Questions about DC's relaunch

[Diabolical]

It really pisses me off that the Grant/Breyfogle Batman comics have never been collected.

With the exception of Batman I've never been a DC guy. I grabbed a few DC comics here and there over the years, and even my Batman reading has been sporadic, but the Grant/Breyfogle Batman was what got me into comics in the first place (I still have my extremely worn copies of Detective #604-607, my first "collected" comics).

DC needs to get over whatever Breyfogle did to piss them off and give the fans of that era what they want - which they seem to be doing, at least a little bit with the one-shot this summer.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Thanks for that. Would you consider them "worth the read" or no? I had an auction in my sights that was 1-16 for $14.95.

I guess it depends on whether Morrison is your cup of tea. I will say this book isn't as far out as some of his stuff. The dynamic between Dick and Damian is completely different from the Bruce/Dick or Bruce/Tim relationships. Its a lot of fun because Dick is the light one and Damian is the brooder. The first arc is good. The second arc with Jason Todd is good. The third arc with the zombie Bruce cadaver in the Lazarus Pit was hard to follow and since it was happening while Bruce was "dead" and noone really knew where Morrison was going with it, in my opinion it was Meh. But after that, the story kicks into high gear, and the last 6 issues are pretty kewl. The end gives you tingly chills of awesomeness. I would say for roughly a Buck each, it would be worth it to buy and read them.

[anarky]

DC needs to get over whatever Breyfogle did to piss them off and give the fans of that era what they want - which they seem to be doing, at least a little bit with the one-shot this summer.

I think it's actually more an "anti-Grant" thing, and Breyfogle gets lumped in because his best-known work was Batman with Alan Grant. I can't think of any reason they'd not want Breyfogle, unless it's a simple "we want more realistic artwork," which is stupid since Batman almost always works well with abstract styles (like Kelly Jones or Tim Sale or Bill Ican'tspellhisnamecowiecz).

Alan Grant, on the other hand, has said some things that, while hardly scathing, aren't especially favoring to corporate comics. But, hey, this is the company that fired the best Robin writer ever and replaced him with one of the guys who ruined the X-Men, and think they made a step forward.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I'll admit, I'm biased towards this whole thing sucking, but that first list of titles looks like a giant steaming pile of Feh.

Wonder Woman by Azzarello? I don't think Azarello "gets" superheroes. Both his Batman and Superman arc were rather limp, for all the hype.

Aquaman, by Johns and Ivan Reis. Reis is a good artist, but as the architect of this entire debacle, I'm loathe to pick up any title by Johns. (Which is a moot point, since I'm loathe to pick up ANY of these books)

Flash. Drawn AND written by Francis Manupal?? And probably focusing on boring old Barry. Giving all their artists big writing breaks smells like trouble.

Fury of Firestorm by Gail Simone and Ethan VanSciver and Cinar. Simone yes. VanSciver? DC is spreading its writers so thin, they're sheperding out writing duty to all their artists? I forsee failure. Yildray Cinar is a competent up and coming artist, but nothing squee-worthy.

Savage Hawkman. Tony Daniel and Phillip Tan. Daniel is another artist who writes. His Batman has been...not stellar. Tan's okay.

Green Arrow. JT Krul and Dan Jurgens. Isn't Jurgens more of an accomplished writer than Krul, and they have him doing art? Krul is one of DCs stable of less talented writers who keep getting work. His Teen titans has been hit and miss, and his Green Arrow has been bleh. Which brings up an overriding dilemma. If all your current books are sucking, and necessitating a complete do-over, why would you keep the crappy writers thinking its going to magically be all better with new #1s?

JLI. This time written by Jurgens and dranw by Aaron Lopresti. Why do you have Jurgens writing one book and drawing a different book? I like Lopresti, and Jurgens is a decent writer (he's one of those dependable slightly above mediocre guys) but since I'm coming off the high that was Generation Lost, this gets a raspberry.

Mr. Terrific by Eric Wallace and Roger Robinson. Ugh. Eric Wallace is a shitty writer. His Titans revamp with Deathstroke has been solid ass from the get go. I've only read three or so issues and he makes Remender look like Alan Moore. Have no clue who the artist is. I believe anarky nailed it when he said cancelled in six four three two months.

Captain Atom by Krul and Freddie William II. Captain Atom is a lackluster character, and Krul is a lackluster writer. I smell fail.

