I'm at the DC Rebirth retailer road show

*toilet flush*

jesus christ waht

hey at least wally west is back I guess

hilarious

Abhay with The Case Against Dan Didio

is there a case for didio rly?

Inertia.

What's scary is that this appears to be less of a turd in a punch bowl than Civl War II.

I'm starting to think, though, that the Big 2 are doomed to a constant cycle of disappointing their fans. I'm closing in on my third anniversary officially in the business and I've been around it for much longer - I have difficulty remembering a time when fans approved of major changes/events from either one. Which isn't a criticism of fans so much as wondering if there's even a way for the big 2 to do better or if it's going to take an outside publisher creating a new universe to do things well.

I wouldn't say I'm exactly excited about Civil War II but I fail to understand how that's a bigger misstep than DC's endless slow-motion fumble.

I am guessing whoever he reports to up the the chain is less competent, or completely uninvested in comics and more interested in licensing. Having a less competent person report to you is a good way to not be overshadowed?

Half of Marvel's big events are dumb, but the paths of individual characters through them tend to show some development or at least have plot beats that don't involve rape or trashing the character

I mean, unless Loeb was involved

how many times have they rebooted in the last decade? three? four? I genuinely have no idea what is up in the dcu now - there's two supermen and three jokers and somehow dr manhattan might have caused the reboot before this one? I dread to think what hawkman's status quo is now if they can't even keep their tentpole characters like superman accessible for a dyed-in-the-wool comics dork like me

is there a case for didio rly?

he repeatedly refers to Davis' hilariously / tragically vmic piece

I am guessing whoever he reports to up the the chain is less competent, or completely uninvested in comics and more interested in licensing.

that's exactly why Nelson was appointed; she had been in charge of Harry Potter licensing at WB, and then an executive VP in Global Brand Management

the only creative decision of hers that's ever been reported afaik was on arrival, looking at Sandman revenues vs all other DC revenues, asking why they weren't doing more Sandman, being told that the NYT best-selling author had tried hard to do a 20th anniversary series but had been told to fuck off by DC, and schmoozing said author by taking him to a Nolan Batman movie premiere

so dr. manhattan is the beyonder now? that's a terrible idea.

Every single bit iof sic's last post is depressing

"Hmm, what makes money. Sandman? Do more of that."
Didio: "um hmm errr yeah.."
"Oh, the author doesn't like you, I will take him to this premiere of our licensed blockbuster film based on anothe property. I am sure he loves money and will be swayed."

Do you think they'll eventually catch the hint that Vertigo trades -> tv and movies can't continue when there are no more titles coming? Might take another decade or so until they mine out all the adaptable ones, maybe accelerated if the Preacher tv show is a hit

Also, DC telling Gaiman to fuck off is some seriously backward shit, especially when they're trying to make properties that succeed outside of comics. Doesn't he have two feature films and an upcoming tv series based on his independent work? Sheesh.

"We're making comics for 45 year old men. Please get some more refrigerators for these popular female characters."

i'm having a really hard time imagining Preacher is gonna be a hit but i suppose i should watch an episode or two first

it's gotten some decent reviews

Do you think they'll eventually catch the hint that Vertigo trades -> tv and movies can't continue when there are no more titles coming?

This already happened: pre-Nelson, Warner Bros Entertainment changed the Vertigo contracts so that they controlled or retained all media rights, and effectively stopped paying royalties on collections. People with options due to high or non-existent status promptly stopped taking work to Vertigo. When was the last time you saw, if not a Gaiman, an Ennis or Ellis or Azzarello or a Morrison or even a BKVaughan or Jason Aaron create something there? (Joe the Barbarian came out in late 2009, but was drawn slowly over several years prior.)

"Oh, the author doesn't like you, I will take him to this premiere of our licensed blockbuster film based on anothe property. I am sure he loves money and will be swayed."

Well, it was money that he'd fucked off over - they refused to renegotiate the putative 20th Anniversary Sandman contract from the 1987 Sandman contract. NBy now earning 15% of cover on a novel that he'd write in a year, he didn't want to take a ...3.5? iirc % royalty on a new Sandman graphic novel that he'd write in a year. He proposed raising his Sandman overall deal to a whopping 6% to amortise the time/money lost in that one year across the next sixteen years of all series sales; they counter-offered "how about 6% on the serialisation, eat a dick on the collection and the rest of the TPBs and Absolutes and Annotateds?"

