DC Implosion II: DC Comics in 2020 and Beyond

Why are the offices in Burbank more expensive? (It's not mentioned or explained in the link.)

Some quick Googling suggests that midtown Manhattan is #2 in the country, while Burbank is much, much cheaper -- on average, of course.

DC moved from 666 5th (now owned by Jared Kushner, and a major liability that he's tried to leverage through various of his governmental roles through the last four years) to across the road from Letterman around... 1993? '95?

When Levitz left all the way back in 2009 and Diane Nelson took over, moving the offices to the West Coast was once again considered—and a whole west coast office that was staff-ready was already built— but Levitz, or someone, had signed such a long lease on the offices that to break it would literally have cost more than the move.

Dc Entertainment staff began using that Warners-built office in 2010; in 2011 they signed a https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/dc-entertainment-readies-move-new-2051786 million lease even closer to Warner, but it took a few years to purpose-build another space in the floor they leased in that tower. In 2013, DC Entertainment and relocated DC Comics staff moved in; in 2015 DC Comics as a whole was moved to the west coast.

MAD was a major canary in the coalmine of my thinking, too.

NB that Nelson told the Wall Street Journal in 2013 that the awkwardness of judging the office Halloween costume contest via video conferencing is what convinced her to require the entire New York staff to move a few buildings away from her, or to pay out their redundancies.

Haha

that linking glitch should say "$16 million lease" btw

Well, Nelson's sure sounds like an opinion one should throw millions of dollars at.

Can we say for certain that DC/WB/AT&T isn't some Producers-esque scam whose architects desperately want it to fail? Because Occam's Razor suggests...

AT&T seem all-in on WB; they've been aggressively remaking the studio (to the dismay of longtime staffers). I don't know how they feel about the publishing business, though.

they are actively shopping the publishing business to dipshit nerd venture capitalists; estimates are $300 million to half a billion for print rights in perpetuity, no underlying IP.

revenue streams! revenue streams!
https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-02-22/audio-brings-new-dimension-to-the-dc-comics-universe/

these podcasts have been surprisingly successful for Marvel, so I guess why not

Not 2020, but I've been reading John Ostrander's Legends miniseries from' 86, post-Crisis. Setup to launch new series, particular his run on Suicide Squad which I'm also reading. While that one's good, this series has got a lot of painful Len Wein dialogue. Vibe is part of the JLA and required to say "amigo" every other line. Also, I didn't realize just how early DC was doing the "public turns against the superheroes!" bit, as this feature Darkseid as the main villain utilizing G. Gordon Godfrey as propagandist. Boy, they went back to that well a lot in the past decade, didn't they?

tbf that schtick is a old as the birth of marvel

Sure, but it's something of a dividing line between them, I'd have thought?

sure. DC was doing wacky superheroes well into the 80s before they caught the grim and gritty bug.

his name was Ambush Bug, iirc

POP!

were early Avengers storylines like that or something? i haven't read the early Marvel stuff in-depth... though Spider-Man of course always had people hating him as a major plot element, it didn't have this particular feeling or nostalgia behind it

X-Men were always hated and feared
Avengers and FF definitely had early storylines about them being good or bad
same, as you say, for Spider-Man
Captain America is the only earthly hero who get off without suspicion in the early MU iirc

oh, duh, X-Men. that's the most outstanding example for sure. but i guess, in my mind, since they and Spider-Man were hated from the beginning as outcasts/freaks/racial allegories it felt "baked in"?

in Legends, there's a scene where a brainwashed mob of "everyday" citizens beats the life out of Jason Todd and puts him in the hospital, I was surprised to see it

caught him stealing their rims

DC officially done waiting for the floppy to die on its own, hastens its demise by raising cover price to six fucking dollars (for 40 pages): https://bleedingcool.com/comics/dc-increases-price-of-batman-monthly-comic-and-others-to-6-each/

This is even funnier considering that for the last six months, almost every DC book I've bought doesn't even scan for sale properly, due to all the distribution shenanigans that happened in 2020

Also I bet those $5.99 books will still be crawling with ads. Let's pay for more Snickers advertainment!

