Oh, God forbid.

There were some others who quoted this most recent look at DC sales on The Beat, and I guess I will too, even if it’s later than most others:…

Good luck stopping it.

Because this goes way beyond crossover fatigue or event burn-out (at least how those terms where understood in the late 90s / 2000-2001).
Marvel has been in universe-wide crossover mode for about 2 years and it seems to be working fine for them, sales-wise at least.

This has more to do with the editorially catastrophic situation Didio has caused by diving-in head-first after 2-3 years of more-or-less impressive sales results.
All this because of his overconfidence and lack of experience and understanding of the publishing world.

1-Didio is completely disconnected from the market. He doesn’t care what fans of his characters/books want.

As long as whatever is released and/or solicited any given week is confusing and seemingly “shocking” enough for him to make an “interesting” convention speech or Newsarama “interview” that will allow him to use his favorite catch-phrases:

“big things coming,” “attract new fans,” “very exciting time,” “the clues are there,” “I can’t tell you,” “you’ll see” and “The Legion.”

Tried, tired and trite is all I for one can say about this “one year later” (woops, make that 2)
He couldn’t care less about what the editors and writers do as long as it allows for this kind of nonsense to be said of any given book.
And since all this results in are book cancelations/relaunches and/or perpetual 180 degree turns, why should he indeed care about things such as editorial direction or character development.
As long as convention buzz, internet speculation and fan debates (read in some cases generalized outrage or dislike) is going strong the book’s ll sell right??

2-Other than the aforementioned pocketful of Comic Con regulars, DC no longer seems to be targeting any specific audience or demographic group.

Are they for long time fans and comic readers now in their 30s and 40s? Are they for the 15-40 year old fans of the animated series / Hollywood movie versions of the franchises? Are they for a new generation of 15-25 year old with little or no previous contact with the comics?

I dunno. Seems to be for everyone at once these days.

It seems their books are now made for whoever is already buying that book at any given moment (read the last 2 months or so) and hopefully will keep on doing that for another two months or so.
You can’t keep a reader-base like that, let alone build up on it.

3-For years, writers and artists going back and forth between Marvel and DC used to be the norm. For the last two years, it’s been pretty clear that this is now a one-way exodus, away from DC, and towards Marvel.

Especially where “big names” or new “up-and-coming-and-fast” talent is concerned. Even editors jump ship the minute they’ve proven they can do the impossible (keep a weekly comic on schedule and have it sell). Whackher, Brubaker, Loeb, Bianchi… When was the last time DC got a Bendis or Millar or Hitch from Marvel?

Not only are they no longer competitive on the market, it seems they are also incapable of offering competitive work conditions to attract established talent.
So DC is stuck with Winicks and Liebermans and Laphams and other new “talent” which are at best shots in the dark that might pay-off, at worst book and/or character killers. Or once-great but now “has-beens” like Wolfman.

IMHO, it’s fair to say that unless Paul Dini can fix the DCU-wide editorial catastrophe that has led to and followed Infinite Crisis by giving the DCU some cohesion with Countdown and boost-up the sales of major titles by renewing the existing fans’ interest for ESTABLISHED franchises & characters, sales figures will only keep on dropping to the point where more than titles are in jeopardy.

When OYL came along, I made the decision that, as good a “jumping on” place as it was… it was just as good a “jumping off” point, and that’s what I did - dropping over 20 DC books in March-April 2006.

I was tired of holding my nose and supporting books I really had no interest in anymore. And with a all my most favorite DC characters having been killed off and/or replaced, I just found I couldn’t find anything to read from DC.

Conversely, I’ve redirected my money back into Marvel (after 1.5 decades of buying minimal titles from them) and other publishers. And I’ve found my comic reading to be much, MUCH more satisfying. I’ve even given characters I’d written off long ago a chance again (the X-Men and Daredevil). In many ways, I’m back where I was 25 years ago with regards to my buying.

Like I said, that the gap is widening between Marvel & DC… well, that’s not a surprise to THIS reader. My own buying (and I spend between $60 and $90 a week) reflects this.

What has surprised me though… is that I’m clearly not the only one who feels this way.

Just my opinion.

David

DC has exploited not only the readers but the characters also. I was on board when the Multiverse collapsed in 1985-86, but was really disappointed by the re-launches then. I was always a fan of Wonder Woman, Batman, JLA, JSA, and a couple others, but the destruction of Earth-2, and the merging of origins (combining Golden Age with Modern Age), left a bad taste in my mouth. This is how I see this going now. These re-launches with a few well-known contributors wasn’t what DC had in mind, but they are letting them take total control and ruining characters that the fans have come to love over the years. The thing with characters that were spared after COIE, is that their origins were ruined (Donna Troy-Wonder Girl, Fury - Lyta Trevor are good examples). The changes of Fury being the original Fury’s daughter, Hippolyta becoming the Golden Age Wonder Woman, were not only bad ideas, but insults to readers, at least to me. They may have seemed good at the time, but due to COIE, we lost characters and groups (Infinity Inc, The Huntress, most E-2 characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, All Star-Squadron), and the make overs of having them on one earth not only hurt those books, but the premise of the characters as well.

