Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities DC as manga... how would you do it?

Not in art style. This is based on something I first read on the Newsarama boards a few years ago, though it's been suggested elsewhere.

What if DC comics were released like manga? That is, the monthlies are massively multifeature comics. Only the trades remain single-series.

http://comicsatemybrain.blogspot.com/2007/08/tumbling-dice.html led me to think more about this. Specifically, which features should go together?

You want to match series with overlapping audiences, to have a hope of getting people to buy a comic with 10-20 series in it. But you also want to promote lesser series. Also, in trying to match series, I have a problem, or really two problems. First, I don't want to put all the top series in one book, but many of them go together. Second, almost all DC series are older shonen, or seinen if you skew them more mature. DC doesn't have enough appealing to different demographics.

And if some titles were skewed towards more different audiences, what's the point in maintaining a shared universe? If, say, Supergirl runs in a shojo magazine and Superman in shonen...

And what should the target markets be? Are Japanese terms a bit simplistic? I've read that actual audiences are wider than their terms. Specifically, that girls are buying more and more shonen titles, eating away at sales of nominally shojo series. So, what categories should we use for DC-manga?

Looking at the long-running titles DC once published, even when non-superhero books were significant, there's a difference from manga. Romance comics, for example, were generally collections of one-shots, not ongoing series.

I don't seriously want to revive every title and character DC ever made, though. Looking at that list reminds me that, for example, SF series from the 50s and 60s aren't necessarily appealing today. I don't want to create an alternate DC only appealing to old fans - the real DC does enough of that.

The reason I'm looking at older DC titles is because they existed in a healthier comics market, the same sort of world I'm assuming DC-manga would exist in. And there's the contradiction in my idea: how to warp a superhero-focused publisher into a broader one that could survive in that world?

One idea I'd like would be to use names of past and present DC comics that aren't character names for the magazines. Action Comics, Detective Comics, etc. (Detective Comics isn't a good one, because DC doesn't have a lot of detective-based series, certainly not enough to warrant a magazine.)

Rules: You're allowed a comparable amount of new material per month to 2000s DC Comics. That is, ~64 books, so maybe 8 ~200pg monthlies. Or should any be weekly, ala Shonen Jump?

You can also try applying this question to Marvel.

I have thoughts on this that I will further gather in my brain and share soon.

I like the concept behind it, and it'll be a fun excercise.

I don't really know much about manga, but I actually really like the idea of Action, Detective, etc. as much larger anthology titles, more like they were in the Golden Age.

Same here! I've thought about that a lot over the last few years.

If stars like Superman or Batman could carry an anthology of 3-4 features, it would be a huge boon for DC. But none of this 'off to the side, not in continuity, doesn't count' mentality. These would be real adventures, regardless of length, with real importance to the characters.

(Other than that, I also don't know much about Manga)

One thing I'd like to see is Anthology titles used to encourage submissions by non-comics professionals. So, for example, a Detective Comics Anthology would include at least one story per month by an up and coming mystery writer, and a Strange Adventures anthology by an up and coming sci fi writer.