DC Comics March 2021 Titles

[BatmanJones]

It has happened.
The issue is the fandom wants to ignore it.

Go visit Half Price Books, Movie Trading Post, comic book store with bins, Midtown comic's website right now since they are having some sales (99 cent issues) and other book stores.

WHOSE books are there in BULK? Clearance? Grab bags? BINS?

That is Batman. I can't go to a store that has a sign that says buy one issue of Legion and get one free. I have with BATMAN multiple times.
Half Price books had warehouse sales-do you know how many Batman books were there? Not just Batman books from say 1980s but Batman REBIRTH books-some that just came out.
Half Price book has a 25 comic bin-guess who packs it? RECENLY released Batman books.
I have bought grab bags that were NOTHING more than Batman books. HIGH PRICED Batman books in $5-15 grab bags.
I have seen tables buckle and BREAK over unsold Batman books. Don't get me started on X-Men.
I can go to my public library and check out every Batman trade. 90% of them are still MINT or unread. Books I can keep checked out for a YEAR because no one else is reading them.

We have PASSED saturation. PASSED it in the highest order.

All Dc sees is books SOLD to stores and that is the FAULT of the store owner. Who will bytch to the high heavens about a book starring John Stewart or Ms Marvel, yet that pile of Batman books is still there UNSOLD.

When does quality and quantity control come to play?

Batman (solo and adventures with sidekick of the month)
Detective Comics (solo and team up with Batperson of the month when needed)
Batman Legend of the Dark Knight (SOLO ONLY)
Expand content to include backups that will sniff a trade.
This should be MORE than enough. Anything else should be an OGN.

And to be FAIR-I would say the same about Superman & Peter Parker.

Fair enough. My only response would be that ATT/WB are only motivated by profit. They aren't motivated by upsetting comic book fans or just publishing their own favorite character. They're publishing what sells. And if it's mostly Batman books you see at 1/2 Price, I'd imagine that might have something to do with there being so many of them. (There are not very many Legion books to even put in those bins, for example.)

Batman will be oversaturated when his comics stop selling so well. If that happens, the big bosses will adjust in a New York minute by reducing The Batman titles they publish.

Again, this is only to do with profit margins, which has been the case with comic books going back to their very beginnings. Read Morrison's Supergods and you'll see that that's indisputably the case. You can also read the oral history on The DC Implosion to see what happened when DC tried to expand its line exponentially to find and feature new comics. What happened then is what's happening now. But both books demonstrate that the comics industry has always responded most to profit margins, and never to which characters hardcore comics fans want to read.

If those characters sold, you'd see a lot more books featuring them.

Batman has always been popular, on par with Superman. But it was after the 1989 Batman movie and the explosion of Batman fans that resulted from that that DC started publishing so much Batman. Why? It's not because he's a great character (though he is), it's only about profits and the survival of the industry, which has been at issue since WWII.

We're in an echo chamber here, a forum dominated by comic book super fans, and opinions here reflect that. The average audience for comic books doesn't even know about such forums because they don't care about them. And that audience is constantly shrinking. It doesn't matter what we'd prefer or what creators or editors do, it's a matter of what casual fans buy and that's all it's a matter of.

[BatmanJones]

And the solution to the DC Implosion was almost identical to what DC did when sales dropped off in prior eras--bigger, more expensive comics with backup features. It's like this is a new thing to many here. It absolutely isn't. As I said before, we've been here in the past, more than once, more than twice, it's happened again and again. Just not so recently.

[iron chimp]

That wasnt the solution tho - that was a stopgap while they tried to work out what to do with the whole company.

And the two big options were just to.license things to marvel or do crisis. Opted for the latter and it was huge success then some very smart recruitment with miller and moore got them back in the game and started them on the road to 15 years of totally reinventing the company.

Bundling stuff up in bigger books didnt do that.

[kilderkin]

Probably not going to be getting this, but my two cents anyway...

Can't tell if that's Barry or Wally.

Also hope "not final art" means either they still have to add Canary's fishnets, or if not, when colored she'll still have nylons at least.

I think you can just make out the angles on the top of the belt

Downward to the centre

That's more Wally than Barry

Not conclusive but it looks like a Wally belt to me

[kilderkin]

Times are different now though. Print industries are dying off, and digital isn’t poised to offset the loses. Plus AT&T unlike Disney or even WB isn’t an entertainment company, and they’ve got a bad track record of running stuff into the ground.

