DC Hires Former Esports Exec Daniel Cherry as GM, Adjusts Jim Lee's Role

[numberthirty]

I'll at least give him and the two new ladies a chance at righting the ship.
How much worse could we get, really?
Just slap an 'Under New Management' sticker on it and people who quit reading DC will take notice.

I did find myself thinking something like "Well, what are they going to do? Screw things up worse than they already are?"

[Frontier]

As for Lee's new responsibilities, DC said "Lee will bring his unmatched creativity, passion and innate knowledge of the DC characters and canon to the company’s efforts to evolve the brand and create relevance for new audiences around the world."

because I have no idea about Jim Lee's knowledge on DC canon. I only know him as an artist, and he's the one who will be in charge of translating comic canon to the outside.

So essentially Lee will tell others adapting these characters in movies, tv, games Batman would do this wouldn't do that etc.

Wasn't that basically Johns' old job?

[Lee Stone]

Wasn't that basically Johns' old job?

It’s sort of like a ‘phasing them out’ position.
Well, maybe not really... but it could be...

[Aahz]

Everyone keeps speculating that AT &T could close the comics division and just license their characters out to other publishers.

I still think that it would be on the long run a bad move, to licence out the comics, even if they don't make money.
They are the core of the IP, and the plots of movies, shows and games are often based on them. Giving up the control over the comics might bite them in the butt on the long run, and they might have to pay to use storylines an characters created by an external publisher.

And what ever the comics devision looses in money is probably peanuts for AT&T.

[Vordan]

Wasn't that basically Johns' old job?

Yeah that was what a Chief Creative Officer was for. Lee being that guy now is not ideal at all. He’s never struck me as having a great handle on the characterization of DC characters. Hope he pushes for Kenan to show up elsewhere though, since he was the guy who came to Yang with that original idea.

[HAN9000]

DC is doomed. This guy is horribly inept and lacked the intelligence in governing and marketing. He did a shitty job at Blizzard. AT&T is literarily picking up a manager from trash can.

[Restingvoice]

Wasn't that basically Johns' old job?

I think so, and with Johns, I know what I'm getting. When he advises on movie or TV, we get Wonder Woman daughter of Zeus back story and Max Lord as a villain, Aquaman is mainly New 52 lore, Cyborg in Justice League, and T-shirt Superboy in Titans. Those are all his works. With Lee, I can't guess.

[Gaastra]

DC is doomed. This guy is horribly inept and lacked the intelligence in governing and marketing. He did a shitty job at Blizzard. AT&T is literarily picking up a manager from trash can.

Wait, is this is the same guy who did the fallout 76 mess? DC is in big trouble if it's him.

[Johnrevenge]

Wait, is this is the same guy who did the fallout 76 mess? DC is in big trouble if it's him.

What happened with fallout 76? Just for curiosity.

[iron chimp]

If your core readership isn't enough t keep most of your line above 50K in sales, you've already broken the company. What's happening now is a last gasp effort to transition the business model to see if they can find a large enough audience to make it sustainable, because the direct market is now too small to be a sustainable business model and DC is just the first company to admit this reality and react to it. Whether they succeed or not is uncertain, but this move won't break the company, the direct market and the business model that caters to it to the exclusion of other markets is already broken.

-M

Its only like that though because dc and marvel came into the shops, steamrollered everyone else off the sheĺves and over time replaced a very diverse direct market with 120 superhero books a month between them. Its the pair of them that turned the shops into their private fiefdom and now its only the hardcore genre readers that use them

It went from people having their own publishing companies in their bedrooms to warners and disney to whatever its supposed to be today.... theres nothing there for huge swathes of the population because dc only want to reskin and recycle their "ip" endlessly rather than actually do what a publisher is supposed to do which is publish new works of fiction.

Direct market is a stagnant mess but its only a reflection of the duopoly that owns the shelves. It shrunk to DCs own tiny conception of what it should be

[skyvolt2000]

What happened with fallout 76? Just for curiosity.

Seen the issues were mainly with the product itself in terms of gameplay and what was suppose to be included in exclusive packages.

And Fallout 76 was done by Bethesda Game Studios and Todd Howard is over that.

This guy is horribly inept and lacked the intelligence in governing and marketing. He did a shitty job at Blizzard

Care to elaborate???

Where is this evidence of him being inept?

Where is this evidence of a lack of intelligence in governing?

What marketing campaigns did he screw up?



Or is the fact he mention John Stewart Green Lantern-has the Hal Jordan fandom upset before he even starts?

[Fergus]

Seen the issues were mainly with the product itself in terms of gameplay and what was suppose to be included in exclusive packages.

And Fallout 76 was done by Bethesda Game Studios and Todd Howard is over that.





Care to elaborate???

Where is this evidence of him being inept?

Where is this evidence of a lack of intelligence in governing?

What marketing campaigns did he screw up?



Or is the fact he mention John Stewart Green Lantern-has the Hal Jordan fandom upset before he even starts?

Cherry has a solid track record and is considered a Beast. The guy is known as The Warrior. inept he isn't.

[skyvolt2000]

Its only like that though because dc and marvel came into the shops, steamrollered everyone else off the sheĺves and over time replaced a very diverse direct market with 120 superhero books a month between them. Its the pair of them that turned the shops into their private fiefdom and now its only the hardcore genre readers that use them

If your core readership isn't enough t keep most of your line above 50K in sales, you've already broken the company. What's happening now is a last gasp effort to transition the business model to see if they can find a large enough audience to make it sustainable, because the direct market is now too small to be a sustainable business model and DC is just the first company to admit this reality and react to it.

As Iron Chimp said who flooded the market???

WHO has chosen to pander to that hardcore reader???

While in REALITY 25 Batman books and over 5 variant covers on a title is NOT healthy. It's in in this market because SOMEONE is buying them.

A market that has ZERO issue with 25 batman book taking up space and leaving large piles of unsold books for bins.

A market that does 2nd-7th printings while first printings are still on shelves.

A market that will BLAME a book called Moon Girl or Ms Marvel for business being down. If Moon Girl average 10K and we have 2,000 comic book stores-that would be 2 copies per store.
Batman averages say 100K each store gets 50. He sells 40. Who is going to leave the bigger pile of unsold books? For BINS? Not Moon Girl. Yet why is she blamed?

A market that says a book starring all girls can't sell when marvel & Dc tries. Yet Lumberjanes is at 75 issues.

A market that can show self control and NOT order all 6 variants of the 60+ issue run of Zombie Tramp. Yet will order (while complaining ) about all those Eternal variants coming in November.

Meanwhile all those other companies Iron Chimp mentioned are KILLING the trade & OGN market. Selling the very stuff the direct market said couldn't sell.

If Cherry can get a property NOT linked to Batman to be a success-he did his job.

No excuse Wonder Woman and Aquaman can't grow because the direct market says they can't.

[DrNewGod]

Everyone keeps speculating that AT &T could close the comics division and just license their characters out to other publishers. I don't feel like they are to that level of problems yet. But if sales decline to a certain point it could happen. Marvel did it with Image for Heroes Reborn. Thankfully that didn't last.

I could conceivably see AT&T licensing DC comics production other houses, but who? Who has the talent and production capacity that isn't either owned by, or neck-deep in cahoots with a WB competitor?

[Johnrevenge]

If Cherry can get a property NOT linked to Batman to be a success-he did his job.

I specially agree with this part.