Two Black former editors at DC speak out about obstacles they faced

[Vordan]

Berganza was a hot potato that everyone seemed to be passed back and forth. Levitz, Carlin, Didio, Johns and Nelson all kept him around knowing full-well how toxic he'd made the Superman books for women. Or were at least willfully ignorant about it. Lots of blame to go around.

I remember hearing that part of the problem was that they ordered him to take sensitivity training to keep his job (they should’ve fired him), and once he did that they couldn’t fire him for harassment he had told them about before the training. Of course it turned out he didn’t tell them everything and that’s how he finally got fired.

[OopsIdiditagain]

Is there a way to read this article without subscribing to Business Insider?

Yahoo news

but it's another article reporting based off it

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

Yahoo news

but it's another article reporting based off it

Thanks. That's more than I was able to read every time I clicked on the link to the original article.

So, according to Williams, he and other assistant editors were given new titles to edit in the 90's that were "doomed to fail," only for one of his books to unexpectedly be a success. And that book was Impulse.

Impulse. Was supposed to fail. Doomed to fail.

And people above Williams were unhappy that it succeeded.

And the one person specifically named unhappy about it is Mike Carlin.

Sorry, I'm not trying to distract from the main thrust of the article, which is allegations of racism. But alongside what we already knew about Carlin being a jerk about both books and creators that he apparently loathed, as well as suspicions I've long held that there was/is a corporate hierarchy about which books and characters are supposed to be the most important and therefore successful, and it paints a broader picture of a hostile work environment at DC Comics not just being limited to Dan Didio's tenure.

[skyvolt2000]

Thanks. That's more than I was able to read every time I clicked on the link to the original article.

So, according to Williams, he and other assistant editors were given new titles to edit in the 90's that were "doomed to fail," only for one of his books to unexpectedly be a success. And that book was Impulse.

Impulse. Was supposed to fail. Doomed to fail.

And people above Williams were unhappy that it succeeded.

And the one person specifically named unhappy about it is Mike Carlin.

Sorry, I'm not trying to distract from the main thrust of the article, which is allegations of racism. But alongside what we already knew about Carlin being a jerk about both books and creators that he apparently loathed, as well as suspicions I've long held that there was/is a corporate hierarchy about which books and characters are supposed to be the most important and therefore successful, and it paints a broader picture of a hostile work environment at DC Comics not just being limited to Dan Didio's tenure.

Look up the history of TYroc from Legion. There were editors who did not want blacks in the comics.
Look at Green Lantern Mosaic-when it was axed by an editor who did not care for it-it was one of DC's top to mid sellers according to Cully Hammer.
See Black LIghtning volume 2.

And looking at the books he edited-Hitman, JLA, Starman, Flash, JSA, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman.
Where was he suppose to fail?

JSA??? Who was the writer of that book-JOHNS.
Impulse under Williams had Ethan Van Sciever as the artist and inker.
Now what did those two do with someone named Hal Jordan?

3 of those books folks hold as gold standards of the 90s. Especially JSA.

Harvey Richards he was mainly doing Batman books. He kept getting A listers or books that had strong fan support. Along with kids books.
All the books he failed at were POC lead books-mainly CYborg and Static.
Now the last book he did was Justice League Odyssey.

Excluding POC lead books-his resume does say he should have been promoted more. He kept getting top books.

[4sake Baned]

Look up the history of TYroc from Legion. There were editors who did not want blacks in the comics.
Look at Green Lantern Mosaic-when it was axed by an editor who did not care for it-it was one of DC's top to mid sellers according to Cully Hammer.
See Black LIghtning volume 2.

And looking at the books he edited-Hitman, JLA, Starman, Flash, JSA, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman.
Where was he suppose to fail?

JSA??? Who was the writer of that book-JOHNS.
Impulse under Williams had Ethan Van Sciever as the artist and inker.
Now what did those two do with someone named Hal Jordan?

3 of those books folks hold as gold standards of the 90s. Especially JSA.

Harvey Richards he was mainly doing Batman books. He kept getting A listers or books that had strong fan support. Along with kids books.
All the books he failed at were POC lead books-mainly CYborg and Static.
Now the last book he did was Justice League Odyssey.

Excluding POC lead books-his resume does say he should have been promoted more. He kept getting top books.

Good points, DC‘s new regime should try to make this right in someway if either of former editors is interested in any dealing & that’s regardless if they are interested in working for or with the company again.. They both are long over due for an apology and proper compensation at the least..

[Bruce Wayne]

Weren't Harvey Richards (and also Pat McCallum and probably Alex Antone and Rebecca Taylor) fired for opposing Didio's ideas for 5G? Hostile work environment is an understatement.

[scary harpy]

Thanks. That's more than I was able to read every time I clicked on the link to the original article.

So, according to Williams, he and other assistant editors were given new titles to edit in the 90's that were "doomed to fail," only for one of his books to unexpectedly be a success. And that book was Impulse.

