On Didio and persistent misreading of "firing" threads

[rickshaw1]

After having read your latest on the Didio "mass media/internet hysteria", i find myself both agreeing with you, and disagreeing with you.

Admittedly, as a fan only (in that i only read the books, i don't do cons, i don't by plush dolls, i just read) I am not plugged in to the comic industry. Nor am i attempting to be a comics writer or artist. I am just... a fan.

I basically only post at the DC boards and one other place. And while most of my posts are lighthearted and fun (i think), i do take some things more seriously.

And right now, DC seems rudderless. Sloppy story telling, atrocious crossovers (Amazons Attack, anyone?), the Cruddy Countdown Continuity Crisis, books being late repeatedly, writers that were highly anticipated suddenly being let go or leaving due to, according to your own profiling, some "secretive Society of Circumspect Scribes and Editors. These things added up to fans, and from what we hear, also some employees of DC, hoping for a change.

To a lot, that change meant that Didio would be gone. And honestly, given the gradual inward spiral of the company (Aquaman, Blue Beetle, Firestorm, Flash to name but a few) i can't say that it would have bothered me if it was true. Right now, there are very few real gems in the DCU. Green Lantern is one. Johns and company seem to be turning out a great book in spite of Didio's editorial "leadership". Perhaps we, the fans, are wrong, but that is how it is seen. When a character favorite such as Dick Grayson is only saved at the last minute from yet another heedless, needless death by fan outcry and writer/artist intervention, that shows that while Didio may hail from "Media" rather than comics, well...how shall i put this..."He don't know 'Jack$#!+' about comics.

And to your credit in you column, you seem to admit that there have been a misstep or two, but to longtime fans, it seems more like a misstep or nineteen. From the above mentioned items to the rather stupid assumption that fans only care about costumes and powers rather than characters (see the oft-mentioned "diversity push" that has lead to many character deaths and poor sales on replacement characters) , the ship seems to be listed hard to port. But, lets examine one of your arguements.

The conspiracy of silence, apparantly in place to stiffle leaks. Well, we all know from the previous administration in Washington that leaks are essential to publicity for 'good' as well as 'bad'. Since Didio is from "media", he should know this and when taking the job as ...what is his title anyway?....be prepared to use it to the companies advantage. If that means editors have to give up information to storylines to other writers/artists to get a cohesive storyline, then as...what, 2nd high chancelor to the comics realm? Didio should have made sure that everyone that needed the information got the information. That is called leadership. Even if it meant getting the "bible" on the story, photocopying it and mailing it himself. That is called leadership, providing direction, and if nothing else, CYA for his own files. And if you don't know what CYA is, then send me an email, I will be happy to explain.

Now, as to sales. Right now DC is character poor, in more ways than one. First, under the current 'leadership', characters have been killed off left and right. Granted, some were minor characters that may have had no more than one or two real appearances. BUT. With each death, the impact is lessened. With each death, the possibility that something interesting can be done with the character is chucked out the door with the bath water. I am not saying that the only good comics death is no death, but when each event ladle's them out like glop on a cafeteria try, well, how appetizing is that? Sometimes a death is a good thing. But when you have thirty or forty of them at once...eh, who cares? Whats next, a book that does nothing but have the central character killed each issu...oh, wait, there was a book like that. Ressurection Man. Pretty good as i remember. But, how are its sales now?

And the second part of being character poor, the books published. I have read repeatedly that Brave and Bold is "not selling" well enough to show that lesser characters are wanted. Pardon me a moment...WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE JOKERS THINKING!!!???? Ahem, sorry. You see, i am remembering the one really good thing that i have seen from Didio and company, and that is the book 52. Does anyone besides me remember the well told, well illustrated book that focused mainly on lesser stars of the DCU in a fashion that made it sell pretty well? It was compelling. The art was good and did not appear to be thrown together to get the book out. And it wasn't about Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

DC has a wealth of secondary characters that while maybe not being able to support a solo book, seem capable of generating sales when combined in a workable, well scripted, COHESIVE story. Animal Man hadn't been that well recieved since Morrison. Starfire and Adam Strange? C'mon, they hadn't shown in years. Isis? You gotta be kidding me, right?

But, if things continue they way they have been, the only heros and villians left in the DCU will be from the SuperWonderBat families. And that is a shame. One of the few characters to actually be fun in the last 15 years is aged and then killed in 13 issues. 'course, he wasn't supwonbatfam, so it didn't count, right?

