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Dark_Tzitzimine: Oct 9, 2012; by R. Guyovich

DiDIO & LEE on Whether REBIRTH Was a Repudiation (or Not) of WATCHMEN and the NEW 52

quote:

Nrama: As you mentioned, one of the things people have picked up on from Rebirth is that there's kind of this meta context that the DCU has been dark and has turned away from its hopeful and inspirational nature. There's even an implication in Rebirth that Watchmen kind of infected DC Comics since it was published. Is that idea at all supported by the DC publishing side of things?

Dan DiDio: You know what's interesting to me is I've always found comics to have a little bit of a counter-culture feel. And that's one of the things they did � they took ideas and sensibilities and they found a way to build story around it and find a way to galvanize the sensibilities of the world.

One of the things that's interesting in the world today is that there's an inherent negativity and anger and hostility that's all around us. This felt like the right time to shift the sensibilities of the publishing line to actually bring back a counterpoint � a sense of hope and inspiration.

If we have a world that is lacking heroes or people to rally around, then we're going to elevate our characters and show them what that level of hope and inspiration is about by putting our characters in the forefront by showing what it means to be a hero again.

So it seemed like the right time to embrace this story. Just the same way we attacked different sensibilities in the world post-9/11, now it felt like we needed heroes again. And there's no better way to tell hero stories than with our characters.

Nrama: The other thing that this story felt like was kind of a repudiation of the "New 52," that things were stolen from the DCU. Do you see it that way?

DiDio: The launch of the "New 52" is still the single most successful period of time for DC Comics, in sales and storytelling. For us, this is an evolution of that period of time.

That said, we probably changed some things a little bit too much, and we left things out that really resonated very importantly with our fans. And this was an opportunity to start to work those beats and stories back into storytelling so that we're able to reach the greatest audience possible.

I mean, you know, we don't � as much as some people might think changes are being made haphazardly, when we do a line-wide change of this sense, it's thought all the way out, about where the weaknesses are in our storytelling, what needs to be addressed.

So everything you saw in Rebirth was meticulously planned and discussed, because we realized these were the things that were missing with our audience, and if we really wanted to connect to them, and to really improve sales to get back to those numbers we had when we first launched the "New 52," we had to make some changes. And that's the reason why we went down that road.

Lee: When I said the meta stuff was interesting to read, I meant it was interesting to me, because that wasn't necessarily the intent of Rebirth, this repudiation that you're talking about. It was interesting that people picked up on that and ran with it.

I think at the end of the day, what Rebirth is really about, if you take that line literally or look at it through the meta prism, you know, "I love this world, but there's something missing," I think it's more than: Hey, the "New 52" was exciting and introduced a lot of new elements. It excited the readers and brought in new readers and new fans. But there were things that we overlooked, and elements of the DC Universe that really were core to the universe, that in our zeal and excitement going forward to establish new continuity, that we might have overlooked.

And I think that was Geoff saying, look, we have to restore these elements. These are critical elements of the DC Universe. And he came up with a storyline that embraced the hope and optimism of the DC Universe and allows us to restore those elements.

So I think, to me, it's more additive, rather than a repudiation. But it was interesting reading these reviews, because people were looking at the story in so many different ways and looking at all the different layers of the story. And that was interesting for me to see as a reader and as a fan, that people were very engaged, to that level, by the story. Because that, to me, signaled that we were on the right track. It got people really thinking about comics, the history of comics, what DC Comics should represent, what kind of stories they want to see, and what these characters represent.

So I think it's a creative challenge to everyone � the fans, the editorial teams, the business, of where this business is going. That's a heavy story to put out there, and I think it's great that he was able to weave it into an entertaining story as well.

It accomplished all that, and I think that's why it's really resonated with the readers.

Anyways, I stumbled over these unlettered pages that serve as the end for RH/A

It hurts

# ? Jun 4, 2016 02:42

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# ? May 17, 2024 19:52

JoshTheStampede: Sep 8, 2004; come at me bro

They sure dodged that question.

# ? Jun 4, 2016 02:56

Gaz-L: Jan 28, 2009

Yeah, Dan didn't even pretend to answer the first question. At least the non-answer to the second pays lip-service by going "Yes but no"

# ? Jun 4, 2016 03:12

JoshTheStampede: Sep 8, 2004; come at me bro

To be fair if the interviewer expected an answer to "So was that shade at Alan Moore?" he was delusional.

