Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities DC to renumber all titles starting with #1

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Well, maybe the digital thing will bear fruit. I still think that getting actual paper comics into new venues like big box stores and the like; breaking the monopoly of the direct market, would be the most important positive step they could take.

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The most amusing part of all this is the number of fans posting all over the internet that they will be dropping all DC books. Seriously? Yeah, the usual suspects who complain about everything that is currently being produced, but then freak out at any hint of change. We've seen it before...

Well, for me that would mean dropping one book. Which is still one more than I regularly buy from Marvel.

Some year, it should be economically feasible to do some sort of Print on Demand deal, where a 'comic shop' owns a color printer, and downloads the digital comics. Instead of paying to ship them all over the place, the retailer prints up comics according to orders placed, right there in the store.

It wouldn't even be a 'comic store,' it could be a print shop, like Kinko's, only one that specializes in printing out customers subscribed magazines, comics, newspapers, etc.

I would check out Shazam on Earth-S.

I would love for Teen Titans to be good again, but don't want to get my hopes up on that one...

And the store employees could be geeks who help out old timers like me. I had that experience at Wal-Greens this week. I wanted to enlarge a photograph as a gift. They had this new fangled do it yourself machine. I was helpless and hopeless. Thank goodness for the sweet, hip and patient young clerk.

I agree about Editing in the DCU the worst era ever, What they should have done was hire Jim Shooter as Editor in Chief to clean house!

Another article talking some sense about all this crap: http://www.comicsreporter.com/index...eginning_will_include_day_and_date_digi/

Financial reasons compelled me to drop comics (except a manga or two irregularly) about four years ago now. I find I don't miss them, especially after reading on LW about how DC has gone back into a 2nd Dark Age. The only domestic comic I've bought since that time was a hardcover edition of SUPERMAN AND THE LSH.

I find the timing quite interesting. This month, Barnes and Noble begins carrying a substantive amount of comic books in most, if not all, stores. (As in full bays, or at least a full tier, of the newsstand- not a handful of titles squashed into crossword puzzle magazine shelf.)

Same day digital delivery? B&N has had great success with NOOK- the ereader device which now has an app store. Liberty Media has a bid in to buy B&N. Liberty Media owns Time Warner. Hmmmmmm.

Babs Gordon is back as BATGIRL!

Bye-bye wheelchair!

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/06/01/dc-relaunch-batgirl-1-and-nightwing-1/

aw geezz....that does not bode well on the following bat-characters such as Cassandra Cain, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Wendy/Proxy, Stephanie Brown....

From character that really meant something back to second rate Batman with lady parts!

That last character is particularly a shame. Stephanie Brown's Batgirl relaunch has been one of the consistently best launches DC has put out in the past couple of years.

I know but .... I love Babs as BatGirl. !!!!




the only other one i'm attached to is Damien Wayne .. he's funny.

*shakes head at the Oracle reversion...*

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/06/01/dc-reboot-omac-1-additional/

All funnin' aside, I'm not sure yet how I feel about this. My affection for Babs-girl is no secret... but Barbara-as-Oracle has had a much bigger presence and importance in the DCU than she ever did under the cowl. Her early appearances were campy fun, but nothing I feel compelled to revisit. ESPECIALLY at the cost of losing Oracle and BoP. And Nightwing... what's this all mean for Morrison's Batman, Inc? This makes twice that Dick's been promoted and the relegated to bridesmaid status.

I need to hear more about this before I make any halfcocked pronouncements, but nothing I've seen so far fills me with any confidence.

Better than him being Robin again. And, also being serious... I don't see him becoming Batman as a "promotion". More as him accepting he'll never get out of Bruce's shadow, and so clinging ever-more-tightly to him...

[Also, I wouldn't entirely bet against "Nightwing" being a Superman spin-off, just to $%^# with everyone]

Naturally, Didio wants some of the royalties that will come from a #1 in a big event. Using your position as one of the top guys to make some additional $$ for yourself is par for the course with Didio.

Except, oh yeah, its a blatant violation of the Duty of Loyalty to put the company's well-being over your own if you're one of the officers of the company. When it happens in banks, insurance and other businesses, people go ape-shit. But comics want it both ways: "we're a business, we need to run it as such!" and "hey, this is comic books, we can't let business get in the way of creativity!".

Reposted from the other thread + some new gripes.

