The "Bat Cliff" Perch Gives His Thoughts About Current DC

[The Darknight Detective]

Well, on the other side of the coin this is a business, and DC compared to Marvel ain't doing so well these days going by book sales or otherwise. Hell, I'm old enough to remember when the big two were rather close in terms of popularity and yes *gasp* comic book sales.

In my lifetime (I'll be 57 this year), that has happened only briefly during that time. Basically, Marvel has been kicking DC's butt since the late '60s.

[Rac7d*]

Well, on the other side of the coin this is a business, and DC compared to Marvel ain't doing so well these days going by book sales or otherwise. Hell, I'm old enough to remember when the big two were rather close in terms of popularity and yes *gasp* comic book sales.

Your talking about book sales right. Can we see some data?

[Celgress]

Your talking about book sales right. Can we see some data?

Bluntly put I don't have the time nor the inclination to provide you with all the reliable links out there. On the plus side, there are plenty of people on the Internet who do and they aren't hard to find if you look. All of them agree things don't look good for DC Comics.

[SixSpeedSamurai]

Warner's care about IP's they don't care about the comics.

Inclusion is fine, but you also have to know your audience. At least half are males 30 to 50. They are not as open to inclusive stories as those in their 20's. They are not bringing many new readers in with their current direction.

DC has also messed with the characters existing readers have grown up with way too much in the last 20 years. New 52 was a mistake, and Death Metal and Doomsday Clock didn't fix it the way they should have. Still way too much confusion about what stories matter anymore and the status of some characters. They would have done better to just go back to Pre-Flashpoint after New 52.

[Vakanai]

Still way too much confusion about what stories matter anymore

I still don't get the obsession with this. Sometimes comics fans come off as more archivists than anything else. Now, when those past stories have relevancy on what's going on in a book now, sure, important. But most of the time it comes across as not hugely important, or shouldn't be. Just make the current books good, and reference prior stories if you really really need to, and then assume whatever gets referenced is just in the "matters" column for this particular story. Loose continuity is best.

Now if only DC/WB could figure that out too.

[Jekyll]

Warner's care about IP's they don't care about the comics.

Inclusion is fine, but you also have to know your audience. At least half are males 30 to 50. They are not as open to inclusive stories as those in their 20's. They are not bringing many new readers in with their current direction.

DC has also messed with the characters existing readers have grown up with way too much in the last 20 years. New 52 was a mistake, and Death Metal and Doomsday Clock didn't fix it the way they should have. Still way too much confusion about what stories matter anymore and the status of some characters. They would have done better to just go back to Pre-Flashpoint after New 52.

This! Couldn’t have said it better.

[Citizen Kane]

Let's make Batman do a little cameo in each book but make it like it's part of a bigger plan to stop some big evil. Maybe the sales will improve somehow.

They did that but in reverse with MCU Spider-Man. I'm sure you can put together how people have liked that so far. And as a casual comic book reader, I'm not reading Green Lantern to see Batman show up.

[charliehustle415]

Well. This isn't going to be a discussion if you won't look at it through a wide enough lens. "Simple" is very much what this is not.

And I don't need permission to disagree.

Redjack, I always wondered does editorial or execs ever talk to you about sales either positively (i.e. keep doing what you're doing) or negatively (i.e. change your story to get better sales)?

(If you can't answer that it's cool)

[Redjack]

I don't think the problem is that complex. It's cause and effect.

The people who control the IP's are interested in the IP's. They aren't terribly interested in creating quality comics and getting them in front of as many eyeballs as they feasibly can. At least, perhaps not as interested as many would like them to be.
The comics suck.
Interest in the comics wanes.
Sales go down.
People loyal to the comics continue to buy them, but not a whole lot of potentially new readers are interested in the comics, relatively speaking.
Many potentially new readers go elsewhere to read comics. Arguably not completely a fault of DC, though, because many of those people would probably never read DC regardless.
The comics publisher continues to milk what audience it has with arguably dishonest and VERY redundant tactics.

You can disagree, but that's my opinion.

Simplistic analysis doesn't lead to an accurate conclusion or, more importantly, to a solution. This situation was not arrived at quickly or simply and describing it as being solved by an extremely limited set of actions only shows the fault in the initial analysis.

"comics suck" is not a fact that anyone can work with. it's just an anecdotal opinion. Any opinion that opposes it is equal to it. In short, if someone loves a comic you hate, that person is equally correct. this doesn't sit well with a lot of people but it is, sadly for them, a fact.

What are the projected/desired sales figures for what would constitute a comic's success for the company? If sales are in decline, how long has that decline been in effect? What is the editorial vision driving the line? IS there a vision driving the line? Who are the people and how many who set that editorial drive? What does Warner Entertainment want from the comics line? What did AT&T want? What does Discovery want? Do those goals have anything to do with comics and, probably more important, are the sales of comics influencing those decisions?

These are factors that must be considered and, sadly for armchair quarterbacks, will go mostly unanswered as no one has access to the people who can answer those and many more very important questions. We don't get to fill in factual blanks with our opinions and proceed as if we've just added more facts.

We also don't get to add or omit facts to serve a conclusion we had before we began analysis.

