Layoffs at DC?

[Zaresh]

Would they make more money having Nightwing, Robin, Batwoman and Batgirl stories in one book (I'm thinking 100 pages here) than in separate ones?

lol. Why don't they call it what it really is - video gaming?

It's a bit more than playing videogames, I think. More like competition between videogame players, with payment and stuff.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Would they make more money having Nightwing, Robin, Batwoman and Batgirl stories in one book (I'm thinking 100 pages here) than in separate ones?

America adopting the manga anthology model should have been done years ago.

[HsssH]

As for the current situation... it's not that it is impossible to get something marketable for a younger audience AND clever at the same time. What I have in mind is not Superman Smashes the Klan but rather TV series like Adventure Time, Avatar The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra and - to a degree - Samurai Jack. But in order to get something like this we would need an enlightened management and very clever, creative people like Pendleton Ward or Genndy Tartakovsky, perfectly at ease with experimental, original storytelling both with "standard" and "adult" content. I really don't see something like this coming from current DC, especially if what they are aiming at is mainly the merchandise rather than creating something valuable in the first place.

Sounds like something like that would have to be created outside of AT&T and later just bought by them.

[Konja7]

America adopting the manga anthology model should have been done years ago.

If I'm not mistaken, Action Comics and Detective Comics were originally anthologys (about different superheroes) too.

[The Darknight Detective]

If I'm not mistaken, Action Comics and Detective Comics were originally anthologys (about different superheroes) too.

So were More Fun Comics, Flash Comics, Sensation Comics, All-American Comics, Whiz Comics... and that's not nearly all of them.

[Lvenger]

Condolences to those who've lost their jobs. It's terrible to be unemployed in the current pandemic period and for so many people to lose their jobs so suddenly is terribly unfair. As for DC, this shows how much the pandemic has crippled them. Their organisational structure is non-existent, their long term plans are going to be scrutinised and their ongoing line of comics is going to be stripped down to a bare minimum of popular characters that can still be used in cartoons, TV and movies. I haven't been so disappointed with DC's decisions in my time as a comics fan and this doesn't help.

[scary harpy]

If I'm not mistaken, Action Comics and Detective Comics were originally anthologys (about different superheroes) too.

So were More Fun Comics, Flash Comics, Sensation Comics, All-American Comics, Whiz Comics... and that's not nearly all of them.

I think that was the norm in the 1930s and 1940s.

[Korath]

America adopting the manga anthology model should have been done years ago.

It would fundamentally change the shape of Super-heroes comics if it did, however. No more licenses but authors creating their own long or not - stories.

[The Darknight Detective]

I think that was the norm in the 1930s and 1940s.

That it was. Rising production costs ended all that later on.

[Doctor Kent Nelson]

Is everyone reading the most recent article on Bleeding Cool?

DC Comics Editorial Bloodbath Going On Right Now

UGH! Can Bleeding Cool fit anymore crappy ads onto every damn page of their webpage?

[kjn]

The problem I have whenever people come up with the need for an "adult" label is that the sexual and violent details become the main focus of everybody's attention rather than a byproduct of a more complex, challenging approach.

Thanks for that long and analytical post, Myskin. I'd like to add some bit more to it.

Basically, Black Label as it was executed was rather redundant, creatively speaking, within DC. If the goal was to make the new Vertigo of old, it failed in two ways. One was that the writers generally were the established veterans of DC, so it did not act as a way to bring in and nurture new creative talent or add new creative viewpoints. Another was that the idea of maturity in Black Label was decidedly immature: add sex and violence. And with the "regular" DC being dominated by DCeased Dark Death Metal Nights, more violence didn't really stick out.

In fact, I'd argue that DC Young titles like Catwoman: Under the Moon or The Oracle Code or Rise of the Batgirl all were more mature in their themes and their topics than most Black Label books, dealing as they did head-on with domestic abuse, teen homelessness, disability, and trust.

Imprints can be very good from a publishing sense, but I think Black Label can be viewed as an example on how not build an imprint, Batman Damned or not.

[HsssH]

I think idea was that DC Ink/Young/Kids was for younger readers, DC was for in continuity stuff and Black Label ended up being everything else that didn't fit one of these imprints.

[Myskin]

Thanks for that long and analytical post, Myskin. I'd like to add some bit more to it.

Basically, Black Label as it was executed was rather redundant, creatively speaking, within DC. If the goal was to make the new Vertigo of old, it failed in two ways. One was that the writers generally were the established veterans of DC, so it did not act as a way to bring in and nurture new creative talent or add new creative viewpoints. Another was that the idea of maturity in Black Label was decidedly immature: add sex and violence. And with the "regular" DC being dominated by DCeased Dark Death Metal Nights, more violence didn't really stick out.

In fact, I'd argue that DC Young titles like Catwoman: Under the Moon or The Oracle Code or Rise of the Batgirl all were more mature in their themes and their topics than most Black Label books, dealing as they did head-on with domestic abuse, teen homelessness, disability, and trust.

Imprints can be very good from a publishing sense, but I think Black Label can be viewed as an example on how not build an imprint, Batman Damned or not.

Thanks for the kind words. In general, however, I'd say that my opinion about Black Label is more positive than yours, even if - as I said - I don't think that it was an entirely successful experiment.
IMHO Black Label would have been a success if they had created a Vertigo-esque or Image-like approach to classic superheroes. Especially in terms of storytelling and complexity. What I hoped to see was something akin Gaiman's Black Orchid or DeMatteis' Moonshadow or Miller's Love and War. That's something we partially got - I am thinking of Sorrentino's Killer Smile - but from a certain moment on it became mostly the imprint of Batman books with some vague "explicit" elements.
I understand your point about the writers being veterans of DC rather than new talents though. And I really can't understand what the point of making the White Knight saga a sub-imprint of Black Label was, or even the reason why Last Knight on Earth was there if not for promotional purposes.
Maybe it would have taken some more years to develop the line properly, because I am pretty sure that Mark Doyle had had some good insights when the imprint was created.
I have a vague a familiarity with the works you have mentioned, but they are not what I'd personally like to see in my ideal Black Label imprint. I recognize the quality of the books, but I don't think that dealing with adult issues is necessarily what makes a comic book "mature". I am mostly fine with these themes in YA books anyway (I should point out that works like Adventure Time or Gravity Falls are not significant because of the "mature" themes though), but what I look for "adult" books is mostly experimentation and provocative elements. Which is more or less what I get from Image, just to be clear. My ideal DC imprint would have been more similar to Métal Hurlant or Epic Comics.

[Mr.B]

Here we go...

Most people even on the left aren't far left.

[Vakanai]

If you want to sell in walmart then you'll probably have to care about what they want.


Overall I think that entire "mature" label is not well defined, what it is exactly? Nudity? Curse words? Gore? Serious subjects? I don't really need to see Batman's penis nor someone getting mutilated in a detailed splash page. For example, I think that Superman Smashes the klan tackles rather serious subject, but it has none of these things.

I don't know, Harleen didn't have much swearing, or gore, no nudity, but I still don't know if it could have been done outside of a mature label.