"quote:
Originally posted by the Hermit:
The one thing DC has always had over Marvel (and any other company, for that matter) is a history that goes back to the beginning of the comic book industry."

me-->
"I agree, this is their asset, underwear over pants and cape included.

but, I don't know, I only buy maybe 2 DC books a month ... so maybe they're right. I might pick up a new Batgirl, OMAC, or some other relaunched title ... and if they're good maybe I'll be getting 4 or 5 DC comics a months. If there's good art, I will certainly try a few things during the first couple of months of the reboot.

(unless by then I am so disgusted by all this I have decided to boycott. ) "

i think they must be getting pressure from investors who are unhappy with their 30% of the market (i'd be happy with 30% if i were a comic book company!)

hmm, I'm also thinking, if DC has indeed been going downhill, why let the guys who've been driving it into the ground spearhead a great new solution to pick up sales??

If I were in charge and wanted to copy Marvel's 'realistic' and 'modern' style, I'd fire the current leadership and steal the best guys from Marvel.

However, we have to note, that this STUNT, has a lot of people talking about DC comics now!

(even me ... and i get two books. two)

This is a blood bath and I'm oddly excited / panicked at the disaster about to happen ....

Heh, I'll bet they are.

Okay, DC seems to be doing an "all in" go for broke kind of thing. Its bold, its gutsy... its unnecessary.

For the longest time, people here have been saying "give us new stories about our favorite characters. We don't need never-ending retcons, we need the never ending story. Progress, move forward, respect the history but dont be mired in it to the detriment of the characters or books.

I guess what they heard was "blah blah blah change blah blah blah". The best books you've had lately have been those that didn't get the backing of the big two family. Secret Six, Doom Patrol, Freedom Fighters. They move/moved forward, but had little in house adverts or push.

The big two may sell, but you put out ten, fifteen books a month with them, people are gonna be oversaturated, naturally. They lose their specialness.

Lets look at it in terms of sports. Football is king. There are at most what... sixteen games a week during the regular season? And it has the best ratings. More people watch. It's limited in supply. Then there's baseball. It hasn't lost the challenge of the game, the excitement. But, they play 162 regular games a year per team compared to football's 16 regular, four more to get to the Superbowl.

When you oversaturate the market, you run into law of diminishing returns on investment. There's a new Superman every week, several new Batman every week. At some point, the stories start to recycle themselves. They have to, there are only so many. Which means readers are getting the same stories over and over. Crisis after crisis. Reader saturation point journeys shorten. Fan/reader dissatisfaction grows. And with so many other options available now that were not available 30, 20, even ten years ago, people are gonna look elsewhere for their fix.

And so, reader attrition comes into play.

We are glad you are trying to pull in new readers. You need it to save an industry starved for new customers. You are trying to build brands that are instantly recognizable.

So, how do you do it? Slap a new coat of paint on the characters (costume redesign), a new coat of paint on the cover (renumbering, possibly a #0 repeat) and say that its new an innovative.

You are trying to re-invent the wheel. Its not needed. You may stay behind marvel in sales for the rest of existence. Nothing wrong with being a close # 2 in a two man race. Be true to DC, to the company of books.

I realize all this is too late. Plans have been made, events (literally) set in motion. But somehow, in all this "creativity", a back to basics approach seems like the obvious solution, the one that readers have been crying out for for a long time.

I hope it does what you want it to do. Hope it makes the money you want and garners the recognition you crave. But as a long time reader, I just can't see myself spending any more than I already do in this economy. I'm at my limit. I bet others are too.

And about the "closed comments". I can understand not wanting to have to read stuff like this, see the possible backlash hit you between the eyes, but you have to know that not allowing comments isn't going to stop it. Too many comics sites, to many fan sites, too many... well, just too many. Shutting your eyes and saying you haven't seen them doesn't mean they aren't there.

If you are gonna be bold and gutsy, let the people have their say on the blogs. You don't have to respond. We know that a move like this has the potential to blow up in your face big time. Jobs may be one the line. We get it. But, if you gonna be bold, brassy, ya have to lettem' clank some to back it up.

Just some thoughts.

<span style="font-size: 10px;">Please don't bold whole posts - RB</span>

Would I be right in thinking you are quite genuinely angry over this, Mr. Kid?

And anyone know if Jim Lee still gets royalties when the Wildstorm characters turn up? \'Cause, if so...

With digital books, my comic dealer says that he's going to loose his business.
sigh

Good thing Joey Q never did anytrhing like putting himself on a book...well, at least he has some talent...

^he can't hit the deadlines anyway...

Tru dat. Thing is, I'd rather wait for his art than read an on time Didio book...but the Giffen thing gives me at least a little hipe.

Those drawings of Barbara are so dated looking!
gads
I certainly hope they're just archive stuff.