Layoffs at DC?

[Anthony W]

Eerily similar to the proposed Marvel merger in the 80s. The WB top brass were only interested in the bigger fish like adaptations and merchandise and wanted to license the actual comic production of DC's characters to Marvel.

Wonder if they'd try the same for someone like Boom or IDW (since Marvel is obviously out of the question).

IDW? Are they healthy enough for that?

[Anthony W]

I'm slightly concerned too, given that half the current reading base of comics overall are mature readers who seek mature content. I mean, even in the movies: look at Joker. That's a movie aimed to grown ups. Or even Wonder Woman; that's a movie for teens, not kids. And teen content tends to go into mature territory at times (violence and themes wise at least). I support focusing a bit more in content aimed for kids, they definitely need new readers and you need to work that base from the start as it is now. But, eh... You definitely need to put as much focus in the current reading base as well; and also, I guess, you have to look for new readers in that target that could come from side media, like games or, I don't know, webtoons or manga or whatever. It's a matter of balancing and look for readers in the right places, in my opinion.

But I'm also not an expert in bushiness, at all; so, welp, I don't know what I'm talking about, really.

Well, some of the greatest comic stories ever were written under the Comics Code.

[Lee Stone]

Well, some of the greatest comic stories ever were written under the Comics Code.

Some people forget that.

Censorship is never good, but sometimes guidelines and restrictions can be very helpful. Because they make you step outside of the box creatively.

Twilight Zone would likely not be as endearing as it's been if Serling wasn't forced to use sci-fi and fantasy proxies for the stories he wanted to tell.

[Anthony W]

Somewhere, Todd McFarlane just did a fist pump.

Congratulations! You just won post of the day!

[iron chimp]

Going back a bit in the thread to when it was discussing how OGNs might be this pathway for lesser characters to get their own stories, it is true that DC is going to, and has already, started to put more time and money into new OGN stories, but over the last couple of years superhero GN and trade sales have really tanked. So while GNs as a whole are growing massively, because of the kid and teen markets the that DC and Marvel abandoned years ago, traditional superhero GNs from publishers like DC, Marvel and Image have fallen off. Obviously DC is making more OGNs aimed at kids to try and get a foot back into that market, but I'm not really sure what it all means going forward. Where if the lack of single issue sales for these OGNs can really make them viable continuously and if these lesser characters can really find a pathway to get their own stories if DC starts putting more focus on OGNs after the restructuring changes.

Like the Mister Miracle series by Tom King is an interesting example. It moved hundreds of thousands of copies of single issues through the direct market during its run. It got loads of press, won awards, and DC promoted the crap out of it, but then when it was collected in a GN it sold 11K copies. 11K copies for a superhero trade is good, especially given that it collected all 12 issues I think, but if that is how much it sold after all the attention it got because of its original single issue run I wonder if the book could have been viable if it just got released as a completed OGN book. I don't know.

People mentioned the Raven OGN that sold well from DC's former INK Imprint line. It apparently sold 43K copies in 2019 (thanks Hibbs' bookscan article for the numbers) which was good enough to be DC's second highest selling GN for 2019 only behind Watchmen, but the next highest selling book from that former Ink Imprint line was a Catwoman book called Under The Moon: A Catwoman Tale which couldn't crack 5K in sales. Then if you look at the list of DC's top selling GNs for 2019 it is all older Batman stories, a few new Batman stories, Alen Moore work, and maybe a Flash or a GL book in there. I know in 2020 there were a lot more books released similar to the Raven one, but I wonder if Raven will be more of an outlier because of how popular her character is because of the cartoons or if these OGNs are a viable way to release stories for these characters that can't carry an ongoing title.

This is a good post.

Most worrying is if Watchmen is still their highest selling trade in 2019. The irony is Alan probably wouldnt even be hired today and watchmen wouldnt get published.

[iron chimp]

Some people forget that.

Censorship is never good, but sometimes guidelines and restrictions can be very helpful. Because they make you step outside of the box creatively.

Twilight Zone would likely not be as endearing as it's been if Serling wasn't forced to use sci-fi and fantasy proxies for the stories he wanted to tell.

Who wants some self appointed moral guardians of walmarts shelves telling you what you can and cant read.

It happens every time comics go into populus because they are most easily consumed art.

