The Valeyard

Warner has been failing with their IPs for decades now. Look at how they handle Looney Tunes. From a prominent IP to something they experiment with constantly, trying to find something that sticks. It feels like how Disney handles the Muppets. Always re-inventing.

This is DC's future.

Red Hood

To be honest, Disney has had the same problem with Mickey and friends. It seems that once the year 2000 hit, both companies thought they could rely on the content created in the century before and be done with them. At least Looney Tunes was a hit until around 1996-97 with Space Jam. Disney on the other hand, has had issues on how to do Mickey and friends right until they hit the mark with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Mickey Mouse Roadsters in the past 5-10 years. The Muppets had their successful movie in 2011.

What has worked for Marvel is 2 things: diversity and desperation. Marvel went all in on diversity, creating Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, Moon Girl, Jessica Jones, and moving up Carol Danvers to Captain Marvel among other things. This made Marvel more interesting and appealing to the younger crowd. I mean, a Miles Morales movies was one of the biggest hit of all time and it led them to getting an Academy Award.

Desperation happened when Marvel went bankrupt, sold the movie rights of their biggest guns (Spider-Man and the X-Men) to Sony and Fox and then was forced to be creative and raise B, C and D-list characters and make them A-listers. By embracing their entire catalog of characters, Marvel and Disney became the powerhouse they are today. I mean, who the hell knew about Rocket, Starlord, Drax, Gamora, Mantis, Groot or Yondu before Guardians of the Galaxy hit the big screen? Who knew of Doctor Strange outside of comic book fans? Yet, they were a hit and are now part of popular culture.

Warner has been extremely stupid for years, only focusing on Batman and Superman instead of exploiting their whole catalog of characters. The time they let people play with characters like Flash and Arrow, they became hit TV shows. The moment they let someone focus and do probably the best new DC movie to date in Wonder Woman, the got billions of dollars in return. If WB/AT&T was smart, they would start pre-production on the Justice Society, Blue Beetle, Red Hood, Nightwing, Lobo, Legion, Dr. Fate, Martian Manhunter, a good GL film, Firestorm, etc. DC has a list of characters as long as Marvel. So far, their 3 best films in the past 8 years have been Wonder Woman, Shazam and Aquaman. Just let people who love the business play with these characters and stop with the micromanaging bean counter bullshit and they could easily have with a good plan a 10-15 year storyarc for a whole DCU movie world. But at the same time, use the comic book division as content creators, like Marvel has been doing and don't look at them as separate entity.

Red Hood

I found something interesting after speaking with several LCS around my area. They are receiving incentives variants from DC (1:25 ratio issues) from weekly releases even though they haven't ordered enough to qualify for them. On the other hand, they are sending more than 1 copy of those variants for stores that qualify for them. On one hand, it seems that these 2 new distributors are trying to keep stores happy. On the other hand, it screws up the market for these ratio books. Don't really know what to think of this.

fujishig

Unless the distributors are allocating their own copies, seems more like DC either overproducing or trying to make good with comic book stores, not the distributors themselves?

If I were a store who got a copy when I didn't think I would, I think I'd be grateful, but if I were a store that struggled to order enough to get a variant only for every store to get that variant, I'd be ticked. Even if you then got two, I'm not sure how you could trust DC about this considering like you said the resale value will change depending on rarity. Unless DC communicated this to stores or something.

Red Hood

DC has not communicated this to the stores at all. And I believe is somewhat illegal what DC is doing as it is basically deceptive business practices. I understand DC overprinting some of these variant covers as they have also to take into consideration damages and missing items but telling retailers that you are getting a variant if you buy 25 copies of the regular book and then have another store order 3 copies and get the variant is kinda shitty.

Red Hood

DC is really antagonizing the comic book retailers like I've never seen before. They announced Batman Day, but require no participation of the retailers and now they closed their private retailer forum on Facebook. I was part of that since 2015 and even though there were some assholes in it complaining about unimportant/stupid shit (wHy ArE yOu FoRcInG DiVeRsItY/pOlItIcS iN yOuR bOokS?!?) there were many post about with constructive criticism on improving the product overall. For example, when the first wave of the Batman:The Animated Series toys came out, the figures were incredibly brittle and broke easily. Complaints on their forum helped them make the necessary changes for future releases. Not having this outlet anymore for retailers is another move that screams AT&T bullshit behind it. I wouldn't be surprised if DC announced soon that they are going to place their weekly releases at stores like Wal-Mart, Target or Amazon.

stingermck

I have to keep up and read my emails at work

I mean, I hate DC I spit on them!

Red Hood

The new General Manager for DC Comics. So far, everything I've heard of him is positive

Josh-da-man

Everything AT&T touches turns to shit, doesn't it?

DirecTV took a nosedive after they bought it.

I think people should fear for the future of, not only DC Comics, but Warners as a whole. Warners has always been a mercurial, clueless corporation, but I fear what will happen to them under the vulture mentality of AT&T.

Red Hood

I agree with this initiative, which is pretty similar to what Marvel has done and it worked for them. Of course, the gatekeepers in this community are shitting all over this

Red Hood

Surprised about this since it is a good seller.

PhantomStranger

I think DC is thinning out their print comics line pretty heavily with an idea of drastically cutting back overhead as well. Fewer books to manage, thus fewer employees are needed across the company. That requires a few winners getting culled, even decent sellers. Smells a lot like a suggestion corporate consultants would tell AT&T what to do with a shrinking print business.

