DC's Dan DiDio Out as Co-Publisher

[hova4life]

FINALLY. I'm so happy about this!

[DragonsChi]

After 5G we will get a "return to archetype" type of event. We will see a return to a mythic standard of storytelling. DC will get tightened up, characters will be expected to stay on brand. Stories will be expected to be of mythic appeal.

So it will take 6-12 months but DC will start cleaning up its own room. No more of the Wally is a mass murderer business and killing off Alfred nonsense. No more Superman loses his secret identity and Lois may or may not be cheating on him or whatever the **** is going on over in the Superman books. We will see a return to what makes superhero stories great and that's heroes on an adventure. Joseph Campbell type ****. This will start with a solid focus on DC's core character roster.

you have more faith in DC than I ever will.

You should really look into who Dan's bosses are. While I do think Dan has the largest impact on the current state of the DC Universe(the good and the bad) it would be remiss not to acknowledge some of the bone head plays coming out of Current DC were pushed upon him from on high. There are several times in the last 10 years where you can see that Dan was just "playing ball" even if he knew it wasn't in his or the companies best interest.

Big examples of that is the hiring and rehiring of Cancerous creators who helped turned DC into the current lack luster state that it is.

[kjn]

Wasn't a woman the DC boss for quite some time? I would not worry. Or do they have a recent history?

Karen Berger, yes.

However, if we look at more recent history, you have the whole Berganza situation that festered for years.

But if you don't wanna see, you won't see.

[king of hybrids]

So, can we take Barry and Hal behind the woodshed yet?

[RJT]

Karen Berger, yes.

However, if we look at more recent history, you have the whole Berganza situation that festered for years.

But if you don't wanna see, you won't see.

Karen Berger was never publisher at DC.

[kjn]

Karen Berger was never publisher at DC.

That's what I get for trusting my immediate recollections, and not look things up.

[Lee Stone]

I believe who you're looking for is Jenette Kahn, who was with DC for 26 years.

[Patrick Gerard]

Technically true, however, it's how they're told that matters. Didio's creativity is controversial to say the least, and lets his prejudices against characters (Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain) affect how well they are told.

I don't know how many of you guys met Dan outside of panels but I can say pretty confidently that a lot of his "biases against characters" were him playing a "pro-wrestling heel" persona and trolling the fanbase.

I think what confused things was that there was an underlying truth behind them usually but his biases were against Dick Grayson AS NIGHTWING and Cassandra Cain AS BATGIRL because he wanted things to synergize with retro lunchboxes while also telling shocking daytime soap opera style stories.

If he could have put the genie back in the bottle and made Dick Robin again while dealing with stories that ranged from rape to opioid use to infidelity or whathaveyou, he would have done that. He didn't because he saw Tim and Damian as effective characters that couldn't be discarded easily.

In a lot of ways -- I think Marvel was the company he wanted to run and he ran DC like somebody who wanted to run Marvel.

Which is not FUNDAMENTALLY different from when Carlin, O'Neil, and Goodwin ran things. Goodwin and Levitz and Johns were the counterbalances against the Marvelizing influence at DC from the 80s to present.

[krazijoe]

Who says they will get another publisher? Or create more floppies in the near future? AT&T may kill off the floppy business all together...

[Restingvoice]

Wasn't a woman the DC boss for quite some time? I would not worry. Or do they have a recent history?

Not the boss... I think it's the sexual harassment thing. Eddie Berganza stayed pretty long, and some female authors who tried to speak out against it were let go (I don't remember but I think Renee De Liz was among them?). DC only did something about it after the story went mainstream with Buzzfeed.

That said, I don't know if Didio specifically has anything to do with it. Since it's unclear who decided to keep Berganza and firing the authors protesting him, people may blame every DC higher-ups in general for not doing more against it.

What I know is after that case, after the authors speak up on twitter, DC has garnered a reputation in certain circles of being not safe for female workers, and some fans, especially fans of those authors, have refused to continue reading because of it. They're not many, maybe one of every fifty or a hundred posts on Tumblr and Twitter, and sometimes they only say it when their friends asked why they're not reading DC anymore, but every once in awhile, I saw a post about it, because they don't want people to forget that DC has kept a sexual harasser working for long and only act when the news went mainstream.

[king of hybrids]

Who says they will get another publisher? Or create more floppies in the near future? AT&T may kill off the floppy business all together...

I doubt they’ll kill it off entirely. But at best they would take a hatchet to the comics and reduce it to a very small number of titles with little/any room for experimentation (even that which was previously allowed), at worst they’d shutter it and license it out

[BlackClaw]

Good. Maybe now characters can get married and Dick and Wally fans can breathe a sigh of relief.

[Dr. Cheesesteak]

Mark Waid, Jeph Loeb, Jimmy Palmiotti.

those are my top 3 options.

I could dig those. Berger (you already mentioned), Mark Doyle, and Mike Martz are others.

Everyone in the business is only going to say pleasantries and keep it professional.

I dunno, some of those were pretty candid. Dorkin w/ the snide remarks. de Guzman w/ the apparent new hope? Plenty others saying they disagreed w/ him but appreciated his passion and championing, which is all very believable (it was his well-known reputation, after all).

no, apparently he was the only one according to some people on this forum.

ikr. A man who loved what he did and supported creators lost his job and comic nerds are out popping champagne b/c it means maybe their favorite fictional character gets a creative team or direction they want...

Yeah, I don't see how Didio being let go has any relevance for women working at DC.
If they got the chops, they can get the work.

I'll never forget, I think it was SDCC 2011? DCU panel, girl in audience asked when they'll hire more female creators. Morrison responded (paraphrasing), "when will more apply?"

[Tzigone]

Maybe stop worrying about continuity and just write stories.

Probably good for casual fans. Good for business. Sucks for fans like me - I love continuity. Bad continuity has made me drop more than one tv show. It just feels lazy and it also means there no consequences to any story, not necessarily any consistent characterization, and no need to ]keep tuning in the same characters, since nothing I saw in the last story matters in more. It's like I'd watch the movie, but no the tv show. For a standalone it's fine, but in any continuing series of any sort (comic, book, tv, movie), there's no reason to check out the next one if the one I liked is likely to be totally disregarded with it. There's nothing to build on, nothing to keep my interest from one to the next.

[Noodle]

I can't wait for them to get a new Publisher and everyone can complain about how they're ruining DC as well. Happens every time at both Marvel and DC with Publishers and EICs.

Who says they will get another publisher? Or create more floppies in the near future? AT&T may kill off the floppy business all together...

Won't happen. The closest thing will be moving all-digital, but they will always produce comics. DC's comic division is basically an IP factory at this point. They won't cut it off and eliminate new story and character ideas to farm out and make movies and TV shows out of.