Also, DC telling Gaiman to fuck off is some seriously backward shit, especially when they're trying to make properties that succeed outside of comics. Doesn't he have two feature films and an upcoming tv series based on his independent work? Sheesh.

At the time he had (or was imminent) one English-language screenplay translation, two written-and-directed short films, one $150 million feature film from an original co-written screenplay based on an eighth-century poem, one commissioned original feature film, one successful feature film based on a novel, one $90 million feature based on an illustrated novel once published by Vertigo, and a lot of development hell and high-paying rewrite jobs.

Right now he has one feature based on a short story in post, one series based on four short stories set to air soon enough that the Jarvis Cocker soundtrack is out this week, one big American "prestige TV" series based on a novel in production, and more development hell, with Warners' own Sandman having its most publicised falling-apart-because-Warners ever. (Or possibly because-Goyer, as the writer of the Blade movies and TV show, the Nolan Batmans, the Neveldine/Taylor Ghost Rider, the TV Hellblazer and the Snyder Superman and Superman Vs Batman is still in charge.) (Also the David Hasselhoff Nick Fury, btw.)

It's not clear to me whether you're reading Goyer's works as a charge sheet - it seems pretty likely that it's the reason he's still in charge.

eye of the beholder

(and the theoretical beholder is JGL)

I was being sarcastic -- DC editorial obviously doesn't care that there's no new Vertigo work, and there's been zero pressure from above to more aggressively recruit writers/artists with better deals.

And yeah, showing Gaiman the Batman movie does nothing because he's being shown a fully DC-owned title and not offering him a reasonable deal, but somehow showing him a moneymaker with the promise of him getting jack shit for compensation, comparatively, makes me wonder what the hell they were thinking, unless they think he is a starry-eyed youth who would be happy to see his work on the big screen and doesn't understand contracts!

thank you for the numbers backing that up, sic!

I feel like David Goyer has been fairly creatively bankrupt for years and either the room of writers for projects he's staffed have snuck a few decent plots through. The Batman films were probably his most successful and they were worked into screenplays by the Nolan brothers. His sole comic movie directing credit is... Blade: Trinity. So that's what it looks like when he has full writer/director creative control.

DC editorial obviously doesn't care that there's no new Vertigo work, and there's been zero pressure from above to more aggressively recruit writers/artists with better deals.

The issue is that it was the pressure from above drove away the writers and artists - the deals changed to be terrible because Warners realised that Vertigo books were more readily optionable.

(Didio doesn't care that this killed Vertigo, obv, because he only believes in top-down corporate storytelling. But there have probably been dozens of others in editorial who've regretted the impact.)

There's nothing wrong with top-down corporate storytelling (a) when it's done well and (b) solely produced at the expense of any other type of content

It's like, I'd have no issue with Didio being a company man, if he wasn't so very very bad at it

("unless it's" before "solely")

feel like Didio's concept of "when it's done well" is diametrically opposed to my own

Didio not even enthusiastic or interesting enough to get his own Funky Flashman

there was that year-delayed re-written re-drawn final issue of the last Ambush Bug miniseries, but I can't remember anything about it apart from distaste and disappointment

I never noticed that Didio pushed himself into that Wednesday Comics thing. Probably because I skipped his segments and didn't bother to see who wrote them.

xpost I've always loved Ambush Bug but I pretty much hated that last Ambush Bug mini. Thanks, Didio.

weirdly a gis for 'thanks didio' brings up this image as the top result

https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/55063696.jpg

and then a lot of beefcake pics of some muscular young man

Thanks, Dildo.

not gonna gis 'thanks dildo' that's for sure

FWIW I'm sure there are relatively few instances of anyone photoshopping Didio's face on the end of a sex toy.

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/d3/d35190b9cafa4ced615e8085a225f4f6ca2079c0170fd824892cfee4e97dcf7f.jpg

insulting to actual dildos everywhere

An email from Evan Dorkin to his editor, in 2003.

Yes, as he notes, Didio is highly reminiscent of Jemas (lest we ever forget Big Bill).

Although Jemas originally fostered an environment where creative led and thrived, for a couple of years. And was fired within months after he began controllingly meddling in editorial, not repeatedly promoted for over a decade.

Ah yes, the Marvel days of Arad and Jemas, the action figure man and the baseball card man

Thank god for Quesada and Alonso, seriously. I'm kinda dreading the day those guys are gone and Disney installs some junior exec from ABC as the new EIC.

There was a *brief* period when DC were pretty good during Didio's tenure -- maybe starting with Seaguy/Catwoman/Gotham Central up to the end of Seven Soldiers.

