DC Comics' spiral downward

[The Twilight Mexican]

So, rumors are afoot that the publishing arm of DC may be closing up shop unless they see a remarkable turnaround in sales this year. Longtime face of DC publishing Dan Didio was let go this week (about 15 years too late by my reckoning); DC was a no-call, no-show at an industry conference a couple of days ago (despite being scheduled to appear); and there's apparently talk of their comic prices increasing to $7.99.

I don't even know what to say. I guess on the one hand I'm not surprised. I've been saying for a very long time that Didio was running the place into the ground, but in fairness to him, the industry just isn't what it once was either. Marvel has had to adapt considerably as well, and certainly now sees its publishing house as more of a resource to draw upon for ideas to adapt to film.

As a lifelong comics fan (for as long as I can remember!), I will be saddened to some degree if this comes to pass, but it may as well. Last year's awful, awful terribad "Heroes In Crisis" event storyline really exemplified everything wrong with DC these days, and it got a lot of push, while the woefully underappreciated "Doomsday Clock" got undermined worse than Bernie Sanders in a joint Clinton campaign-DNC e-mail chain.

Here's some articles about what's been going on, for those curious:

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2020/02/21/why-dan-didio-leave-dc-comics/

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2020/02/21/dc-no-show-comicspro-big-change/

https://cosmicbook.news/att-closing-dc-comics-5g-ethan-van-sciver

https://cosmicbook.news/dc-fate-soon-at-t-sold-off

https://cosmicbook.news/dc-comics-dire-straits-jacking-up-line

 

[Theozilla]

Hmmm, I’m personally hesitant to take Van Sciver’s word, considering he runs with the alt-right and was a fan of GamerGate and such.
The 5G initiative sounds like a mistake IMO.
I really don’t see AT&T selling off DC Entertainment in its entirety, as one of the other articles mentions itself, IPs like Batman are far too valuable in the non-comics markets to give up.
I can unfortunately see, the comics division of DC being rolled back. But I don’t think they’ll completely shut down any comic production. I could see a greater focus on production of original graphic novel formats instead of the the traditional floppies market.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I'm not going to begin to imply I'm aware of the systemic failing or faults of DC comics, other than the disaster that was the New 52, but I will say that like... I don't know why or what's up, but they've been really driving Batman into the ground. And it's really sorta weird.

Batman's popular and really cool but it's like... Everything has centered around Batman from what I've been noticing lately. And the amount of Batman fixation and focus has just. I dunno. It's felt derivative and cheap to me.

And don't get me started on The Batman Who Laughs.

I love evil counterparts, and dark parallel universes, and Year of the Villain is an awesome idea.

But.

.... It's kinda fucked up how cemented he is now after such short notice. Thematically, it's just kinda bizarre that Batman's greatest nemesis.. No, the DC multiverse's greatest threat.. Is another fucking Batman from an evil parallel universe. A Batman, mixed with Joker.

Why.

Why is The Batman Who Laughs this important? Was Dark Metal, having Batman fight a group of evil Batmans, not enough?

It seems creatively dull. I'm glad it didn't end with Batman leading a team of Alternate Universe Batmans to fight an army of Batmans from another Dark Universe led by The Batman Who Laughs

That's not to say I would want DC to fold or think it's even deserved. Print publishing is in the shitter due to internet, and internet publishing's no better due to the lack of revenue from advertising thanks to Google and Facebook.

DC being in this state's horrible and another wonderful gift of the slash-and-burn Hedgefund driven economic system that has fucking AT&T somehow dictating the fate of comic book publishing. Because when you just buy and consolidate any industry you want as a means of generating more revenue for your shares, why shouldn't you be able to decide the fate of an industry you really have no business in? If it's not immediate money for you, who cares?

 

[Clement Rage]

I never read any comics week by week, but if they go under I will be pretty sad. I mostly read complete stories, NML, Knightfall, Gotham Central, TDKR, Long Halloween, etc.

It's such a rich world, I don't want to see it go.

 

[crazyrabbits23]

I've been out of DC for a long time now -- I was heavy into comics a decade or so back, but the spiralling craziness of trying to collect author runs (the last one I bothered to try and complete was Bendis' run on Daredevil), the multitude of titles and the constant resets/reboots turned me off. Ironically, the last DC comic I picked up was a bagged Superman #75 for a laugh.

I still have a few of my DC titles, though I haven't decided if I want to keep them loose or try to brave the CGC submission process and wait a year to get them back. Collectibles of all types have been skyrocketing, and while I still have my position in a few titles, I'm content to ride out the storm and see where prices settle.

Most publishers run into this glut at one time or another -- in fact, the first thing I thought of upon reading the OP was "Clone Saga". The fact that the ideas DC has been churning out are going over like a lead balloon, coupled with the pandemic and the increasing pressure on comic shops to perform or die off en masse, hasn't helped.