Look, there wasn't any hysteria. We weren't posting that it was the end of the world. I did, however, see a lot of fans saying that given the current direction, they were leaving DC behind. And while no pro seems to be able to make up their minds about whether voices on the internet matter (some say they read the message boards, others say they do not), to blithely discount what people have taken the time to write because you don't like it, or discount because you have sales figures that seem to indicate things are going well, is foolhardy.

From personal experience, and current buying habits, my DC pull has reduced by half in the last year. Some of it is deciding to leave some books behind, and some of it is having books I liked end, but the bad taste left in my mouth by the situation as a whole is causing me to not even look at some of the new books, like the new weekly Trinity. And others are saying the same thing.

You can poopoo that, you can say the numbers say different, you can quote contract severance packages, you can throw in a "secrecy" mentality, and an infinate amount of other reasons, but it all boils down to one thing...

Lack of leadership.

Someone needs to set the ships course and set her aright. Fans havent seen enough positives from Didio to all believe that he is the man for the job.

And thus, we posted that on the DC boards. You wouldn't have to take my word for it, i could have given you lots of examples, but a funny thing happened on the way to the stadium...Mods deleted most of those threads. Now, if you want to see what we wrote, you have to go through a lot of other threads, finding the posts that tie in, have continuity, form a series.

And after you do, just imagine what it is like for the poor comic buyer.

Thanks for your time,

Rick Bennett

[Imaginos666]

Fans havent seen enough positives from Didio to all believe that he is the man for the job.

I guess DiDio's lucky he wasn't elected to this position by "fans," who don't really have a say in his future at DC. He's running a business and, as long as it's profitable, there's no reason for the board of directors (or whoever hired him) to be concerned. I promise you, the suits who hired him don't give a damn if he makes Gleek the Monkey the leader of the Justice League ... if it sells, it sells.

I work in newspapers and this kind of hysteria is a problem for just about everyone in publishing. Longtime readers equate their purchases with owning stock in the company. While it's flattering when people are passionate about your product, many opinions aren't based on anything real. I once worked for a newspaper with an opinion page that leaned heavily in toward one political party. The first time I met members of the rival political party, they assumed I shared every belief written by the editors. They refused to believe me when I told them otherwise.

They had already reached a consensus on how they believed the newspaper operated and trusted their own opinions more than they trusted me. I could have showed them surveillance footage of an editorial meeting and it would not have changed their minds.

[rickshaw1]

Yes, he is lucky. And you are right, Corporate doesn't care as long as they see that the place is being held. They don't really care if even the core comics like superman or batman make money...in the comics. As corporate sees it, they are in place merely to hold onto rights, since much more money is made of licensing.

And no, i don't see buying comics as being the same as being a "shareholder". I am quite well versed in the business arena, been it for over 20 years. Our speaking out was due solely to the fact that the books aren't that good except for a couple of stars, such as GL, JSA, and the Shooter Legion.

Business wise, which would you rather be: a) the guy that comes in and helps a floundering or moderate company become a greater success, garnering a larger market share with better product, or b) a placeholder, loosing more and more regular business and trying to sustain by poorly received events that are still coming up short?

People can say that FC isn't a failure right now, but...even if it did generate say $1.00 per book over what they normally make, that is still only what ...$120,000? Now, look at the regular books like Flash that are hemmoraging readers left and right. If they sold a steady 50,000, monthly as opposed to only 25,000, that would be an extra $300,000. Now, multiply that out by say...5 books per year beyond the standard supbat combo. That is a steady $1,500,000 a year. Now, take $120,000 times what...7 issues? Thats $840,000.

Thats pretty simplified, but basic. By not concentrating on the regular books and using them to drive sales, by trying to use "events" to cover instead of being the gravy on the sales menu, DC is loosing money, market share, and readers.

I would opt for option a any day. But, thats just me.

So, rather than smugly deride comics fans the way some other *coughrichjohnstoncough* have, maybe, juuuuuust maybe, folks might get over their too smart for the average person mentality and realize that customers are not always stupid or ignorant.

Just a thought.

[Steven Grant]

DC's comics publishing isn't losing money, it just isn't making as much as it theoretically could. Comics that lose money get canceled.