Who thinks oh yeah you know who i like - Alan Moore - but unfettered alan moore just isnt creative enough so it would be better to impose a load of rules on him.

I know what youre saying but that argument doesnt stand up at all. Novelists dont have to put up with it - i dont see why comics writers should either.

[hero talk]

I've only skimmed the articles so I may have missed details, and while I have a business degree, I don't deal with corporations and they have a different set of rules for some things. That said, my knee-jerk reaction (having not taken any time to deeply consider anything) is this;

All the print stuff is being rolled into a single production arm, so the people who make the kid books, the YA novels and OGN's, and monthly floppies will all be under the same chain of command. That's not a bad thing, in and of itself. We're being told the floppy line will be cut down, so the monthly books featuring the Big Names will stick around while most everything else gets cut. So books like Action, Flash, 'Tec, and Wonder Woman will remain while titles like Outsiders and Hawkman will be cut. Titles like Superman/Batman, Supergirl, and Nightwing might survive on a case-by-case basis.

So that basically means we won't have more Batman books on the shelf, but there will be less of everything else. Hell, if I read it right and they cut 40% of the line, it likely means less Batman too, though Bat books and books with Batman in them will likely end up as a larger percentage of DC's output than what we have already.

DC's creator bullpen is going to shrink, and only the best selling creators or those who get in good with the boss will remain. So people like Snyder and Taylor and Bendis are probably sticking around, but lesser known creators are likely gonna be left behind.

When the dust settles, this might mean more DC focused OGN's, novels, and kids books, and while the usual suspects like the Trinity will still see plenty of action here, the loss of the floppies likely means we'll see a little extra effort put into secondary characters; the company won't want to leave these characters in limbo for too long and many IP's have already proven they have value in these non-LCS markets, like Raven who had a OGN that sold quite well in bookstores. So, we might lose (for example) Nightwing's monthly book but may get a Nightwing OGN instead.

For the immediate future, we'll see less of everything. In my level of business you don't make cuts like this and then launch a big new initiative or keep the same number of products in the system, and I imagine it's the same with the big corporations. But once the economy stops falling apart, DC/WB/AT&T will likely push out as much new content as they can get away with, with a wider range of characters and IP's so they can start recovering their bank accounts.

Doyle being let go likely means the end of Black Label, but we may still see some books *like* Black Label in the bookstores, as OGN's.

Jim Lee's new position sounds like a consultation to me, I feel like he'll be there to help ensure the bookstore people understand what the LCS audience wants.

I suspect we'll see a push into digital books, as there are a lot of cost saving measures there and you can potentially reach a much wider audience. At a guess, they'll handle this differently than they have their previous digital-first books; that's a market that plateaued quickly and remains well below floppy and bookstore sales, so if DC wants to succeed here they need to change their game a lot.

I think the next year or two (maybe longer) will have fewer books on the shelf at both the LCS and bookstore levels. We'll probably see a spike in digital first/only titles in 8-12 months, but still fewer comics than we've been used to.

It won't be the end of the world, or the end of comics. Not even the end of DC. They've survived implosions before and will survive this one, if only because they're so valuable as larger media adaptations. But the next year or more is gonna be pretty lean with less to pick from. This may be a massive blow to the LCS, but that'll depend on what other publishers do and whether or not DC fans keep spending money at their shops. The LCS is already in a tough position after quarantine, but if we keep spending as much money as we normally do, the LCS will probably manage to muddle on. If we don't replace our DC pull with other titles then the LCS likely won't survive.

And....I dunno. This isn't my kind of business and I need time to consider all the possible ramifications. But I wouldn't say the sky is falling. DC is not about to be bought by Disney, they're not going to stop making comics completely. They're just going to make a lot fewer comics, likely try to branch into healthier markets with better profit margins, and put more work on fewer shoulders. Focus will continue to shift from the floppy market to digital and bookstores. Basically, this is just the next phase of the trajectory we've been on this year.

Bendis is leaving of his own free will and my thoughts on this is everyone is cutting back less movies are being made less tv shows less games comics were already having a hard time
we've been though this before with dc it was before I was born but at one time there was only batman ww and superman comics with other side stories included inside
compared to that this doesn't look that bad

[hero talk]

Bob Harras was one of the big architects of new 52 and a lot of the grimdark stuff that came after it (alongside Didio who was already doing the grimdark thing for a decade up to that point) right? He was also a big backer of Liefeld and Scott Lobdell if I recall correctly.

wasn't jim lee also part of the new 52?

