Is anyone else sick of the DC bashing?

[Doctor Bifrost]

Edited - over and out.

[GlennSimpson]

I still think cause and effect are being reversed here. Batman and Justice League aren't popular because they left a single writer/creative on them. They are popular because people like the characters. The fact that they are popular is why they never had any reason to move the creatives off of the books.

If people had liked Nocenti's Green Arrow, Nocenti would still be on Green Arrow.

[JasonTodd428]

I still think cause and effect are being reversed here. Batman and Justice League aren't popular because they left a single writer/creative on them. They are popular because people like the characters. The fact that they are popular is why they never had any reason to move the creatives off of the books.

If people had liked Nocenti's Green Arrow, Nocenti would still be on Green Arrow.

I not really saying they are popular because of having a single creative team on them at all. What I am trying to say is that because of a consistent creative team on those two book they sold pretty well in addition to the characters being popular with people. There are plenty of other characters who I would say are just under the popularity level of Batman and the Justice League characters that have struggled to even sell above the cancellation threshold and almost all of them have had very inconsistent creative teams. I think that there is simply more than one factor that explains why some books sell well while others just don't.

[GlennSimpson]

I not really saying they are popular because of having a single creative team on them at all. What I am trying to say is that because of a consistent creative team on those two book they sold pretty well in addition to the characters being popular with people. There are plenty of other characters who I would say are just under the popularity level of Batman and the Justice League characters that have struggled to even sell above the cancellation threshold and almost all of them have had very inconsistent creative teams. I think that there is simply more than one factor that explains why some books sell well while others just don't.

Was Lemoire not on Green Arrow long enough? Nocenti on Catwoman? They might not have been there the whole time but they had nice long runs that didn't see any growth (or maintenance) in sales.

I am tempted to say that consistency of creative personnel is only a factor if that creative is very very good, in which case of course it's going to help sales. But I would imagine you could have switched between Johns and Morrison every 4 issues on JL and gotten the same results.

[mathew101281]

Was Lemoire not on Green Arrow long enough? Nocenti on Catwoman? They might not have been there the whole time but they had nice long runs that didn't see any growth (or maintenance) in sales.

I am tempted to say that consistency of creative personnel is only a factor if that creative is very very good, in which case of course it's going to help sales. But I would imagine you could have switched between Johns and Morrison every 4 issues on JL and gotten the same results.

Exactly, if a creative team is wrong for a book no amount of time is going to change that fact. Keeping them on a book might actually compound the problem.

[Rockym]

One of the most successful writers who's written a ton of best-selling runs for DC is their biggest problem, as well as the guy who's been majorly involved in helping adapt DC properties for other media.

Fantastic logic there.

Well, you may be happy with what he's done for your favorite characters but he pretty much ruined my favorites. And it's quite obvious how he has helped adapt certain DC properties for other media. I can't stand the guy.

[Doctor Bifrost]

When you have to keep telling someone that you didn't say something or other, you need to stop talking to him. That's what I'm doing with you.

Huh. I thought you were saying that again, and in particular being so old that you don't like change and aren't important to the market any more, was indicated by whether you were still active and in demand in the dating scene. I must have misunderstood you completely. My mistake

A good rule of thumb is that if you're no longer in demand on the dating scene, you're no longer in demand by marketers either. If you've accepted the former about yourself, it should be no big leap to go ahead and accept the latter too.

[Lee Stone]

I still think cause and effect are being reversed here. Batman and Justice League aren't popular because they left a single writer/creative on them. They are popular because people like the characters. The fact that they are popular is why they never had any reason to move the creatives off of the books.

If people had liked Nocenti's Green Arrow, Nocenti would still be on Green Arrow.

Quite possibly. You have a point there.

[Colossus1980]

I still think cause and effect are being reversed here. Batman and Justice League aren't popular because they left a single writer/creative on them. They are popular because people like the characters. The fact that they are popular is why they never had any reason to move the creatives off of the books.

If people had liked Nocenti's Green Arrow, Nocenti would still be on Green Arrow.

Are you implying that any creative team could have made these two books the best sellers for DC because the characters are that popular? Or is it both, that the two books have a good creative team with popular characters?

[JasonTodd428]

Exactly, if a creative team is wrong for a book no amount of time is going to change that fact. Keeping them on a book might actually compound the problem.

I wasn't talking about leaving a team that is obviously wrong for a title in place at all though. That would be stupid and if a team just doesn't work I'd much rather they get taken off the title immediately. I was talking about how maybe DC and Marvel even should leave writers who are good fits for a title alone and let them write that title for as long or short of a time as they want.

[JasonTodd428]

Are you implying that any creative team could have made these two books the best sellers for DC because the characters are that popular? Or is it both, that the two books have a good creative team with popular characters?

Well it is a commonly held belief that Batman sells because it is Batman but I still believe that a creative team that is a good fit for the character can make it sell even better and that the same principle can be applied to other titles as well.

[Trey Strain]

No title ie entirely writer-proof, but some are pretty close. The more viable the concept, the more writer-proof it will be.

[dancj]

Geoff Johns was a member, which at the time was a big secret. He might disagree with you. His Rebirth story was exactly what HEAT wanted, down to the smallest detail, and nobody even noticed.

Are you disagreeing with me? Because nothing there contradicts what I said.

No title ie entirely writer-proof, but some are pretty close. The more viable the concept, the more writer-proof it will be.

True. But at the same time, those titles will very likely get bigger boosts from big names coming on board.

Jim Lee had been getting mediocre sales on little Wildstorm titles for years before he came onto Batman. It was the combination of the two that sent the sales through the roof.

I honestly have no idea whether DC should put their big names on the bigger books or the smaller books.

[GlennSimpson]

Are you implying that any creative team could have made these two books the best sellers for DC because the characters are that popular? Or is it both, that the two books have a good creative team with popular characters?

I'm not implying that *any* team could have, but that it's fairly easy. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY having that *same* team on the books the whole time isn't what MADE the books popular. I think they could have swapped the creatives around as much on those books as any others, as long as they always had "a-list" creators on them, as they did.

[Danileriver23]

Since you seem familiar with both Marvel and DC boards, does it seem to you that people bash Marvel more than DC?

As someone who frequents both the Marvel and DC Board's, the amount of utter hate and vitriol on the DC boards is leagues (no pun intended) worse than Marvel.

That's not to say that marvel doesn't get it's fair share of hate, but it's typically 1 of two things:

1: A vocal minority of disgruntled x-fans with no valid complaints other than "gimme mutants", or
2: people complaining about marvel shoving diversity down their throats

theres also a group of people upset due to event fatigue, but that's really it. You don't have 17 threads talking about how the entire company is sabotaging itself and ruining mythos and has no handle on any of it's characters other than Spiderman (Batman).