- Grant

[Paul McEnery]

DC's comics publishing isn't losing money, it just isn't making as much as it theoretically could. Comics that lose money get canceled.

- Grant

However, perception is money.

If the fans spent a bunch on Countdown and DONG only to find that those stories never happened -- and if "imaginary stories" out of continuity sold like hotcakes, there'd be a lot more Elseworlds stories -- then that could significantly impact consumer confidence.

Hell, it might even make people buy books for the creators or the stories instead of buying all this seaworthy-maintenance event crap. And since that's keeping the Big Two afloat these days like the speculator boom did before it, that could be very bad news indeed.

Marvel suits will undoubtedly be watching this very closely as they approach the end of the Ultimate line.

Seems to me that Grant's magic is working more than usually chaotically this time out.

(He's still paying the cost in artist worries, though; funny how that almost always happens to him.)

[rickshaw1]

DC's comics publishing isn't losing money, it just isn't making as much as it theoretically could. Comics that lose money get canceled.

- Grant

Grant, they may not be "losing money" as in "in the red", but any business major will tell you that if you are not maximizing your profits, you are losing money.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/normal_profit.asp

Each business, company, individual in a capitalist society will, if they are efficient, seek to maximize profit. You seek to make the most you can while you are able, given set points such as market, costs, rates of return, etc. Due to marginal returns, each "x" will try to find the equilibrium point, were maximum investment = maximum returns. Some "x" even work under the dimininishing returns model, where beyond the equilibrium point, for each additional amount of investment, the return is less and less.

Somehow, given the example i used above, i don't think DC is hitting the equilibrium point if they are not maximizing their regular books, and instead letting what should be the gravy, the "events", form a portion of their "regular" yearlies. They may not be in the "red", but they aren't in the black the way they should be.

[KET]

DC's comics publishing isn't losing money, it just isn't making as much as it theoretically could. Comics that lose money get canceled.

- Grant

Not neccessarily. Corporate comics with no following would more likely be loss leaders for movie and TV deals.

[NatGertler]

Grant, they may not be "losing money" as in "in the red", but any business major will tell you that if you are not maximizing your profits, you are losing money.

Which is why business majors will often run a business into the ground, destroying that which works in the quest to fine-tune toward some theoretical maximum.

[Imaginos666]

Yes, he is lucky. And you are right, Corporate doesn't care as long as they see that the place is being held. They don't really care if even the core comics like superman or batman make money...in the comics. As corporate sees it, they are in place merely to hold onto rights, since much more money is made of licensing.

And no, i don't see buying comics as being the same as being a "shareholder". I am quite well versed in the business arena, been it for over 20 years. Our speaking out was due solely to the fact that the books aren't that good except for a couple of stars, such as GL, JSA, and the Shooter Legion.

Business wise, which would you rather be: a) the guy that comes in and helps a floundering or moderate company become a greater success, garnering a larger market share with better product, or b) a placeholder, loosing more and more regular business and trying to sustain by poorly received events that are still coming up short?

People can say that FC isn't a failure right now, but...even if it did generate say $1.00 per book over what they normally make, that is still only what ...$120,000? Now, look at the regular books like Flash that are hemmoraging readers left and right. If they sold a steady 50,000, monthly as opposed to only 25,000, that would be an extra $300,000. Now, multiply that out by say...5 books per year beyond the standard supbat combo. That is a steady $1,500,000 a year. Now, take $120,000 times what...7 issues? Thats $840,000.

Thats pretty simplified, but basic. By not concentrating on the regular books and using them to drive sales, by trying to use "events" to cover instead of being the gravy on the sales menu, DC is loosing money, market share, and readers.

I would opt for option a any day. But, thats just me.

So, rather than smugly deride comics fans the way some other *coughrichjohnstoncough* have, maybe, juuuuuust maybe, folks might get over their too smart for the average person mentality and realize that customers are not always stupid or ignorant.

Just a thought.

Rabid comic fans bring it on themselves ... take a look around the boards here at CBR and you will find too many people bitching about the comics they are reading. I don't mean "they read a comic and didn't like it." I mean the folks who have hated a book they have been reading for several months (if not years) and continue to buy it anyway.

I don't know how to break it to these people, but if you intentionally buy a book for 6-8 issues and have no plans to break that behavior, then you like that book. Anything you say otherwise is denial. I'll usually give a book (or creative team) about two issues to win me over. If they don't, I move along to something else. A poorly crafted comic should not be taken as a personal slight.

