Rumour: A Third Wave of Job Cuts for DC & WB in The New Year?

[superduperman]

Maybe DC can get bought up by a smaller company. How's Valiant doing these days? Who wouldn't want to see a Batman/Bloodshot team up?

[LifeIsILL]

Maybe DC can get bought up by a smaller company. How's Valiant doing these days? Who wouldn't want to see a Batman/Bloodshot team up?

Or....Disney?

If anything DC should be the one buying Valiant. We just want DC comics to live on, not some crossover team-up.

[Frontier]

Or....Disney?

If anything DC should be the one buying Valiant. We just want DC comics to live on, not some crossover team-up.

I don't see Disney knowing what to do with both DC and Marvel together. It would be too much.

[Celgress]

I don't see Disney knowing what to do with both DC and Marvel together. It would be too much.

But damn, talk about the ultimate crossover leading to the ultimate American Comic Book universe integration. For a time at least (a year or two minimum), Disney would have a license to print money due to public curiosity.

[madmodpoetgod]

Poor DC. After last night's WW, I am pretty sure DC's days are limited. The movie is becoming an international punchbag -simply because it is so dated and full of cringe of 200 Million Dollars. Ric Grayson had like 25+ issues without minimal editorial care. There is no filter anymore in comic book publishing. Lots of bad stories out there. Maybe it is better to go small. European style hardcovers every three months or so.

[Airtrap]

Well the biggest cost factor in comics are the salaries, everything else (printing and logistics) is already fairly cheap so really the only way to save money is by firing people or by cutting page rates. For years people have said the overhead was the main reason why a Big-Two book loses money at 15K while a book from a smaller publisher can be profitably at 5k.

I guess AT&T figured out that to many people work (full-time) at DC for their liking, why employee 70+ people when 30 (full-time) can do a similar job, money wise.
Let's be honest if they start cutting everything that sells less than 25k it would probably look better on the balance sheet, and we all now the smaller niche titles will be the ones dying or getting demoted to 8 page backups

[Goldrake]

Well the biggest cost factor in comics are the salaries, everything else (printing and logistics) is already fairly cheap so really the only way to save money is by firing people or by cutting page rates. For years people have said the overhead was the main reason why a Big-Two book loses money at 15K while a book from a smaller publisher can be profitably at 5k.

I guess AT&T figured out that to many people work (full-time) at DC for their liking, why employee 70+ people when 30 (full-time) can do a similar job, money wise.
Let's be honest if they start cutting everything that sells less than 25k it would probably look better on the balance sheet, and we all now the smaller niche titles will be the ones dying or getting demoted to 8 page backups

definitely a manner how to give your main competitor 60% of the market, which ultimately will be a long lasting one. Smaller titles have no chance if you never promote them. The Hawkman ongoing was one of the best books around and never DC gave it an inch of promoting. They simply don't even try.

[DrNewGod]

...As bookstore initiatives take hold, it can be spun off as a separate company to a children's book publisher under license from WarnerMeida. The characters can also be licensed to Image or IDW for the comic store market with script/art approval by the WarnerMedia licensing division which could be expanded by a handful of people specializing in DC licenses. This is basically how Disney does comics publishing with their Mouse/Duck characters. Also, it's how other IP companies work -- e.g. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Conan Properties, etc.

Who knows? Without DC's dopey top down editorial initiatives getting in the way, we might actually get really good STORIES out of this instead of endless reboots, gimmicks, and sales stunts.

I hope that you're right.

[seismic-2]

I can easily envision that as a downsizing move DC might lay off its entire publishing staff and stop publishing comics altogether. That doesn't mean that there would no longer be DC comics on the newsstand, though, because they could be published by someone else (IDW, Boom, etc.) under license.

[Midnight_v]

I hope that you're right.

I kinda find that to be statistically improbable. If you just look around the boards, just here for example... there's more negative that positive and somebody wrote this and it really caught my eye:

The answer is because DC is moving forward and those characters don't reflect where they want to go or the current creators would like some royalty checks for adaptions because unless you made the character, when a movie gets made all you get is a "special thanks."