He even talked about the importance of still being able to sell old non-continuity trades, he's not gonna say Watchmen ruined everything, much less start a direct beef with Moore.

# ? Jun 4, 2016 03:25

Open Marriage Night: Sep 18, 2009; "Do you want to talk to a spider, Peter?"

X-O posted:

I remember it also being up in the air whether it was actually part of the continuity or if it was just Hitch's little playground. But apparently it was because it's referenced as being part of what messed up New 52 Superman before he died.

I thought the first two issues were solid before I decided to trade wait. Felt like a big JLA story from the Morrison/Waid era. My love for Hitch on JLA may be colored by the stellar work he did with the prestige format story JLA: Heaven's Ladder he did with Waid.

# ? Jun 4, 2016 07:10

Rhyno: Mar 22, 2003; Can't post for 10 years!

I'd like to see some figures backing up the "most successful time for DC." Because if memory serves in 1992-93 they had a few books hit the several MILLION sold mark.

# ? Jun 4, 2016 07:17

lotus circle: Dec 25, 2012; Jushure Iburu
So don't worry

Teenage Fansub posted:

Birds of Prey preview (just inked pages)
http://www.comicbookresources.com/comic-previews/batgirl-and-the-birds-of-prey-rebirth-1-dc-comics-2016

This looks really awesome for just inked pages so far. Definitely looking forward to picking it up.

Rhyno posted:

I'd like to see some figures backing up the "most successful time for DC." Because if memory serves in 1992-93 they had a few books hit the several MILLION sold mark.

Yeah but I don't know if we can really count the 90s too much when one considers that time period nearly eradicated comic publishing as a whole due to the speculator's market.

# ? Jun 4, 2016 07:18

Teenage Fansub: Jan 28, 2006

It's probably the 40s and 50s when every kid in America read their $0.10 comics.

I bet a poor seller back then was probably in the hundred thousand range.

e: Detective Comics preview http://www.avclub.com/article/gothams-young-heroes-start-their-training-detectiv-237683
Aquaman preview http://comicsalliance.com/aquaman-rebirth-preview-abnett-jimenez/

Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Jun 4, 2016

# ? Jun 4, 2016 07:30

Two Tone Shoes: Jan 2, 2009; All that's missing is the ring.

It's probably some stupid poo poo like total dollar amount profit but without adjusting for inflation.

# ? Jun 4, 2016 10:38

Mr Hootington: Jul 24, 2008; I'M HAVING A HOOT EATING CORNETTE THE LONG WAY

Teenage Fansub posted:

It's probably the 40s and 50s when every kid in America read their $0.10 comics.

I bet a poor seller back then was probably in the hundred thousand range.

e: Detective Comics preview http://www.avclub.com/article/gothams-young-heroes-start-their-training-detectiv-237683
Aquaman preview http://comicsalliance.com/aquaman-rebirth-preview-abnett-jimenez/

Those both look good. Although the art in Aquaman is a little iffy in spots (woof at that Mera face).

# ? Jun 4, 2016 15:30

Edge & Christian: May 20, 2001; Earth-1145 is truly the best!
A world of singing, magic frogs,
high adventure, no shitposters

I started looking up years and seeing DC's market share and it's not worth sharing the whole list because it is like *constantly* between 29-31% every year with a few exceptions. There were blips where it was 33-34% in 2005-6 for Infinite Crisis/One Year Later/52, and then in 2011/2012 New52 spiked it up to 31/32% respectively. Given that the overall money spent on comics went up between 2005 and 2012, 2012 is in fact their biggest 'money' year, not adjusting for cover price or inflation or anything else.

It's also worth noting that 2015 saw DC drop to 26% market share, the lowest it's been since the early 1990s.

The whole EVERYONE READ EVERYTHING back in the 1940s-1970s or wherever people arbitrarily put that line is kind of weird when you're looking at it from a business perspective.

Even adusting for inflation, a 10 cent comic in 1938 would be $1.64 today. And to pick a year out of a hat, here's circulation statements from 1966, a few years into the Silver Age resurgence. Of course everyone working in comics right now would kill to get those "average paid circulations", which is a wonky number for any magazine ever since it pays to exaggerate/cook the numbers to seem as high as possible to then push your success to ad companies and newsstand operators. Regardless, let's say Batmania mean there were legitimately 900,000 copies of Batman sold every month.