Impulse. Was supposed to fail. Doomed to fail.

And people above Williams were unhappy that it succeeded.

And the one person specifically named unhappy about it is Mike Carlin.

Sorry, I'm not trying to distract from the main thrust of the article, which is allegations of racism. But alongside what we already knew about Carlin being a jerk about both books and creators that he apparently loathed, as well as suspicions I've long held that there was/is a corporate hierarchy about which books and characters are supposed to be the most important and therefore successful, and it paints a broader picture of a hostile work environment at DC Comics not just being limited to Dan Didio's tenure.

The racism is horrible and so is the sexual harassment. This stifled talent that DC desperately needed.

I, too, am upset to confirm a corporate hierarchy about which books and characters are supposed to be the most important and therefore successful.

DC always seemed unprepared when a character was a break out success. Now we know DC expected to dictate to us which characters we were to enjoy. Those fools.

This explains the many lost opportunities through the decades. DC wasn't adapting their product for their consumers...DC expected their consumers to adapt to their product.

[lemonpeace]

The racism is horrible and so is the sexual harassment. This stifled talent that DC desperately needed.

I, too, am upset to confirm a corporate hierarchy about which books and characters are supposed to be the most important and therefore successful.

DC always seemed unprepared when a character was a break out success. Now we know DC expected to dictate to us which characters we were to enjoy. Those fools.

This explains the many lost opportunities through the decades. DC wasn't adapting their product for their consumers...DC expected their consumers to adapt to their product.

I always wondered "how is it that Black Lightning can be going strong for 4+ seasons yet DC doesn't invest in getting the Black Lightning/Freeland brand rolling? at least a get a ongoing solo off the ground or something." but when you look at it like that, it makes perfect sense now. so basically DC for the last however many years have been flailing and pushing out new stuff looking for a hit, but whenever anything hit that they didn't like they basically closed their ears to it to push what they think we should want; yet they wonder why they were flailing and constantly chasing the dragon?

[BohemiaDrinker]

but whenever anything hit that they didn't like they basically closed their ears to it to push what they think we should want; yet they wonder why they were flailing and constantly chasing the dragon?

It's not like that this was a secret, though. But if you bring this **** up, SOMEONE is bound to say "well, no one at DC would be stupid enough to publish something expecting it to fail, it's bad business, blah blah blah".

A few years for now I or someone else will post this interview here to counter the point shown above, and it too will be dismissed in a condescending manner.

[The no face guy]

Is there a way to read this article without subscribing to Business Insider?

second that, like to read it but I don't want to subscribe.

[The no face guy]

Well that's unfortunate. In regards to Levitz though...

What may of came off as racism to the editor, may have just been old school white man hard arsery, that Levitz inherited from the work culture he grew up in.

I worked in environments whereby if you made a mistake (editorial error ect) you got shouted at in the face a by these old school hard arses.(lucky if you didn't get a paper ball thrown at your head) A lot of people can't handle the stress and emotional abuse and quit, or simply don't advance.

It's a crap work culture environment, thankfully these dinasours are all retiring, and corporations are cleaning abusers out of the companies.

That being said, if racism was involved, well then, that's just disgusting and inexcusable, and the perpetrators should be fired form DC.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

I first got into DC Comics on a regular basis in '80 or '81, with the LSH. I found a digest-sized book reprinting some of their stories from the late 60's-early 70's while I was on a 3-week visit to my grandparents with my mom and brother. I'd never heard of this, or any of the characters except Superboy, and I couldn't have been older than nine or ten. Up til that point, I'd only bought a few, random comics, from both Marvel and DC, despite seeing some of their characters on TV, in the movies, and in cartoons. And for whatever reason, the Legion hooked me. I read that little digest comic so obsessively, like any nascent nerd raised on SuperFriends cartoons, reruns of Star Trek and Batman (1966), Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars, and later Doctor Who, that my mom got pissed and ripped it out of my hands and told me she was throwing it away. Later, after we returned home, I'd find random LSH issues on comics racks at the local grocery stores and Walmart. I finally got into buying the book for real with the beginning of "The Great Darkness Saga" in LSH #290. For the next few years, LSH was my one and only comic. I became aware of the others, of course, and of the DC/Marvel rivalry. I'd get the occasional random issue of some other book, but the Legion was my gateway. And while it may pain readers older than me to read this, COIE is what got me into the rest of the DCU.