This is a very important point

Whilst print sales might be falling

Digital is not even close to picking up the slack

Not even close

And I don't really think it will in the formats as presented


In all honesty imo they need to make books more affordable for younger audiences, comics are relatively expensive as they are


I feel they need to make younger audience specific books at a much lower price, maybe have the digital versions of these in an animated video narrated format somehow

It's not that kids prefer digital, it's that reading at all is less popular generally as we get younger, there are far more digestible formats

Short video over films, natation over reading

Working with young people this is what they've told me they use to digest media

[CTTT]

I'm curious why new titles aren't releasing till March leaving a gap with January and February?

[kf26]

I'm curious why new titles aren't releasing till March leaving a gap with January and February?

They're doing Future State.

[kf26]

This is a very important point

Whilst print sales might be falling

Digital is not even close to picking up the slack

Not even close

And I don't really think it will in the formats as presented


In all honesty imo they need to make books more affordable for younger audiences, comics are relatively expensive as they are


I feel they need to make younger audience specific books at a much lower price, maybe have the digital versions of these in an animated video narrated format somehow

It's not that kids prefer digital, it's that reading at all is less popular generally as we get younger, there are far more digestible formats

Short video over films, natation over reading

Working with young people this is what they've told me they use to digest media

Kids nowadays would prefer video games or manga.

[maxax]

Kids nowadays would prefer video games or manga.

Nah, people my age preferred manga when they were kids. Kids nowadays are more likely to be anime only, and only the anime out this season at that, they're less likely to go back to even the stuff coming out in 2018.
Media nowadays is more of an instant reward thing where everyone piles onto the next big thing, and then immediately moves onto the next thing once the hype is over.

[vasir12]

Statistics would prove you wrong. Comic/manga sales are on the rise in the US. Just not superhero comics.

[lemonpeace]

Nah, people my age preferred manga when they were kids. Kids nowadays are more likely to be anime only, and only the anime out this season at that, they're less likely to go back to even the stuff coming out in 2018.
Media nowadays is more of an instant reward thing where everyone piles onto the next big thing, and then immediately moves onto the next thing once the hype is over.

as a manga reader from the early 2000s and now having classmates who are 2000s babies/gen z kids, the amount of manga readers now than when i was a kid has noticeably exploded. You could hardly find people who could discuss manga back when i was a youngin unless they were DEEP into nerd culture. now i'll say like 1/4 (if not a 50/50 shot) people you meet who watch the anime also read the manga. granted, i lived in a smaller town and moved around a bit, but even just the shift in the late 2000s to the 2010s i observed when i was in Toronto was pretty noticeable.

[OopsIdiditagain]

Nah, people my age preferred manga when they were kids. Kids nowadays are more likely to be anime only, and only the anime out this season at that, they're less likely to go back to even the stuff coming out in 2018.
Media nowadays is more of an instant reward thing where everyone piles onto the next big thing, and then immediately moves onto the next thing once the hype is over.

No people still read a lot of manga, especially if the anime is too good to wait for another season. Keep in mind some platforms like Webtoon and Manga + are able to attract a younger audience by making it affordable for them.

[Waterfall]

Nah, people my age preferred manga when they were kids. Kids nowadays are more likely to be anime only, and only the anime out this season at that, they're less likely to go back to even the stuff coming out in 2018.
Media nowadays is more of an instant reward thing where everyone piles onto the next big thing, and then immediately moves onto the next thing once the hype is over.

This is not true in case of manga. It's the opposite now actually, the sales are much higher.

[Digifiend]

And the solution to the DC Implosion was almost identical to what DC did when sales dropped off in prior eras--bigger, more expensive comics with backup features. It's like this is a new thing to many here. It absolutely isn't. As I said before, we've been here in the past, more than once, more than twice, it's happened again and again. Just not so recently.

New 52 had backups. That's how Shazam was published, as backups in Justice League (he joined the team when the backup run finished).

[skyvolt2000]

Nah, people my age preferred manga when they were kids. Kids nowadays are more likely to be anime only, and only the anime out this season at that, they're less likely to go back to even the stuff coming out in 2018.
Media nowadays is more of an instant reward thing where everyone piles onto the next big thing, and then immediately moves onto the next thing once the hype is over.

I have seen kids FIGHT in Barnes & Nobles over manga books.

I have seen adults and kids act like it's the Royal Rumble trying to get manga at Half Price Books's warehouse sales.

A librarian in a major Texas city told me the story of inviting one of his voice anime actress friends to speak at his library. He expect 40 folks. He got 500 with standing room ONLY. They barely PROMOTED it. It was on a school night.

Manga is not dead.

Statistics would prove you wrong. Comic/manga sales are on the rise in the US. Just not superhero comics.

Funny what happens when you offer variety and not just a variety of versions of one guy.