900,000 copies of a $0.15 comic means gross sales of about $135,000. Adjusted for inflation, that's just over $1,000,000. That means if the average comic today sells for $4, selling an average of 250,000 copies of the tippy-top book each year means it's equally lucrative.

# ? Jun 4, 2016 18:43

Mr Hootington: Jul 24, 2008; I'M HAVING A HOOT EATING CORNETTE THE LONG WAY

Edge & Christian posted:

I started looking up years and seeing DC's market share and it's not worth sharing the whole list because it is like *constantly* between 29-31% every year with a few exceptions. There were blips where it was 33-34% in 2005-6 for Infinite Crisis/One Year Later/52, and then in 2011/2012 New52 spiked it up to 31/32% respectively. Given that the overall money spent on comics went up between 2005 and 2012, 2012 is in fact their biggest 'money' year, not adjusting for cover price or inflation or anything else.

It's also worth noting that 2015 saw DC drop to 26% market share, the lowest it's been since the early 1990s.

The whole EVERYONE READ EVERYTHING back in the 1940s-1970s or wherever people arbitrarily put that line is kind of weird when you're looking at it from a business perspective.

Even adusting for inflation, a 10 cent comic in 1938 would be $1.64 today. And to pick a year out of a hat, here's circulation statements from 1966, a few years into the Silver Age resurgence. Of course everyone working in comics right now would kill to get those "average paid circulations", which is a wonky number for any magazine ever since it pays to exaggerate/cook the numbers to seem as high as possible to then push your success to ad companies and newsstand operators. Regardless, let's say Batmania mean there were legitimately 900,000 copies of Batman sold every month.

900,000 copies of a $0.15 comic means gross sales of about $135,000. Adjusted for inflation, that's just over $1,000,000. That means if the average comic today sells for $4, selling an average of 250,000 copies of the tippy-top book each year means it's equally lucrative.

This is cool. I wonder if the price of a comic where to drop. Would the market share go up? Would it stay the same. Makes you wonder if they could do digital only books at $2 a pop.

I do find it extra funny that the IC/OYL/52 which was arguably the last time DC put out line wide good to great books. Then they ran as fast as they could from it with countdown.

As an aside. How is the Legends of Tomorrow book?

# ? Jun 4, 2016 20:42

Teenage Fansub: Jan 28, 2006

Mr Hootington posted:

How is the Legends of Tomorrow book?

Just answered in the releases thread, but it's a random bundling of miniseries that they were going to put out separately like the current Poison Ivy and Swamp Thing things.

Sugar and Spike is the only interesting take (the title was previously a funny book from the 50's starring babies) and has wonderful art. It's about PI's who take on cases for superheroes that are in danger of having aspects of their goofy golden/silver age past exposed.

Metal Men is decent in an olden days sorta way. The other two are crap.
Trade wait for Sugar and Spike if it sounds interesting.

e: In case you were wondering, they have nothing to do with the Legends of Tomorrow TV show.

Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Jun 4, 2016

# ? Jun 4, 2016 21:06

Mr Hootington: Jul 24, 2008; I'M HAVING A HOOT EATING CORNETTE THE LONG WAY

Teenage Fansub posted:

Just answered in the releases thread, but it's a random bundling of miniseries that they were going to put out separately like the current Poison Ivy and Swamp Thing things.

Sugar and Spike is the only interesting take (the title was previously a funny book from the 50's starring babies) and has wonderful art. It's about PI's who take on cases for superheroes that are in danger of having aspects of their goofy golden/silver age past exposed.

Metal Men is decent in an olden days sorta way. The other two are crap.
Trade wait for Sugar and Spike if it sounds interesting.

I would start with number one and catch up. I'm interested in pretty much every character, but if it sucks do not want to read it.

Edit: reading your post would you say wait for trade then? I am buying digital.

Edit again: ok the big two I wanted to read was S&S and metal men. Metamorphic and firestorm always sounds interesting but every book of theirs suck anymore.

Mr Hootington fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Jun 4, 2016

# ? Jun 4, 2016 21:13

Teenage Fansub: Jan 28, 2006

Wait for collections, if they're gonna exist, because the comics would presumably be split out and you wouldn't have to read/pay for Firestorm or Metamorpho.

# ? Jun 4, 2016 21:17

Gaz-L: Jan 28, 2009

Aw, I was hoping Metamorpho would be good. The old Haney/Fradon stuff is really kitschy and fun and I even liked fake Metamorpho from Winick's Outsiders.