I wouldn't find out for years that both the Legion and the New Teen Titans were the top two selling books DC published in the early 80's. And the reason I'm bringing all this up is because of one thing I never quite understood back then, and have long been slightly suspicious about: the Baxter Experiment. For those who don't know, in the mid-80's DC decided to take both LSH and NTT -- their best-selling books -- and launch new books for them, starting with new #1's, in the Baxter format. Baxter was a slightly sturdier, slightly heavier, and certainly brighter kind of paper to print comics in, especially compared to the-then traditional newsprint, and it was also a little more expensive. Also, books in this format were sold and distributed by DC only to comic-specialty shops (and subscription). The news-stand versions would continue to be sold, with new stories for a year, then they would reprint the stories in the comic-shop-only books a year later. So if you had access to a comic-shop and were willing to pay a little more (what was it, just one or two quarters more? Man, good times...), you could still keep up with those books on a timely basis. But if you were a kid like me, in a small town with no easy access to a comic shop, relying on chore-money paid by your folks for everything, you had to either rely on the sometimes unreliable comics rack at local stores (and as the 80's passed, those started slowly disappearing), or persuade your folks to let you get a subscription. (Which was hard enough considering my mom's already-dismissive attitude, and anyway, wasn't I getting too old for comics, especially for an honors student?)

The thing I never got, is why would a company take its two best-selling titles, and put them in a publishing format that would effectively reduce how accessible those titles were? Why would you take the almost certain risk of cutting the profitability of those two books? And in recent years, I've begun to wonder: Was it because they were the best-selling books?

They were outselling Superman. Batman. Wonder Woman. The Flash. Green Lantern. The Justice League. Sure, the first two especially were appearing in multiple titles each, even sharing a book. But these are the marquis names. The ones appearing in outside media going back to the 1940's. Along with the second-tier heroes in the JLA, these were supposed to be the BIG NAMES at DC. And they were being outsold by a revival of a team starring kid sidekicks and newbies that had failed twice before, and a tertiary team concept with a passionate fan base that was probably viewed for years as existing mostly because of its waxing and waning ties to its "biggest" character.

Are we really, absolutely, certain that there wasn't somebody behind the scenes, or in DC fandom, who really resented the hell out of these second- or third-tier concepts for outselling the supposed stars? For exceeding their place in the hierarchy? I mean, Carlin and the old-school JSofA. Everybody else at DC vs. the Giffen & DeMatteis JLI. Carlin and Impulse. Dan Didio and virtually every legacy character, Titans character, JLI character, Young Justice, practically anybody who wasn't "iconic" or who rose to prominence after the Bronze Age or was created after then but before he rose to power. The older I get, the more it seems DC was about the history of angry fanboys pettily setting out to sabotage and destroy everything that was ever successful but wasn't exactly the same as the status quo when they were first fans, instead of trying to build on that success.

Maybe I'm just cynical. Maybe I'm not a "real" DC fan because I didn't come in to the fold during the "correct" era. Maybe I'm just a conspiracy nut. Who knows.

[Dark Falz]

I certainly wasn't present, but I'm not sure I'd throw around the "R" word in these situations. A lot of the time people just don't see things beyond their own perspectives, and that can lead to things that may seem racist...like having only two black editors. I don't necessarily think that's an example of overt racism as much as it is an example of people likely hiring from within their networks, and probably way more white people even wanting to get into comics versus black people. And not going out of one's way to do black people favors because they're black does not necessarily equal racism in my view. You might say they lacked consideration, and perhaps did not see or consider the value in having more people from diverse backgrounds on staff, but I dunno' if I'm ready to say that the people were racist from what I read.

As to the comment about the guy's grammar...well...was it bad? Were there errors, because there shouldn't be. The article never addresses that point from what I saw.

[scary harpy]

...

I worked in environments whereby if you made a mistake (editorial error etc.) you got shouted at in the face a by these old school hard arses.(lucky if you didn't get a paper ball thrown at your head) A lot of people can't handle the stress and emotional abuse and quit, or simply don't advance.

It's a crap work culture environment, thankfully these dinosaurs are all retiring, and corporations are cleaning abusers out of the companies.

...

No one should have to handle that stress or emotional abuse at work (or home, for that matter).

At work, DC should be helping their talent produce their best work. (Also, I thought it was the editor's job to catch mistakes. Shouting and throwing paper balls is not managerial...it's juvenile.)

[scary harpy]

...

Are we really, absolutely, certain that there wasn't somebody behind the scenes, or in DC fandom, who really resented the hell out of these second- or third-tier concepts for outselling the supposed stars? For exceeding their place in the hierarchy? I mean, Carlin and the old-school JSofA. Everybody else at DC vs. the Giffen & DeMatteis JLI. Carlin and Impulse. Dan Didio and virtually every legacy character, Titans character, JLI character, Young Justice, practically anybody who wasn't "iconic" or who rose to prominence after the Bronze Age or was created after then but before he rose to power. The older I get, the more it seems DC was about the history of angry fanboys pettily setting out to sabotage and destroy everything that was ever successful but wasn't exactly the same as the status quo when they were first fans, instead of trying to build on that success.

Maybe I'm just cynical. Maybe I'm not a "real" DC fan because I didn't come in to the fold during the "correct" era. Maybe I'm just a conspiracy nut. Who knows.

Or maybe you're not.

If DC management made decisions based on bigotry, then why not make decisions based on petty jealousy?