Which brings me to the current post-Crisis. I haven’t seen anything now that is going in any other direction, that it did in 1986. Hype for the reason of hype only (Batwoman-Lesbian, Black Canary - can’t decide if she wants to raise a child or join a League are examples), isn’t good enough a reason to try to bring new readers into the fold. If they are going to do a total re-launch, then start most books back at #1 (with execptions of Detective Comics & Action Comics), and give us a fresh view on already established characters. And don’t try to build on the hype of new characters or teams. Checkmate, Blue Beetle, the new Atom should not have their own books. I like the Spectre in a anthology series, but not in a solo book. Certain character groups such as Checkmate, Suicide Squad and others should appear in established books, and use them as protagonists in good stories, rather than try to stretch out good stories in a solo book, which will ultimately lead to cancellation.

Just my thoughts.

In fact, the vast majority of all these new series are a bunch of replacement characters. Recycling the packaging has gotten old, and DC tried to force feed its readers more change than we can take at any given time. And has any of these changes grown from the stories? They all seem arbitrary to me.

Maybe DC can’t hit 100k because they’ve glutted their own market. Some of these low-end titles must undoubtedly be stealing sales away from others. Could it be that those fence-straddling Green Arrow readers decided to give Secret Six a chance rather than pay for another disappointing issue of GA?

I always saw the DCU as my favorite. But all the changes around 1994 drove me away. I quit until the “Original Universe” era brought me back with great titles like the JSA. Now, it’s 1994 all over again and I can’t find the characters I enjoy (at least not in their proper incarnation). So I’ve dropped everything from DC except JUSTICE and GREEN LANTERN. I am so very lost these days… (I’m buying lots of reprints instead of new DC issues.)

But I liked Civil War. And the reason I liked it was that Marvel did something that right that DC used to excel at. They told a story that was about CHARACTERS - a story that reflected how a character we care for thinks and reacts to different situations. Civil War had more depth of character than I’d seen in a lot of Marvel titles in years.

And DC, they’re giving me new characters that I don’t care about, and ignoring the ones I do. In a lot of cases, they’re doing it poorly, late, or not at all.

My pull list has dropped to less than 5 titles a month. I’m not interested in buying titles anymore. I can wait for a trade to judge a story. Then I can read the whole thing in Barnes & Noble. If I think it isn’t worthwhile, I won’t buy it.

Secondly, I did not buy Crisis and what have you.

But I am buying Batman, All Star Superman, Fables, Jack of Fables, All Star Batman (should it ever come out), Wildcats (Ditto) and The Authority (same again). I dropped Wonder Woman over the utter stupidity of the lateness/fill in policy. I will wait for what I believe will be quality product (The Ultimates) or even when I just like the art (Wildcats/All Star Batman) or the creators have a good track record (The Authority) but when I drop a book because it has a new creative team for an arc (no mention that they are a fill in team in the solicitation and no mention the normal art team will be returning mid-bloody arc I have just dropped because I have no reason to believe I will enjoy it) only for the normal art team to return it severely erodes my patience. I am far less likely to actually go and buy any DC stuff on spec now, and do actively wish them harm in the marketplace.

And Judd Winick is excellent on his own stuff. On his day he is the funniest writer in comics.

Well, the North American comics industry IS relatively healthy right now. But the same isn’t true for DC.

It’s obvious: that’s why no one bought Infinite Crisis, Civil War, or the Ultimates.

I lean more towards two explanations for the horrible sales performance DC’s turned in recently:

1) No line-wide crossovers to compete with Civil War. The books that do resemble crossovers or are tied to them — JLofA, Brave and the Bold, Superman/Batman when it ships, and that awful and fan-repelling 52 — are all selling very well. The books whose sales are tanking are not just the gory, gritty comics. They are, in fact, the traditionalist comics, the nostalgia comics. Kurt Busiek’s books, for example, are treading water; The Spirit, a heavily-hyped book by an acclaimed, traditional and non-gory, non-gritty creator and featuring a legendary character, is selling around 25k.

2) Horribly poor scheduling and even worse scheduling fixes, including a return to fill-ins. Fill-ins get books dropped from pull lists now by creator-chasing fans; relaunches that don’t ship for 6 months or don’t feature marquee characters fail. A Ted Kord Blue Beetle comic won’t sell any more than a Jamie Reyes Blue Beetle comic, unfortunately, and a Wildstorm relaunch that doesn’t happen and then can’t seem to get to issue #2…at which point the hot creators announce that they’re leaving with #4, not even a whole TPB of material….that relaunch is dead.

