Originally Posted by
Ascended
I've only skimmed the articles so I may have missed details, and while I have a business degree, I don't deal with corporations and they have a different set of rules for some things. That said, my knee-jerk reaction (having not taken any time to deeply consider anything) is this;
All the print stuff is being rolled into a single production arm, so the people who make the kid books, the YA novels and OGN's, and monthly floppies will all be under the same chain of command. That's not a bad thing, in and of itself. We're being told the floppy line will be cut down, so the monthly books featuring the Big Names will stick around while most everything else gets cut. So books like Action, Flash, 'Tec, and Wonder Woman will remain while titles like Outsiders and Hawkman will be cut. Titles like Superman/Batman, Supergirl, and Nightwing might survive on a case-by-case basis.
So that basically means we won't have more Batman books on the shelf, but there will be less of everything else. Hell, if I read it right and they cut 40% of the line, it likely means less Batman too, though Bat books and books with Batman in them will likely end up as a larger percentage of DC's output than what we have already.
DC's creator bullpen is going to shrink, and only the best selling creators or those who get in good with the boss will remain. So people like Snyder and Taylor and Bendis are probably sticking around, but lesser known creators are likely gonna be left behind.
When the dust settles, this might mean more DC focused OGN's, novels, and kids books, and while the usual suspects like the Trinity will still see plenty of action here, the loss of the floppies likely means we'll see a little extra effort put into secondary characters; the company won't want to leave these characters in limbo for too long and many IP's have already proven they have value in these non-LCS markets, like Raven who had a OGN that sold quite well in bookstores. So, we might lose (for example) Nightwing's monthly book but may get a Nightwing OGN instead.
For the immediate future, we'll see less of everything. In my level of business you don't make cuts like this and then launch a big new initiative or keep the same number of products in the system, and I imagine it's the same with the big corporations. But once the economy stops falling apart, DC/WB/AT&T will likely push out as much new content as they can get away with, with a wider range of characters and IP's so they can start recovering their bank accounts.
Doyle being let go likely means the end of Black Label, but we may still see some books *like* Black Label in the bookstores, as OGN's.
Jim Lee's new position sounds like a consultation to me, I feel like he'll be there to help ensure the bookstore people understand what the LCS audience wants.
I suspect we'll see a push into digital books, as there are a lot of cost saving measures there and you can potentially reach a much wider audience. At a guess, they'll handle this differently than they have their previous digital-first books; that's a market that plateaued quickly and remains well below floppy and bookstore sales, so if DC wants to succeed here they need to change their game a lot.
I think the next year or two (maybe longer) will have fewer books on the shelf at both the LCS and bookstore levels. We'll probably see a spike in digital first/only titles in 8-12 months, but still fewer comics than we've been used to.
It won't be the end of the world, or the end of comics. Not even the end of DC. They've survived implosions before and will survive this one, if only because they're so valuable as larger media adaptations. But the next year or more is gonna be pretty lean with less to pick from. This may be a massive blow to the LCS, but that'll depend on what other publishers do and whether or not DC fans keep spending money at their shops. The LCS is already in a tough position after quarantine, but if we keep spending as much money as we normally do, the LCS will probably manage to muddle on. If we don't replace our DC pull with other titles then the LCS likely won't survive.
And....I dunno. This isn't my kind of business and I need time to consider all the possible ramifications. But I wouldn't say the sky is falling. DC is not about to be bought by Disney, they're not going to stop making comics completely. They're just going to make a lot fewer comics, likely try to branch into healthier markets with better profit margins, and put more work on fewer shoulders. Focus will continue to shift from the floppy market to digital and bookstores. Basically, this is just the next phase of the trajectory we've been on this year.