[Zaresh]

Well, some of the greatest comic stories ever were written under the Comics Code.

By very talented people, for a very different audience with different expectations. Sand I guess some of those works weren't appreciated after the Comic Code was busted.
I wouldn't think it fair, comparing what 60 or so years of publishing produce, compared with 30, imho. Even when those 30 do generated some master pieces.

And then, mature content can be written under the CC. I don't think that the problem is only with gore, nudes or explicit sexual content, but mature content in general. Watchmen or the Dark Knight Returns are pretty mature in my book, and they abide to the CC, right?

[Agent Z]

Who wants some self appointed moral guardians of walmarts shelves telling you what you can and cant read.

It happens every time comics go into populus because they are most easily consumed art.

Who thinks oh yeah you know who i like - Alan Moore - but unfettered alan moore just isnt creative enough so it would be better to impose a load of rules on him.

I know what youre saying but that argument doesnt stand up at all. Novelists dont have to put up with it - i dont see why comics writers should either.

Novelists absolutely do have to put up with it. Pretty much everyone in some form of entertainment does.

[hero talk]

Honestly as well, considering how short-term the sales boost has been from these reboots and relaunches, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the higher ups have just gotten sick and tired of repeating the same broken pattern over and over again. And what really sucks is that they're right. Another relaunch will help things for a few months but it won't make any difference in the long term.

I disagree they need to fix some of the awful work people did like what they did with superman and alfred reboot needs to happen
and they need to get writers that will write things that aren't dark all the time someone like peter with supersons and superman
and the redhood books were good before they went dark to

[HsssH]

Who wants some self appointed moral guardians of walmarts shelves telling you what you can and cant read.

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.

[hero talk]

https://twitter.com/JAMALIGLE/status...44041740275713






Lead by folks who just got done throwing a fit over a variant Wonder Woman cover that is not Wonder Wonder herself.
Folks who have NOT looked at a DC book since the final season of Star Trek The Next Generation.
Folks who have not spent a CENT on a comic since the 1990s.
Folks who will scream (blank) is horrible talent but have NEVER read one of their books.




I would say the bigger question is WHO gets to be used. Which leads to this.....



One issue with that.
How does that work for folks who don't have anything let alone anything of interest to reprint?

Lets say that expanding wants to include anyone from the tv shows.
Thunder and Lightning have not been in comics for now 10 years. Star Girl is just now coming back. In fact how does that help POC & LGBTQIA? The folks who barely have that much to begin with? Or anything significant outside of first appearances.
I mean what could you reprint with say Bumblebee?

I hear folks say we needs to get some big names-no how about get some folks who can WRITE? And give them support and the right books to do. Living and dying by big names is how the good old boy network thrived and comic book stores gate keep.

I'm not sure why you keep bringing up the people who you clearly don't like you shouldn't be giving people you don't like space in your head

[hero talk]

$3.95 or $4.95 for a 22 page comic that takes 2 min to read when for $10 i could buy two floppy comics that would give me 4 min to read then stick it in a box or buy a 200 page manga or used trade and get hours to read and looks great on my bookcase.

Guess what most people would choose.

the trade I know I would

[skyvolt2000]

Who wants some self appointed moral guardians of walmarts shelves telling you what you can and cant read.

I know what youre saying but that argument doesnt stand up at all. Novelists dont have to put up with it - i dont see why comics writers should either.

If someone even TRIED that mess-I would point out to them look at some of those novels.

That make all the Black Line look like amateur hour.
Not to mention some of those DVDS.

Most worrying is if Watchmen is still their highest selling trade in 2019.

Go to Amazon SAME THING. Especially under kids & teens.

It's more telling none of your Rebirth books were top sellers among teens for a good long time. With a 14 year old Johns Green Lantern run & Jeff Smith's Shazam the main sellers.

And Amadeus Cho who no longer has a book & Jane Foster is no longer Thor-are still moving products. And they are beating everyone not named Batman.

That says folks were not happy with your products or they don't know about them.