DC Universe Presents. By Paul Jenkins and Bernard Chang. As I've said before, Jenkins is a really good writer who manages to be dull quite often. Truthfully, besides Gail Simone, this one looks the most interesting just by default. But when your up against turds like Wallace its not hard to make mediocre look awesome.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Fuck me, this is funny.

[jjreason]

I don't foresee this whole thing working. What are the ramifications of it not working?

[Rollo Tomassi]

I don't foresee this whole thing working. What are the ramifications of it not working?

I think next spring, when it all crashes and burns, the Co-Publishers Jim Lee and Dan Didio, the chief creative officer Geoff Johns, and the Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras will all get together and ask themselves what went wrong. Then Didio will ask if anyone has any ideas, and Bob Harras will say "I have a great idea! Well, really it's the only idea I have...ever. We relaunch everything with all new #1s!!!"

Then we'll go through the whole thing again.

Meanwhile, I'll be picking up all these new series in the ten cent bin at Comic-Con.

[anarky]

It'll all turn out to be a pocket universe created by Franklin Richards.

As for Mr. Terrific, really, I can't tell you who the fuck he is. He's a black dude who showed up in a couple of really minor roles on the Justice League Unlimited show. What else can you tell me?

If they'd staggered out their 52 #1s over, I dunno, 52 weeks, the book might have a shot. No one's going to buy it. Seriously, this would have to be written by Alan Moore and drawn by Steve Ditko and printed on gold leaf to have a chance in hell.

Seriously, at the meeting where this came up, did no one point out that a reboot of the titles, with artists writing, and costumes designed by Jim Lee, that Marvel did this shit 15 years ago and it was their biggest fiasco ever, which is pretty significant since the Clone Saga was going on at exactly the same time?

[anarky]

Y'know, this might sound asinine, but, if DC and Marvel weren't owned by supercorporations that hate each other, how would things be going down right now?

There have been multiple Marvel/DC crossovers. Each time, there's been a different reason cited (Surfer uses the Power Cosmic at the edge of the universe, AzBats is just fucking insane, the universes are two brothers, and weren't the two universes cosmic beings that fucked and their fucking created the Amagalm world in the actual "Marvel vs DC" series?). And each universe is sorta founded on the idea that there are literally a million parallel worlds. (Well, until DC introduced the "52 worlds" bullshit that is so scientifically, well, stupid that it boggles the mind.)

Would they, as the two captains of a sinking ship, have their universes finally properly acknowledge one another?

(Note: supercorporations hating each other is why there'll never be a Roger Rabbit sequel, and why we don't have Batman TV DVDs.)

[Rollo Tomassi]

It'll all turn out to be a pocket universe created by Franklin Richards.

See, if they do that, I'm liable to be even more pissy about it. because then it's like they said "ha, we got you to waste six months worth of income on all these 52 titles that don't mean anything now! its just like Wonder Woman last year, except on a really REALLY big FUCK YOU scale!!!! Cheers, fuckface!"

As for Mr. Terrific, really, I can't tell you who the fuck he is. He's a black dude who showed up in a couple of really minor roles on the Justice League Unlimited show. What else can you tell me?

Not much to tell. he's one of the billion lame ass Golden Age characters Johns felt compelled to "upgrade". Michael Holt won every single Olympic Gold Medal evah, and then got a PhD in every discipline evah. then his wife died or got killed or something, and he decided to be a super hero. Something like that.

If they'd staggered out their 52 #1s over, I dunno, 52 weeks, the book might have a shot. No one's going to buy it. Seriously, this would have to be written by Alan Moore and drawn by Steve Ditko and printed on gold leaf to have a chance in hell.

Like I said, ultimately they're competing against themselves for customers dollars. Its catastrophically shortsighted. "New" (i.e. customers who wouldn't normally stop in a comic shop and buy books, which is presumably their new target audience) customers aren't going to blindly drop $40 a week on a bunch of brand new untested comics. And "old" customers, are either A. fed up with their shit and not buyng any of it, or B. going to cherry pick a few titles based on what they like. Which means you'll get one or two good selling titles per week, and eleven stinkers. Nobody has unlimited funds for all this shit. Especially when you've got assholes like Wallace writing them. It's like saying there's a new Star Wars movie, directed by Uwe Boll.

Seriously, at the meeting where this came up, did no one point out that a reboot of the titles, with artists writing, and costumes designed by Jim Lee, that Marvel did this shit 15 years ago and it was their biggest fiasco ever, which is pretty significant since the Clone Saga was going on at exactly the same time?