Yeah, I thought the least concession they could make was to slap 'No Ads!' on the cover but I'm sure there's little chance of that.

Like god knows I do more than my fair share to keep the floppy market afloat, but if Marvel winds up going down this road, I might honestly throw in the towel. I'd like to think Disney isn't that stupid but maybe they're equally eager to kill off our beloved pamphlets and this is just the direction the entire market will go.

you've got to be kidding me

And with the Batman/Fortnite: Zero Point #1-6 priced at $4.99

BTW, the right way to do this would be to note that each issue has a "limited run" and then sell them as the collectibles they need them to be for that price point but they don't seem to give a shit

I guess it just applies to a handful of titles at the moment but it's a tremendously shitty precedent. Hopefully one that will blow up in their faces before it really takes root.

i presume they're curious to see how much if at all pricing impacts the floppy audience. They might not be wrong in assuming that anyone who already submits to the indignity of buying these pamphlets will buy three floppies for $18 instead of six for the same and bitch about it but put up with it.

Probably the latter, guilty as charged. (So much indignity, lol)
Especially those Black Label books which sometimes use cardstock covers and bump up the price to $5 already.
Hell, even TMNT: The Last Ronin (which wasn't bad, as a corny and fun deliberate throwback story) was printed in a semi-prestige oversized format at $7.99 per issue, which largely inspired me not to continue. This week I saw Batman: Urban Legends - a new anthology series which I would have tried at normal price - selling at $7.99 as well, and said no. In fairness, at least that book was 64 pages, but still... that's almost the price of a 200pg manga black and white volume.

With Rebirth their schtick was $2.99 comics - that was ultimately a failure so I guess they're going to aim higher.

A little corporate history and speculation on what happens next for DC: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/dc-comics-warnermedia-discovery-1234954536/

(well, not so much speculation as “who knows?”)

Batman reality shows are going to make some very annoying people very very angry.

well you'd be annoying too if some guy hired by HBO kills your mother and father to send you on a sociopathic spiral

Posting these dresses seen in the window of a vintage shop, just b/c they’re awesome:

https://i.imgur.com/3ETcHSl_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

Grant Morrison in good-comic-shocker. I have no idea/interest how it interacts with DC continuity - such as it is - but SUPERMAN AND THE AUTHORITY is most fun I’ve had reading a Grant Morrison comic in about a decade. It’s very middle-tier GM but not unenjoyable.

It’s Grant in “What if Millar but bearable” mode

I hope he actually bothers finishing this Authority story.

I think it's only three issues so he should be able to stick it out.

Was wondering if I wanted to get on board this wave of Superman stories, Bendis just finished his run. There are maxis for Jon Kent (by Tom Taylor), Supergirl (by Tom King) and the Morrison one. Probably just wait them to hit Hoopla in 2022.

DC Direct is now a division of McFarlane Toys.

Rorschach #11, penultimate issue. Excellent work, especially by Fornes. All finally coming together. Definitely going to have to re-read this entire thing.

I just read Infinite Frontier #1 and I think it put me off comics forever. I can't do it, folks.

When our heroes saved the Muliverse from Perpetua in Dark Nights: Death Metal, everything was put back where it belonged... is some too much time on ilx shit

lol they are using the "multiverse being real" like its covid or something - which could be interesting.. the masses are fighting about it. but people say "the multiverse was RESET AND REBOOTED" about 100 times in issue one and it was the first time a ever threw a comic book across the room

Don't let present-day DC put you off of comics forever. Let it put you off of present-day DC forever.

This is the exact thing that I was talking about in the X-men thread...sounds like total blech.

I do need to go pull my file as I haven't been to the comic store in a couple months (maybe 3)...yikes. Should not be all that much as I don't have but a couple titles on pull anymore.

im being hyperbolic of course ill still read things but whhhyyyyyyy do these people think having an infinite crisis every few years is a good thing?!

that "illusion of change", baby!