome to art world.. you live and die by your sales and you didnt have much going on.

You should actually take a look at Batgirl's numbers before and after Scott took over.

[iron chimp]

Prove your work? A lot of these folks have had success elsewhere. Funny the brick wall seems to only happen at these two places.

What more does Priest have to do to get offer A-list books?

Dwayne McDuffie had a resume and still got passed over while guys like Lodbell, Krul and others flooded the market with badly done books.

Marighread Scott 's resume does NOT read chump. Funny Marvel & Hasbro don't have issues with her. Nor does DC animation. She has done more than the guy ruining Nightwing right now.


She was NOT talking about telling folks what do, she wanted to be there so she knew what changes may need to be done to Batgirl. To stay within the company line. Was her book going to be needed? What could she write and could not write to prevent spoilers or inconsistencies.

Maybe to prevent that a change in corporate comics is needed.

Because what is going on now is not working and the competition is taking advantage.

Im setting up my summer event planning. Only people allowed through that door are exclusively contracted writers. Freelancers... yeah i will be telling you what you need to do to set up yr book for my event. Beyond that... strictly confidential. If you want to be in the meeting youre going to have fight your way past 100s of other people to get an exclusive contract.

Sorry but anyone who's expecting to hear marvel or dcs long term strategic planning or summer event plot as a freelancer is an idiot. You could just walk into oppositions office and tell them everything.

My pull list isnt a charity either... its got hernandez bros, o'malley, wood on lockdown. The rest of it though... its your job to push someone off my list and put your name on instead

[iron chimp]

You should actually take a look at Batgirl's numbers before and after Scott took over.

You are right. She added 50% (i looked at issues 20 and 35) and took a book from an absolute shambles to chronically underperforming.

Adding readers is no joke - it is not easy - but the base level beforehand was a complete carcrash and at the end of yr run youve left me with 25k readers. Im looking for twice that. I can find any number of people to sell that few copies for me.

[Godlike13]

You are right. She added 50% (i looked at issues 20 and 35) and took a book from an absolute shambles to chronically underperforming.

Adding readers is no joke - it is not easy - but the base level beforehand was a complete carcrash and at the end of yr run youve left me with 25k readers. Im looking for twice that. I can find any number of people to sell that few copies for me.

Oh they can, is that why they have had to get the likes of Jurgan's and Lobdell to fill out the Bat line and have fed them even more work. Lobdell's book is consistently one of the line's lowest sellers, and yet he still can influence awful decisions like Ric. Where under Scott Batgirl became one of the bat line's top non Batman starring books, from being one of its lowest, and she couldn't even get a seat at the table.

[iron chimp]

You sound a bit like the speech from Glengarry Glen Ross, insisting that the system works fine and people just need to work harder and be more exceptional at a job where one of the key ingredients to success is at the mercy of someone else who can deny them to you at any moment.

A lot of the big name guys who sell books didn’t get their job by coming on for a short job on a company book and immediately lighting up the sales charts - they either established themselves elsewhere, or have a “patron” looking out for them. And those who have shown potential and done a good job have sometimes been sabotaged and discharged in spite of success out of capricious editorial changes in direction and favoritism (Miller, Percy, Simone.) But to get the chance to build your rep, you need *someone* to let you exploit creative freedom - and if you keep cutting off and denying someone that creative freedom, you’re going to keep them from showing what they can really do.

And a strictly logistical standpoint, you’d want everyone present just to cut down on wasted work, troubleshoot more ideas from more perspectives, and figure out what things out and others can do to make the overall product stronger. Excluding members of the creative staff is a needless exercise in power-tripping and micro-management.

Thats the battle working in corporate comics. Grant morrisons debut issue of doom patrol was in the middle of a line wide crossover. Good luck with that... but he completely nailed it and letters pages are immediately highly enthusiastic after 1 issue from an unknown.

Its those people who get the contracts and get to walk through the big door into the high level meetings. Everyone else is just churning out genre fiction.

Yr going to get dealt bad hands in corporate comics. Thats part of the game. How you play that hand is going to make or break you. Play a bad hand exceptionally well and youre on yr way. Play it badly and yeah... i got 100 people knocking on my door believing they could play it better.

As for big names... its a huge spectrum. Alan moore started doing 3 page future shocks in 2000ad. 2000ad still holds open submissions today for future shocks. You and i could do it.... others had a lot easier path.

[Ra-El]

Oh they can, is that why they have had to get the likes of Jurgan's and Lobdell to fill out the Bat line and fed them even more work. Lobdell's book is one of the consistently lowest sellers in that line, and he still can influence awful decisions like Ric. Where under Scott Batgirl became one of the bat line's top non Batman starring book and she couldn't even get a seat at the table.

On this particular case, I don't think it have much to do with sex. The problem is that DC allows, specially on the Batman books, the star writers to make big changes that will afect character under other less powerful writers. Look at what happened with Ben Percy, a white man, he was coming from a really good and well received Green Arrow run to Nightwing, by all he was saying at the time, it was a dream job and he was full of plans for the character... then Tom King decided that Batman needed some pain and Dick Grayson gets shot by freakin KGBeast and all of Percy plans go to the dumpster. I don't know who had the idea of Ric, but it wasn't the writer of Nightwing and he was pissed by it.
This is problem apears to be real bad on the Batman tittles, not some much on the Superman side of things, probably because DC puts their top tier creators, the ones that can move comics on name alone on the Bat books, while the Superman line, the only other dominated by a single character, usually don't get the hottest writers.
On the Marvel side, this is probably less frequent, because, the franchises that carries the most books are Spider-Man and X-Men, on the Spider books, while Peter is top dog, he doesn't have the same in universe influence over the other spider characters that Batman have on Bat character, and X-Men is above all team books, and usually all writers come already having a idea of the currrent direction.

[cranger]

You should actually take a look at Batgirl's numbers before and after Scott took over.

The book saw a bump before she got on because of the Middleton covers with the first big jump at issue #24. Issue #25 was a landmark issue, there was a weird spike a couple issues later, but we see it trending right back down to around 28K or so 5 or 6 issues into her run and stay around there until 2 issues after she is done. There is no noticeable drop after she leaves, the drop occurs when Middleton stops doing the variants.

Coincidence? Maybe. But considering the final issue of Middleton's variants outsold the regular cover at $1 more a piece, I think it is safe to say that played a wee bit in the sales numbers increasing.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Im setting up my summer event planning. Only people allowed through that door are exclusively contracted writers. Freelancers... yeah i will be telling you what you need to do to set up yr book for my event. Beyond that... strictly confidential. If you want to be in the meeting youre going to have fight your way past 100s of other people to get an exclusive contract.

Sorry but anyone who's expecting to hear marvel or dcs long term strategic planning or summer event plot as a freelancer is an idiot. You could just walk into oppositions office and tell them everything.

Make all line wide creators exclusive, or simply trust writers they hire. This isn't about Blue Beetle, she was writing a Bat book, she should get a say in her own book, be able to connect with other writers in her own line and be on the ground floor for the future direction of the brand. If those writers at the summit torpedo a successful storyline Batgirl had with readers for their latest event it wouldn't her fault, it would be theirs. They'd have sabotaged her title!

Corporate structures are inherently unfair, they're also notorious for sabotaging their own business when it's a "Boys Club."

My pull list isnt a charity either... its got hernandez bros, o'malley, wood on lockdown. The rest of it though... its your job to push someone off my list and put your name on instead

That's difficult to do when their own editors and fellow writers are sabotaging their work without their input.