Rolling Comic Books 2020 Visions

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/dc-comics-dc-universe-hit-by-major-layoffs-1306743

^^ Pulled out of Diamond altogether, switching all their periodical distribution to two mail-order companies, no international distribution to comic shops.

In normal times, this would definitely be a case of pointing and laughing when, like Heroes World, the plan flops. This seems so much more speedily doomed to failure that the only thing that makes sense is that it's intended as a strongarm move to get better terms out of Diamond.

However, decisions from DC that make sense have not been a core business strategy for about the last 15 years.

― an, uh, razor of love (sic), Saturday, June 6, 2020 9:27 AM (two months ago)

This went well, then.

AFAICT they are (at least in part) paying for the sins of HBO Go? Such fun to be part of a big corporate family!

There was an interesting post about this from the comics writer/researcher Peter Sanderson on his Facebook page:

Back in the 1980s Warners apparently toyed with the idea of shutting down DC and outsourcing the publishing rights to Marvel. I was in a Marvel editorial meeting at which we discussed which DC titles we should publish if we got the rights. (I pushed for a "New Gods" book.) Now I wonder if it might come to the point that AT & T decides to outsource the comics publishing rights to DC characters. But who would get them? Marvel? IDW? Dark Horse? Would some characters end up at one company and other DC characters at another?

Shooter had a very brief opportunity to buy DC outright IIRC? And decided against it?

http://jimshooter.com/2011/08/superman-first-marvel-issue.html/

Ahh, yes. Thank you for that.

LOL, of course Shooter decided that one of the seven launch titles would be LOSH.

Wow, so it didn't happen because Marvel was fighting off an anti-trust lawsuit at the time. It would've been mindblowing to my child self to see that happen, I remember having such an interest in that X-Men/Teen Titans crossover story.

That story is incredible! I didn’t know DC was in such dire straits back then.

I dunno if they were in unusual dire straits, so much as adapting to shifting their business to full-sale instead of sale-or-shred - 1984 would have been the time of the first Baxter books, with New Teen Titans experimenting with One Year Later vs LSH trying out parallel stories on the newstand. Crisis was already in prep, and their creative renaissance was ramping up solidly by 1985.

A big boss at Warner Communications would probably have just been looking at some balance sheets, and not giving any shrift to. effectively, a brand new retail channel.

of course marvel filed for bankruptcy in the 90's
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1996/12/28/marvel-entertainment-files-for-bankruptcy-protection/73bb4597-3076-48eb-a113-1b5f8e654a6a/

that was because Perelman bought it for $80million and then ran up $700million debt on toy companies, sticker companies, trading card companies and... pulling out of the distribution market and attempting to run their own distro through a too-small shell company. HMMM

if DC hadn't done their version during a pandemic, they probably would have tried to open a national chain of DC Universe toy shops / theme restaurants as well

DC appointing a new General Manager from the eSports division instead of an Editor-in-Chief, starting Friday 18th September

the Director of Publishing Operations, a 28-year veteran of DC (one of their longest employees) is among the fired, and those laid off are required to work 2-3 months notice.

Odds on print publishing being shut down by Christmas?

No one with any decision-making ability has had any idea what to do with DC in a very, very long time.

Or, well, I guess driving the whole thing into a wall at top speed is a decision of sorts.

a very, very long time

it's only eleven years since Nelson replaced Levitz.

I guess that might feel like a very, very long time if I'd bought more than a dozen or so DC comics in that period tbf

It feels like a very, very long time to me BECAUSE I've only bought a (few) dozen or so DC titles in that period.

waitasec, Batman Inc. ran until 2013, I bought a few dozen too

Hope they at least finish Dark Nights: Death Metal

*looks that up*

Dark Nights: Death Metal #1–7

Writer Scott Snyder
Penciller Greg Capullo
Inker Jonathan Glapion
Colorist FCO Plascencia

Dark Nights: Death Metal: Multiverse's End

Writer James Tynion IV
(artist) Juan Gedeon
Colorist TBA

Dark Nights: Death Metal: Legends of the Dark Knights

Writer Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Marguerite Bennett, Joshua Williamson, Peter J. Tomasi, Garth Ennis, Daniel Warren Johnson, Frank Tieri
Penciller Tony S. Daniel, Jamal Igle, Joëlle Jones, Daniel Warren Johnson, Riley Rossmo, Francesco Francavilla
Inker TBA
Colorist TBA

Dark Nights: Death Metal: Infinite Hour Exxxtreme!