It's all Bob Harras knows. I'm surprised it took them this long.

[anarky]

Looks like they got one thing right with digital and a lot wrong. What's right is that the prices drop (though I think four weeks may be a bit too quickly). What's wrong is everything else with pricing. $2.99 for new, and $1.99 for a month old or older? Still too steep.

I'm not a technophobe. I do prefer a real book or comic to a digital one. I prefer a compact disc to an MP3 album. But I have no problem with the digital version and have a few, based on pricing and availability. But I really think the whole "digital is outselling print" hype is bullshit. First, it's based on Amazon. Amazon has pretty much no competition in the eBook realm right now. (Who uses a Nook? A Kobo? Have you even heard of a fucking Kobo?) And Amazon eBooks have to be purchased on Amazon. With their books, there's a shit-ton of competition. It's tough even for them to undercut discount stores, and there are still a lot (though not enough, unfortunately) of mom-and-pop stores with loyal followings, plus stuff like Borders practically running a perpetual 33+% off sale. Bottom line: people buy their books all over the place, but eBooks have to come from Amazon.

However, I think there'd be no contest and eBooks could legitimately outsell books if the publishers, comic and otherwise, didn't insist on having the same prices on physical and digital versions of the same thing. Truth be told, one of the biggest reasons I still get music on CD is that probably 60% of the time the CD is cheaper than the MP3, 25% of the time the CD costs the same as the MP3 but with the benefit of a hard copy already made, and the other 15% of the time it's either something I don't want or already have.

Digital is poised to take over across the board, but I don't think it truly will until the content producers realize that most people don't think a $10 file is the same as a $10 book.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I kinda said this over at CBR.

A buyer who wants the newest issue of a book he collects is gonna pay full price, whether its online, or in the shop.

But when somebody buys an issue that isn't a new release, they aren't paying full price for it. Retailers are pretty much trying to unload issues that didn't get purchased the day they came out and make some semblance of recouping their money. Hence, you get dollar boxes, quarter boxes, inventory reduction sales, etc.

But the Publisher isn't seeing any part of that $1.

So if you had the digital equivalent of "older" issues that only cost patient readers .99 like iTunes, the Publisher would still be getting a slice of that revenue. Which is more than they're getting from the actual floppy getting sold second hand at a trade show or convention. And you'll never run out of a digital product. Theoretically, you have an infinite supply of those back issues. So yeah, some people might be "stealing" torrents. But some people will probably legitimately pay for stuff. And either way, you're getting money where you wouldn't have if it was hardcopy only.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I know the Hitler thing has been done to death, but this is fairly awesome.

[anarky]

Exactly.

The other two things I've seen brought up every time "new readers" comes up is the issue of kids, manga, and video games. Sure, kids read manga. But is it necessarily a preference? You're talking a comic that 22 pages, not many words, probably is part of a 5-part story, and costs almost four bucks. Or, for five bucks, you can get a frickin' phone book full of stories. And you can find the manga in any bookstore.

As for video games, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! We played video games when we were kids. We all did. We played the fuck out of them. I'd stay up until three or four every night during the summer playing video games, get up at ten, and start playing them again. And I read the fuck out of comics. Sure, there are a lot more people playing video games now. But it's not that there are more kids playing video games. There are about the same number, and the same percentage of kids playing now as in 1990. (Okay, maybe a bit higher, since there are games that appeal to younger kids and girls.) The number of gamers has gone up because the kids from 1990 grew up and still play! How many parents did you know playing video games when you were a kid? My dad did. He was, quite literally, the only one. And he was hardly a hardcore gamer. Now, how many people our age are parents now and play video games?

A video game cannot compete with a comic book. They're different animals. Sometimes, people want interactivity. Sometimes, they want someone else to tell them the story. Some people prefer one over the other, but most have preferences that change based on the situation. It's why all books aren't Choose Your Own Adventure stories.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Yeah, that's like saying kids who play video games can't also watch movies. It's like their argument is 100% one or the other. Excuse me? I play video games, I read comics, I watch movies, I listen to music, and occasionally I pick up a book. Doing one does not preclude me enjoying any of the others.


I will say this, Marvel has gotten fucked out of the headlines this week. Seriously, does anyone remotely give a shit about Fear Itself or whatever Marvel has planned for the rest of the year now? Well played, DC. Well played.