It's financially and creatively more satisfying for creators to make new characters. It helps everyone but you, the reader who prefers a specific take on a character.

When I look at it... all the

endless reboots, gimmicks, and sales stunts.

are feature not a bug to them and even if the move away from it . . .

The company and the author is still incentivized to do the most financially viable thing.

The only way to stop it isn't just a publishing change... but to make writing the best story financially viable.

Licensing out of stories... I mean I guess people watch movies about batman no matter who's in it... and we had an entire contained continuity in the batbooks recently.

Who knows maybe it won't even be a noticeable change. Its so far away from the "Wednesday every week" thing but thats dead as yesterday. Fingers crossed for 2021

[Bored at 3:00AM]

With the decisions AT&T is making, I can totally buy that they'd license out their DC properties to outside publishers in order to keep the copyrights going.

That might actually lead to some good comics, but I think it'll be disastrous for the longterm health of the comics industry to give Marvel a defacto monopoly.

[achilles]

But damn, talk about the ultimate crossover leading to the ultimate American Comic Book universe integration. For a time at least (a year or two minimum), Disney would have a license to print money due to public curiosity.

I doubt it. I think we're past peak comic book interest; over-saturation has taken it's toll. And in theory at least, the Feds wouldn't allow it. Of course, some judge could always overrule them, as that idiot did when they tried to block the ATT buyout. Thank that guy for any demise or lessening of DC and WB.

[Digifiend]

Comics are lumped in with other magazines (that's how Diamond got away with their distribution monopoly for so long), so the feds wouldn't see Marvel as having a majority. Comics sales are dwarfed by certain other periodicals!

While Supergirl and Black Lightening fans see their shows get the ax? With an odd choice in spinoff of Pain Killer who has been dead in comics 20+ years?

Supergirl, at least, was NOT axed. It's ending because the lead actress didn't want to continue. As for Black Lightning, it might be the same situation, as the actress playing one of BL's daughters has quit.

[SecretWarrior]

In 1984, Warner Bros. almost closed down the DC Comics publishing imprint and licensed the characters to Marvel.

The story, as related in Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, is that in 1984, Warner Bros. brass thought DC was dead weight and offered Marvel, whose management they believed to be superior since the books were selling better, the opportunity to take over stewardship of the DC characters.

The video, embedded below, details that Marvel would have continued to publish DC's seven most popular properties -- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Justice League, Teen Titans and Legion of Super-Heroes -- and would have had room to expand the line later if they so chose.

Marvel apparently declined, thinking that the reason DC was failing was the characters, not the management, and that it was unlikely it would have been a profitable venture for Marvel.

Ironically, of course, a little over a decade later, Marvel spiraled into bankruptcy and before it was totally out, they had their fair share of potential buyers, too.

According to Image Comics co-founder Rob Liefeld, who spoke with ComicBook.com Editor-in-Chief Jim Viscardi on the Let's Talk Comics podcast recently, those old rumors that current DC Co-Publisher and Image co-founder Jim Lee was in talks to purchase Marvel during the bankruptcy are true, and maybe came closer to being plausible than anybody knows.

There was also some discussion at the time about Stan Lee Media buying Marvel, and when they couldn't manage to put together the cash at the time, Lee turned to pop star Michael Jackson, who had expressed an interest in getting a Spider-Man movie off the ground (he had mistakenly believed Lee to own the rights). They talked about trying to buy the company together, but Marvel management didn't want to sell to Lee and inflated the price to where Jackson walked away, according to Lee.

https://comicbook.com/news/final-fan...eloper-update/

[Goldrake]

With the decisions AT&T is making, I can totally buy that they'd license out their DC properties to outside publishers in order to keep the copyrights going.

That might actually lead to some good comics, but I think it'll be disastrous for the longterm health of the comics industry to give Marvel a defacto monopoly.

it can get good comics, but you can also get disastrous ones for characters, without someone safeguarding the legacy of those characters.