And then you get Countdown, which Didio apparently called "52 done right" (!) and everything except not by Grant Morrison goes off the rails, and the GM goes off the rails too.

I'd contest the last point, but since he's not writing anything for them any more, it's a moot point.

I never finished his Batman run, but IMO Final Crisis and his Superman run and Joe the Barbarian and Multiversity were all good examples of him coming up with interesting ideas and premises, but not bothering with decent plotting and pacing, which made them kinda irritating to read. Though TBH this has always been a problem with Morrison (see "Rock of Ages" or "Here Comes Tomorrow" for some earlier examples), but it's become more pronounced in recent times. None of his post-SS comics have reached the heights of the works that preceded them.

Eh, I think that cramming more ideas in than wise is always a feature of Morrison's work - as a complete stan, it's one of the things I really appreciate about it.

There's a great (but not short) review of Action Comics here - I was looking for evidence of editorial interference but it doesn't mention much (except with the artists):

https://them0vieblog.com/2016/03/07/grant-morrisons-run-on-action-comics-reviewretrospecti

Joe the Barbarian is fairly straightforward thought I thought - hallucinations + heroes journey contrasted with an urgent physical problem in the real world.

i understand that completionist approach but can't imagine doing it with paper.

as of late i found the online "complete marvel" / "complete dc" torrents (about two terabytes total) and am slowly absorbing full years

Speaking of ill-gotten DC torrents, I just spotted this precocious letter writer at the back of a Neal Adams Batman issue:

http://i.imgur.com/28M5BzQ.jpg

dave sim, champion of grim and gritty

I came across a few George R.R. Martin letters in silver age Marvel titles.

is there a tumblr or something for scans of before-they-were-famous letters that appeared in comics and magazines?

(or just scans of letters pages from old comics in general, I love that stuff.)

these scans of letters that appeared in 50s and 60s Superman comics and Mort Weisinger's responses are quite something

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/category/dont-send-me-no-more-letters-no/

The crazy thing is that the Darth Vader boo being stopped it is selling well. Vader and Star Wars are like #2 and #3 of all the books at my small local shop on the pull list with Walking Dead being #1.

To me, I think if Marvel really wanted to get it together they should do what they did on those Star Wars titles, which are in someways the most old school Marvel books they have done in a while. They have an inner continuity, they are written for a wide audience and are both stylistically and content wise true to the original creations with room for the creators to tell a story.

What could be fun if they do Empire Strikes Back as like a 25 issue (4 trade series) both adapting the movie and filling in back story with Jabba, Boba Fett and other players in the background like the search for Hoth etc.

like the radio play adaptions

the star wars radio play, which i listened to obsessively as a child before we had a vhs machine, was 13 30-min episiodes, so there was a LOOOOT of extra material

I came across a few George R.R. Martin letters in silver age Marvel titles.

― What's Your Definition of a Dirty Baby? (Old Lunch)

true fact: he was the first paying attendee at a comics convention

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/4/4b/George_R_R_Martin.jpg
You'd never guess from his physical appearance

To me, I think if Marvel really wanted to get it together they should do what they did on those Star Wars titles, which are in someways the most old school Marvel books they have done in a while. They have an inner continuity, they are written for a wide audience and are both stylistically and content wise true to the original creations with room for the creators to tell a story.

I think they had the same rules with the previous (pre-Episode VII) canon? All comics, games, novels, etc. had to be approved by Lucasfilm's continuity guards, and they were all considered canon... And then what happened was that, once The Force Awakens was in the works, obviously a lot of the old canon would have to be abandoned (since it depicted post-Episode VI events in ways that would contradict with Episode VII), so they decided that all of the old canon except for the movies + the Clone Wars TV series was now set in an alternate universe. I think the old canon is now called "Star Wars Legends" or something.

AFAIK Star Wars has been pretty unique in this regard that they've tried to include all stories in different media into the canon, so that the timeline of their universe includes all that material, and different stories shouldn't contradict each other. With Star Trek, for example, only the TV series and the movies are considered to be official canon, everything else is non-canonical.

IIRC there were levels of canon, so the book level was canon unless it was contradicted by the films, the comics were canon unless it was contradicted by the books or the film, and so on.

I like earlnash's point about the Star Wars books being "old school Marvel" - i.e. mild continuity, one author just getting on with it for several years, each new story really *is* a potential starting point for new readers, etc

i.e. the days before continuity was a beartrap and american otaku and children were the key demographics