Writer TBA
Penciller TBA
Inker TBA
Colorist TBA

Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Last 52: War of the Multiverses

Writer TBA
Penciller TBA
Inker TBA
Colorist TBA

Dark Nights: Death Metal The Last Stories of the DCU

Writer TBA
Penciller TBA
Inker TBA
Colorist TBA

Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Multiverse Who Laughs

Writer TBA
Penciller TBA
Inker TBA
Colorist TBA

Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Secret Origin

Writer TBA
Penciller TBA
Inker TBA
Colorist TBA

would be a shame to miss out on this well-planned passion project for sure

it's fun!

^ TBC

Yeah, it's really not.

this was the year I went hard on Ben Passmore and bought a small pile of his work and joined his Patreon.
He's great! BTTM FDDRS is one of the best comics of the last five years.
https://www.radiatorcomics.com/creator/ben-passmore/
https://www.instagram.com/daygloayhole/
his new book, Sports is Hell, looks great.

yeah BTTM FDDRS is some wild stuff

Is there really, even theoretically, meant to be a thing called 'Dark Nights: Death Metal: Infinite Hour Exxxtreme!'. I would not expect sic to lie, but this seems unlikely, even for DC.

https://i.imgur.com/agTaBRa.jpg
Writers: Becky Cloonan and Frank Tieri!

After posting, I regretted not moving it to the end of the list so it would look like I had made it up

I am sorry for doubting you for even a half-second.

The director of the CBLDF was removed last month from his position, 14 years after police investigations into sexual assault complaints against him at conventions. TCJ subsequently reported on sexual harassment & bullying he enaged in at work.

An interim director was appointed today, an "attorney and ethics director" whose previous role involved "work on ethics issues ..advising government officials," and who is a member of the Ethics Committee at Kering Americas. In the press release announcing his hiring, he quotes 'my favorite comic book sequence of all time, the last issue of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol: "There is another world. A better world. Well... there must be."'

The ethics-focused lawyer for the artists' rights org does not cite that Morrison was quoting Asleep by The Smiths.

Ugh. An ugly story

Axed at DC in the last 8 weeks or so:

Metal Men (mini)
Batman's Grave (mini)
Hellblazer
Lucifer
Books of Magic
Amethyst
House Of Whispers
Batgirl
Aquaman
Batman & The Outsiders
Justice League Odyssey
Red Hood: Outlaw
Teen Titans
Young Justice
Harley Quinn
Hawkman
Suicide Squad
Supergirl
The Terrifics
Shazam!
Manhunters: The Secret History (bumped & unpublished)
Event Leviathan: Checkmate (wtf) (bumped & unpublished)

Bumped from May publication but not yet cancelled:
Flash Forward
Generation Zero: Gods Among Us
Generation One: Age of Mysteries
Generation Two: Age of the Metahuman
Generation Three: Age of Crisis
Generation Four: Age of Rebirth
Generation Five: Age of Tomorrow

plus 18x $1 Comics reprints, 4x Facsimile editions, and 5 ongoing Giant Comics for Walmart, including a Wonder Woman 1984 movie tie-in.

They've also confirmed that the TV content on the DC subscription service will be moving to HBO Max, fwiw.

This leaves approx 15 titles still being published as of November; they also had an online "Fandome" (wtf) convention scheduled, but many of the panels are being cancelled due to AT&T firing the talent shortly after pre-recording the panels the other week.

Jim Lee, in a hilariously content-free, management-jargon-filled interview with the Hollywood Reporter, suggests that their publishing strategy going forward will mostly be unpublished inventory and foreign licences, released digitally.

Small note that Batman's Grave being shitcanned is because it's written by Warren Ellis.

I was reading (on and off) almost all of these.

Batman's Grave was okay, basically a compendium of Ellis-isms so your enjoyment is going to be predicated on your patience with his writing tics (which came across to me this time as Neal Adams-noir) and his repugnant reputation.

The current run of Books of Magic was readable. Spurrier's current run on Hellblazer was actually very good and very much worth reading.

I either don't have much of anything to say and/or I did not like the rest.

DC is fucked, badly.

i'm amazed at how they've frittered away the good will of so many characters. Aquaman and Harley Quinn and Captain Mar- er, SHAZAM are megamovie stars! Teen Titans are beloved cartoon hits! How have you fucked this up so badly that an audience that wants to see these books isn't buying them?

I was liking Batman's Grave and the current Suicide Squad run, wasn't reading the rest.
Was looking forward to that Event Leviathan series just to see an actual conclusion to the first story.
As surprised as you are that they're killing those properties (Harley in particular which always seems popular?)
All the Generation 0-5 stuff was DiDios' baby, I think, so not surprising that's kicked away

Legion of Bendis Heroes is surviving? It looks so bad.