It’s all quite sad to me, since I tend to like the old-school, self-contained comics. But the market simply doesn’t right now.

Shut up, at least they are trying for more than white characters. Havent you noticed the non-white portion of this country is about %30.

__________________________________________________

Wow. You give new meaning to the phrase “missing the point!”

My point was that regardless of the nobility of their intentions in diversifying the DCU, they have implicitly and tacitly suggested that any criticism of such “new” characters is grounded in racism….. as opposed to constructive criticism. The simple truth is that MOST fans IN FACT love the character and NOT the costume. Therefore, you can’t simply replace Wally West with Bart Allen….. or Ray Palmer with Ryan Choi….. or Ronnie Raymond with Jason Rusch…… without the consequence that many will simply choose NOT to tune in….. simply because the character is different.

It is not about racism…. which the whole Flash debacle clearly illustrates. Both Wally West and Bart Allen are white. And most Flash fans are staying away from Bart. IMHO…. the whole Flash scenario is really opening DC’s eyes…. because it is the one title that they can look at (where the lead was not replaced by an “ethnic” character…. and the result was still poor sales….. thereby casting serious doubt on the contention that many fans are “racist. The Flash has been a disaster….. and it all biols down to the fact that Wally West is gone with no explanation and we are FORCED to accept someone else. It is not that Ryan Choi and Jason Rusch are poorly written characters per se….. it is simply the fact that the connection that the fanbase has to the previous characters is too strong and we are not ready to say good bye.

DC’s wholesale “change” to their universe has been way too all-encompassing and haphazard….. affecting every hero in the DCU. And this has compunded the problem. Literally EVERYTHING that I liked about the DCU is different…… by either being a “new” character or the same character (but actually being more “boring” than before!). Honestly, I can’t think of a single DC Hero that became more exciting OYL. Again, other than Batman lightening up and the conceptual foundation of WW changing……. what good has come of OYL?

Didio has recently once again promised that the best has yet to come. He said the same thing 2 years ago and then last years etc etc. We are still waiting. When Didio took over, the early signs were good that we would get some good changes. But the changes have been far to over-arching and more aimed at politics and agenda-setting than actually safeguarding the integrity of the core characters. DC has very little to be proud of in the last few years.

Shut up, at least they are trying for more than white characters. Havent you noticed the non-white portion of this country is about %30.

I’m all for that, Sporks, but where are those people?

“Instead of grim, gritty, and “realistic” stories let’s ones that are imaginative and inspiring. Instead of shocking deaths and replacing beloved characters, just try to have strong characterization and new ideas with the ones that people already know and love. Instead of rampant Photoshopping just have artists that solid storytellers (Eisner didn’t need Photoshop). Instead of neverending events and hype, just tell a great story and then let it end.”

This I agree with 100%.

- For monthlies, you get the Top 300, which covers nearly everything that is published that month, even in very low quantities (the threshold is at around 2,000 copies in average). For TPBs, you get the Top 100, which barely covers half the month’s new launches.
- For monthlies, there is very little reorder activity, and it is often negligible in comparison to the initial sales. For TPBs, reorders are the heart of the business : most of the back catalogue will get a small quantity of reorders each week, which, if added over years, will far outsell the initial sales.

If you combine the two, you get what Brian Hibbs calls the “Watchmen effect” (which isn’t really true for Watchmen these years, but whatever) : consistent bestsellers will fail to appear in every month’s top 100 list (because they are overshadowed by initial launches of lots of new TPBs), and still manage to be in the year’s top 100 (or even top 50) overall bestsellers.

(For more on this phenomenon, you can for exemple look here : http://www.newsarama.com/Tilting2_0/Tilting25.htm )

There is no correlation between commercial success and actual quality.

Another interesting factoid:

Sales go up when there’s an event. Sales go down when there isn’t. And even with a currently event-less landscape, DC is still shipping only slightly less than what they were last year.

Conclusion:

The sky is not falling. DC will not fall apart at the seams because their sales are slightly down in an area that only encompasses, at best, half of their business.

As an aside, I wonder when someone’s going to step up and give us a detailed look at the TPB market? I have a feeling that would be incredibly interesting.

Don’t get me wrong, I truely do want to read and like DC Comics, but some of the stories that are being made right now are making that extremely difficult. The books I didn’t end up dropping because I was angry at the direction, I dropped because I was bored by what they become.

I think that not counting 52 and non-continuity stuff, I get maybe four DC Superhero comics, and I could easily drop two of those without losing sleep over them. I am saddened that Jonah Hex and The Spirit aren’t doing better, as with some Wildstorm titles, like Tranquility.

If it wasn’t for 52, DC would have no real edge at all, which is probably why they’re following it up so quickly with Countdown. But personally, I doubt it will sell as well, because some people won’t want to commit to another weekly so soon, I’m one of them. Getting really sick of the Events.

Anyway, if things don’t pick up soon, DC has some rough times ahead.