I don't have inside info but I'm guessing that DC moves to several key books being digital-only and/or digital-first in 2021. If you want print, you'll have to wait for the trade.

stingermck

So I guess all the editors are fired at DC. Todays Batgirl #49 actually repeats a story from New 52 Batgirl #19.

James Jr falls, and Gordon thinks Batgirl did it. This has to be the laziest writing and editorial I have seen.

Spoiler for size

PhantomStranger

Wow. That's why they are cutting half the line because no one is left to keep things running.

ddrknghtrtns

Maybe they did it on purpose to see if anyone is reading the book?

Red Hood

DC just pulled another bullshit move and this is going to impact heavily the stores on the east coast. This is some serious bullshit move by DC/AT&T

Josh-da-man

You really have to wonder what kind of game DC is playing with the distribution. Does it make those conspiracy theories about them trying to ratfuck the DM more plausible?

And setting a minimum order of $500/month is interesting. At the going prices, that's about 100-125 comics a month, not counting TPBs/HCs. I would guess that most comic book stores would order well over that amount. The only accounts I could see ordering less than that would be stores that aren't specifically comic book shops, but still carry a small selection of comic books, like record stores, bookstores, toy/hobby shops, or card dealers.

Red Hood

I just spoke with the owners of a little LCS near where I work and right now they aren’t buying $500 on DC books because most of them don’t sell in this area for some reason. They carry titles like Batman, Detective, Wonder Woman but for example they stop carrying Catwoman and Batman Beyond because they were not selling at their store.

Besides the minimum, what they are also worried about is the shipping cost. The cost went up with the change from Diamond to UCS. They imagine this cost will increase due to the fact that Lunar’s warehouse is in the west coast. Not only is shipping going up because of distance but will the books get to stores on the east on time?

Red Hood

Looking back at some emails I still have from when I had my store, I saw some of the rules with Diamond from back in 2015 and we had to order $500 minimum from them, but that amount was from all combined companies (Marvel, DC, IDW, Dark Horse, etc) and it included any item (comic books, statues, action figures) so the minimum was easy to achieve. What DC is asking from retailers now is pure bullshit. It's hard to come up with $500 of DC for only comics and trades. Right now, they are selling collectibles too, but is cheaper to get them from McFarlane itself or Spin Masters.

Josh-da-man

The latest scuttlebutt is that it was UCS that pulled the plug, not DC Comics.

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/dc-c...ped-dc-comics/

Red Hood

The guy who said that is the owner of Lone Star Comics and MyComicShop and the guy is full of shit. This is the same guy who sent this bullshit email to his mailing list of customers today saying that lockdowns aren't necessary and posting pseudoscience bullshit

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/myco...-mailing-list/

Everyone I've spoken too said that DC pulled the plug because UCS refused to force retailers to the $500 monthly order minimum that Lunar agreed too. That and ongoing customer service issues from UCS, like not responding to emails, a huge backlog of LCS that still have not gotten a response from them about getting an account, issues with replacing shortages, among other things. I've also heard that the owners of UCS/Midtown are pissed because they moved their best people from the Midtown team to the UCS one to provide the best service to DC and bought a warehouse to store the books and have a distribution center, all in the midst of a pandemic, and DC pulls the plug just like that.

Red Hood

More bad news at DC Comics. The new round of layoffs at WB/AT&T hit them yesterday and today, with many behind the scenes people losing their jobs. Heard more editors are losing their jobs too and that some of the big time talent may be either let go of their exclusive contracts or have their contracts restructured. The name I keep hearing about the contract restructuring is Bendis. From the rumors I've heard, his large contract has brought in the return in sales they expected. While most of his books are still in the top 100 on the sales list, they are selling as high as people though they would be. None of his books are hitting even the top 20 in sales. Last month's Superman was his highest performer at #39 selling around 47K. DC was really expecting his books to perform much better than that.

Other names I've heard that may be let go to explore other options are Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick. They went to DC at the same time as Bendis, but Matt hasn't done much other than the critically acclaimed but average selling Jimmy Olsen maxi-series and Kelly Sue worked on Aquaman, which sold ok.

fujishig

If the rumors were true that Hickman wanted the Legion before he went back to Marvel and got X-men, they absolutely should have given it to him. Oh well.

Red Hood

Those rumors were true. He asked for the Legion but I believe at the time Didio and Lee had promised it to Bendis first.

The Valeyard

^ I heard that Hickman had the gig but the delays on Doomsday Clock also delayed restarting Legion and he ended up going over to X-Men instead of waiting around. When DC stopped caring about tying Doomsday Clock to the main DCU, they handed Legion over to Bendis (and the JSA to Snyder for Justice League). That's how I heard it in the Burbank shops.

Bendis' Superman run has me lukewarm. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting but I HATE that Jon got aged up. A lot of the magic from the Tomasi run just got steamrolled. The Jor-El resolution was fine. It felt like there was more planned for that arc but it got sidelined as Doomsday Clock got later and later.

I enjoyed the Clark Kent reveal to the public but I think it fell under the radar because DC used the same gimmick during DCYou so it had less impact now. I also enjoyed Action Comics up until the Leviathan/Legion of Doom arc. Since then, it's been a boring mess. The Superman title is still holds up.

I've been collecting the two Superman titles steadily since 2014 (end of New 52, Rebirth and Bendis). Unless the new creative team really pops, I'm probably dropping the two books when they come back after Future State.