# ? Jun 4, 2016 22:55

Rhyno: Mar 22, 2003; Can't post for 10 years!

A guy in the store just called Darkseid a ripoff of Thanos!

Hold my coat I'm gonna correct the gently caress out of this guy!

# ? Jun 5, 2016 00:32

Teenage Fansub: Jan 28, 2006

The customer is always right!

# ? Jun 5, 2016 00:38

Mr Hootington: Jul 24, 2008; I'M HAVING A HOOT EATING CORNETTE THE LONG WAY

Rhyno posted:

A guy in the store just called Darkseid a ripoff of Thanos!

Hold my coat I'm gonna correct the gently caress out of this guy!

Tell him Thanos is a rip off of Dr. Doom.

# ? Jun 5, 2016 00:41

pubic works project: Jan 28, 2005; No Decepticon in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.

Teenage Fansub posted:

The customer is always right!

Die for Darkseid.

# ? Jun 5, 2016 01:56

Rhyno: Mar 22, 2003; Can't post for 10 years!

He used the power of extreme ignorance to defeat me!

# ? Jun 5, 2016 02:03

Squizzle: Apr 24, 2008

Pull the first appearance of each character from the back issue boxes, and get that guy to check the year of publication for each.

# ? Jun 5, 2016 02:07

X-O: Apr 28, 2002; Long Live The King!

Tell him the truth, Thanos is actually a ripoff of Metron. But the editor told Starlin to make him look more like Darkseid instead.

# ? Jun 5, 2016 02:57

Rhyno: Mar 22, 2003; Can't post for 10 years!

I tried to fight back but he threw a Pokeball at me and StupidAsFuckASaur popped out and hit me with his Retardation Ray attack!

# ? Jun 5, 2016 06:39

graybook: Oct 10, 2011; pinya~

poo poo, bud. I guess he runs the store now. It was nice while it lasted for you!

# ? Jun 5, 2016 07:19

burnishedfume: Mar 8, 2011; You really are a louse...

Are Apocalypse and Darkseid brothers?

# ? Jun 5, 2016 08:09

Teenage Fansub: Jan 28, 2006

Darkseid War's powered up Anti-Monitor is definitely related.

# ? Jun 5, 2016 08:42

Jiro: Jan 13, 2004

Teenage Fansub posted:

Darkseid War's powered up Anti-Monitor is definitely related.

They gave Anti a face now???

# ? Jun 5, 2016 09:46

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Edge & Christian posted:

Even adusting for inflation, a 10 cent comic in 1938 would be $1.64 today. And to pick a year out of a hat, here's circulation statements from 1966, a few years into the Silver Age resurgence. Of course everyone working in comics right now would kill to get those "average paid circulations", which is a wonky number for any magazine ever since it pays to exaggerate/cook the numbers to seem as high as possible to then push your success to ad companies and newsstand operators. Regardless, let's say Batmania mean there were legitimately 900,000 copies of Batman sold every month.

900,000 copies of a $0.15 comic means gross sales of about $135,000. Adjusted for inflation, that's just over $1,000,000. That means if the average comic today sells for $4, selling an average of 250,000 copies of the tippy-top book each year means it's equally lucrative.

I was about to say they'd kill for 250,000 issues sold, but I realized this is per anum and even barely-above-cancellation comics are selling that.

I will note that Didio also said it was their most successful period in storytelling and ahahahahahahahahahahaha

# ? Jun 6, 2016 04:07

Edge & Christian: May 20, 2001; Earth-1145 is truly the best!
A world of singing, magic frogs,
high adventure, no shitposters

[quote="Endless Mike" post="460699484"]I was about to say they'd kill for 250,000 issues sold, but I realized this is per anum and even barely-above-cancellation comics are selling that./quote]It *was* monthly, but it was Batman selling like hotcakes because of the TV show, which is something that actually happened in the 1960s/1970s. That was kind of a bad example because it's more than double the average monthly sales of Batman a few years earlier (or later) were more in the 400,000 range, which when you do the adjusted-for-inflation stuff is essentially as lucrative as selling a little over 100,000 copies a month of most books. Which is *still* a great thing in the current market, but it's also comparing Best Sellers to Best Sellers. There were a lot of books selling in the low 200k/high 100k back in the Good Old Days too.