Bendis-verse, HillHouse and Black Label all summarily shrugged away or will be shortly i guess

on the other hand, i have no idea how books like hawkman or red hood have survived anywhere near this long.
red hood particularly! who the fuck is buying that book!?!

from early May, which i think is the last time DC had sales figures released through diamond

123 - RED HOOD: OUTLAW ($3.99)
03/2015: Red Hood & Outlaws #40 -- 17,110
03/2016: Red Hood/Arsenal #10 -- 17,707
03/2017: Red Hood & Outlaws #8 -- 27,894
03/2018: Red Hood & Outlaws #20 -- 20,214
-----------------------------------------
03/2019: Red Hood: Outlaw #32 -- 18,389 (- 5.9%)
04/2019: Red Hood: Outlaw #33 -- 24,706 (+ 34.4%)
05/2019: Red Hood: Outlaw #34 -- 18,389 (- 23.2%)
06/2019: Red Hood: Outlaw #35 -- 18,067 (- 4.8%)
07/2019: Red Hood: Outlaw #36 -- 21,308 (+ 17.9%)
08/2019: Red Hood: Outlaw #37 -- 18,585 (- 12.8%)
09/2019: Red Hood: Outlaw #38 -- 18,425 (- 0.9%)
10/2019: Red Hood: Outlaw #39 -- 17,614 (- 4.4%)
11/2019: Red Hood: Outlaw #40 -- 21,864 (+ 24.1%)
12/2019: --
01/2020: Red Hood: Outlaw #41 -- 15,835 (- 27.6%)
01/2020: Red Hood: Outlaw #42 -- 15,419 (- 2.6%)
02/2020: Red Hood: Outlaw #43 -- 15,733 (+ 2.0%)
03/2020: Red Hood: Outlaw #44 -- 14,158 (+ 2.0%)
-----------------
6 months: - 23.2%
1 year : - 23.0%
2 years : - 30.0%
5 years : - 17.3%

Lowest sales ever for a Red Hood-fronted comic.

from the same source:

DC COMICS - TOTAL SALES
03/2005: 1,914,442
03/2010: 1,910,518
03/2015: 1,877,281
03/2016: 1,696,506
03/2017: 2,711,448
03/2018: 2,305,728
------------------
03/2019: 2,213,196 (+ 25.8%)
04/2019: 1,515,307 (- 31.5%)
05/2019: 2,177,609 (+ 43.7%)
06/2019: 1,787,229 (- 25.7%)
07/2019: 2,130,506 (+ 19.2%)
08/2019: 1,814,822 (- 14.8%)
09/2019: 2,145,167 (+ 18.2%)
10/2019: 2,764,956 (+ 28.9%)
11/2019: 2,089,383 (- 24.4%)
12/2019: 2,057,809 (- 1.5%)
01/2020: 1,855,544 (- 9.8%)
02/2020: 1,738,041 (- 6.3%)
02/2020: 1,560,269 (- 6.3%)
-----------------
6 months: - 27.3%
1 year : - 29.5%
2 years : - 32.3%
5 years : - 19.6%
10 years: - 18.3%
15 years: - 18.5%

If Instagram and Tumblr's tireless algorithms are anything to go by, Red Hood has a really dedicated cult fanbase, especially for a third-tier Batman spinoff (though, tbf, not bad at times). Lobdell's long run was set to end with 50 anyway as of the end of June

lobdell's popularity in the comic world is utterly confounding to me
i will admit to thinking Happy Death Day was a pretty good movie; kind of assume there's a lot of punch-up work doing the heavy lifting there.

ha, wow, did not realize he wrote that. that's gotta be the best thing he's associated with

the director apparently did a page-one rewrite on Happy Death Day, basically keeping Lobdell's premise

that sounds right. the premise is "groundhog day meets Friday the 13th" which any 14 year old could've come up with but the nuances and the lead actress are what make it worthwhile.

I kind of have to say that the way the last-year data on DC flaps around like a flag in a high wind renders the year-to-year comparisons kind of meaningless, like this May was worse than all the other Mays, but last October was better than all of them?

Guessing Rebirth was the cause of the massive sales jump from 2016-2017.
Also that list conspicuously leaves out 2011, the start of the New 52. Still interesting the sales reverted and decreasing within four years, though.

I agree that is bizarre the way sales will ebb and flow month to month in 2019. I would've expected stronger consistent sales during event periods.Heroes in Crisis wasn't good and Doomsday Clock was dribbling to the finish with the final four issues being a year late (started in Nov '17!). Year of the Villain was an incredibly loose thematic tie-in.

I would've thought Bendis-verse (Superman titles, Wonder Comics imprint, Event Leviathan) would've been a solid bump, and Black Label seemed to get a solid push from the my local stores. I'm guessing none of these did as well as they hoped.

Black Label has been pretty successful but the new leadership doesn't like the 'adult' direction, supposedly.