[Redjack]

Redjack, I always wondered does editorial or execs ever talk to you about sales either positively (i.e. keep doing what you're doing) or negatively (i.e. change your story to get better sales)?

(If you can't answer that it's cool)

They will if i bring it up but, in my case at least, it hasn't influenced any decision made about the telling of the story. Partly this is because, contractually, the story is set at the beginning, prior to anything being sold. Even if someone wanted to there's no way to make changes as we go because the lag between creation and publication means any feedback is a minimum of 3 months behind wherever we are in the story on the creation side.

[charliehustle415]

They will if i bring it up but, in my case at least, it hasn't influenced any decision made about the telling of the story. Partly this is because, contractually, the story is set at the beginning, prior to anything being sold. Even if someone wanted to there's no way to make changes as we go because the lag between creation and publication means any feedback is a minimum of 3 months behind wherever we are in the story on the creation side.

Thanks for the answer, very insightful.

So when you say "contractually" both parties agree before hand as to what the story is so 1) you have creative freedom and 2) editorial is happy where the story is going?

Because social media would have readers think that editorial can change stories on a whim or kick writers off titles if they aren't happy where the story is going; in your experience is there any validity to this type of thinking?

[Bruce Wayne]

I'm sorry, this isn't some crap social media has made up. It's all true especially at DC during New 52, but in general during the Didio era. Editors were encouraged to micromanage and writers were taken off books either at the whim of the editor or at the whims of Didio himself. Some recent noteworthy examples of this were Tomasi/Gleason and Tom King getting kicked off Superman and Batman respectively despite promises of giving them 100 issues. Tomasi/Gleason basically for Bendis and to kneecap Rebirth (it was getting too popular) and King apparently because Harras hated his writing. During New 52, people were getting kicked off in favor of former Marvel staff that were olds chums of Bob Harras's such as Rob Liefeld as well as people that were friends of Didio's. Also Greg Rucka's experience on Wonder Woman (he argued with Didio) and in general a lot of Superman/Action Comics writers from Infinite Crisis to well into New 52.

[Redjack]

I'm sorry, this isn't some crap social media has made up. It's all true especially at DC during New 52, but in general during the Didio era. Editors were encouraged to micromanage and writers were taken off books either at the whim of the editor or at the whims of Didio himself. Some recent noteworthy examples of this were Tomasi/Gleason and Tom King getting kicked off Superman and Batman respectively despite promises of giving them 100 issues. Tomasi/Gleason basically for Bendis and to kneecap Rebirth (it was getting too popular) and King apparently because Harras hated his writing. During New 52, people were getting kicked off in favor of former Marvel staff that were olds chums of Bob Harras's such as Rob Liefeld as well as people that were friends of Didio's. Also Greg Rucka's experience on Wonder Woman (he argued with Didio) and in general a lot of Superman/Action Comics writers from Infinite Crisis to well into New 52.

All of that is stuff made up of social media chatter.

You're literally ascribing motivations and conspiracies to people you don't know, never interviewed and have zero ideas how editorial decisions are actually made.

You're talking about how you feel about events which isn't anything like knowing what the events actually are or why they occurred.

Facts, man. You kind of need them. Right now, you just don't have enough to draw any of the conclusions you just did.

[Redjack]

Thanks for the answer, very insightful.

So when you say "contractually" both parties agree before hand as to what the story is so 1) you have creative freedom and 2) editorial is happy where the story is going?

Because social media would have readers think that editorial can change stories on a whim or kick writers off titles if they aren't happy where the story is going; in your experience is there any validity to this type of thinking?

I'm sure there have been instances over the last century where that's happened but it's neither common nor the norm since freelancers replaced the in-house bullpen as the main creative engine.

There are kill fees for some projects but, generally, editorial can tell off the first script whether the writer is capable of delivering what was promised. Somebody would have to be pretty crappy to get spiked, mid-run. If sales are crazy low (say, how MOSAIC ended) the writing would be on the wall and the creatives would be given a "okay, folks, you've go x number of issues to wrap this up" short of what would have been the full run.

Generally you just let the contract run out and, if a change is wanted, don't renew whichever creative you don't want on the title anymore. Change can be for a lot of reasons, btw.

[charliehustle415]

I'm sure there have been instances over the last century where that's happened but it's neither common nor the norm since freelancers replaced the in-house bullpen as the main creative engine.

There are kill fees for some projects but, generally, editorial can tell off the first script whether the writer is capable of delivering what was promised. Somebody would have to be pretty crappy to get spiked, mid-run. If sales are crazy low (say, how MOSAIC ended) the writing would be on the wall and the creatives would be given a "okay, folks, you've go x number of issues to wrap this up" short of what would have been the full run.

Generally you just let the contract run out and, if a change is wanted, don't renew whichever creative you don't want on the title anymore. Change can be for a lot of reasons, btw.

Ohh that's interesting, I never knew that and that's good to hear that at least the team on a book has some protection from being axed.

I figured that editorial would give the team a runway to land if sales are low, of course how long the runway is depends case by case; nevertheless, this is information that "comics social media" should know before spouting declarations they have no clue about.

Thanks for the insight Redjack, and I am super excited to see what you will be working on in the future (fingers crossed for anything in the Bat-Family or X-Line)!