# ? Jun 6, 2016 05:17

Alucard Nacirema: Apr 22, 2008; by exmarx

So are they dropping the whole DC You policy of "Continuity doesn't matter" and letting creators do whatever the hell they want with the characters like Dr. Fate in a hoodie, Multiple personality Martian Manhunter, characters appearing in different costumes in different books at the same time, etc.?

I personally thought that it was interesting and led to some great books (All-Star Section 8, Mech Batman, etc.) but I guess it becomes irksome when people can't organize their bookshelf in canonical order anymore.

# ? Jun 6, 2016 11:28

Alucard Nacirema: Apr 22, 2008; by exmarx

Rhyno posted:

A guy in the store just called Darkseid a ripoff of Thanos!

Hold my coat I'm gonna correct the gently caress out of this guy!

How can Darkseid be a ripoff of Thanos when he was introduced in Justice League #3 which came out in 2011. Thanos was first introduced at the end of the Avengers movie in Summer 2012. Homie needs to get his facts right!

# ? Jun 6, 2016 11:34

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Alucard Nacirema posted:

So are they dropping the whole DC You policy of "Continuity doesn't matter" and letting creators do whatever the hell they want with the characters like Dr. Fate in a hoodie, Multiple personality Martian Manhunter, characters appearing in different costumes in different books at the same time, etc.?

I personally thought that it was interesting and led to some great books (All-Star Section 8, Mech Batman, etc.) but I guess it becomes irksome when people can't organize their bookshelf in canonical order anymore.

I don't think Dr. Fate is ending, and supposedly there's still a second volume of Prez in the works, and they've already announced a second All-Star Section 8 mini, so probably not?

# ? Jun 6, 2016 14:07

Aphrodite: Jun 27, 2006

Alucard Nacirema posted:

So are they dropping the whole DC You policy of "Continuity doesn't matter" and letting creators do whatever the hell they want with the characters like Dr. Fate in a hoodie, Multiple personality Martian Manhunter, characters appearing in different costumes in different books at the same time, etc.?

I personally thought that it was interesting and led to some great books (All-Star Section 8, Mech Batman, etc.) but I guess it becomes irksome when people can't organize their bookshelf in canonical order anymore.

Green Arrow already made Roy a junkie again and changed his history, so I guess so.

# ? Jun 6, 2016 14:08

Squizzle: Apr 24, 2008

Aphrodite posted:

Green Arrow already made Roy a junkie again

Please do not blame anyone else for his addiction, that is not very 12-step of you.

# ? Jun 6, 2016 16:45

Madkal: Feb 11, 2008; Fallen Rib

Alucard Nacirema posted:

So are they dropping the whole DC You policy of "Continuity doesn't matter" and letting creators do whatever the hell they want with the characters like Dr. Fate in a hoodie, Multiple personality Martian Manhunter, characters appearing in different costumes in different books at the same time, etc.?

I personally thought that it was interesting and led to some great books (All-Star Section 8, Mech Batman, etc.) but I guess it becomes irksome when people can't organize their bookshelf in canonical order anymore.

Apparently most of the comic buying world didn't give a flying gently caress about DCyou so probably.

# ? Jun 6, 2016 18:04

JoshTheStampede: Sep 8, 2004; come at me bro

Was the Red Lanterns series any good? I'm thinking of picking it up since they are the first antagonists for Simon and Jessica.

Is there a lot of Dex-Starr in it? Because Dex-Starr owns.

# ? Jun 6, 2016 19:07

goldenoreos: Jan 5, 2012; Take care of my animals while I'm gone

JoshTheStampede posted:

Was the Red Lanterns series any good? I'm thinking of picking it up since they are the first antagonists for Simon and Jessica.

Is there a lot of Dex-Starr in it? Because Dex-Starr owns.

Red Lanterns under Charles Soule was AMAZING! Probably one of the best comics under the New 52 for me.

# ? Jun 6, 2016 19:16

redbackground: Sep 24, 2007; BEHOLD!
OPTIC BLAST!; Grimey Drawer

Are there any lettered WW previews out there for either WW:Rebirth or WW:#1?

# ? Jun 6, 2016 20:45

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# ? May 17, 2024 19:52

Teenage Fansub: Jan 28, 2006

redbackground posted:

Are there any lettered WW previews out there for either WW:Rebirth or WW:#1?

Not yet, but here's one for Action Comics.
http://www.comicbookresources.com/comic-previews/action-comics-957-dc-comics-2016

# ? Jun 6, 2016 22:03

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