And none of this is meant to imply you are among those people, or that I disagree with many of your complaints. I'm now buying more Marvel than DC, which hasn't happened since 1987. But I can't help but feel a little disappointed (is that the word?) to see people waste so much energy online for such pointless, delusional "issues." I don't understand the root of all this anger. There are some very real problems in the world and none of them involve the color of kryptonite.

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, comic fans are the greatest argument for and against comic books. We keep the industry afloat, but also discourage growth in readership because of our own emotionally-arrested behavior (and dogmatic adherence to continuity.)

[Paul McEnery]

I am reminded of the story of Dave, the construction worker.

Everyone takes lunch, and takes a peek in each other's lunch box. "Oh boy, barbecue chicken wings!" "Hey, I got a bento box today!" And our man just looks down in the dumps and says "Oh. Cucumber sandwiches again."

And every day it's the same. "I got spicy tuna!" "I got meatballs!" and Dave says: "Oh. Cucumber sandwiches again."

And a couple weeks go by, and it's lunch time again. "Nova lox bagels for me, with capers!" "I got's me a dozen donuts, with sprinkles!" "Oh. Cucumber sandwiches again." And the other guys finally crack.

"Dave, why in the hell don't you ask your wife to fix you something different?"

"My wife? I don't have a wife! I gotta make the lunch box up myself!"







Hear ye, that have ears to hear.

[Steven Grant]

However, perception is money.

Oh, if only that were true...

If the fans spent a bunch on Countdown and DONG only to find that those stories never happened -- and if "imaginary stories" out of continuity sold like hotcakes, there'd be a lot more Elseworlds stories -- then that could significantly impact consumer confidence.

I have a headache today and can't for the life of me figure out what DONG is, but, yeah, okay. This is basically the reasoning of them what are complaining about negative reviews of FC on the premise that reviews declaring the series a failure (and, really, it's way too soon to tell if it's that) are a self-fulfilling prophecy because they'll keep sufficient potential readers away from it. That's if, I guess, those potential readers read plus pay any attention to the reviews. Which is generally not the case.

But Elseworlds stories were outselling standard fare. For awhile. Until DC oversaturated the market with them.

Hell, it might even make people buy books for the creators or the stories instead of buying all this seaworthy-maintenance event crap. And since that's keeping the Big Two afloat these days like the speculator boom did before it, that could be very bad news indeed.

But people do buy the event crap for the stories. That's the hook; the companies are telling their audiences over and over and over that the event crap are the stories worth following. And I suspect many others (like myself) pay attention to FC mainly because of the talent involved.

Marvel suits will undoubtedly be watching this very closely as they approach the end of the Ultimate line.

Are they approaching the end of the Ultimate line? I haven't been paying attention.

Seems to me that Grant's magic is working more than usually chaotically this time out.

See, when people write things like that I start wondering what the hell I said that they're referring to. I get it now. But I wouldn't say it's working out chaotically at all. It seems very methodical, and steady.

(He's still paying the cost in artist worries, though; funny how that almost always happens to him.)

Not sure I understand. If you're saying what I think you're saying, it's not exactly funny, unless you think the odds on the house winning when you play roulette are funny. For most comics writers, artist worries are a price of doing business.

- Grant

[Steven Grant]

Grant, they may not be "losing money" as in "in the red", but any business major will tell you that if you are not maximizing your profits, you are losing money.

Not maximizing profits how? In the moment? In the long term?

Anyway, yes, I know economic theory, and I know "maximizing profits" is the holy grail for business majors, but on a practical level "maximizing profits" is often along the lines of car ads where they offer a $5000 discount and talk about how much money you're going to save. "Saving" there is a relative term, especially when you have to spend $18,000 to save $5000. Yes, it's $5000 that you don't have to spend, but that's not quite the save thing as "saving," when it comes to money. It's a smoke offer, and the idea isn't to get you "saving" money at all, it's to get you spending money, and the come on is that if you spend now instead of later you don't have to spend as much. So you go buy the car, and the next week you get the paper and they're offering $6000 off on the exact same car, because it's a different promotion. At that point, have you "saved" $5000 or have you "lost" $1000?

Maximizing profits is in the eye of the beholder. Back in the '70s and early '80s the best motel chain was Best Western. They had pretty strict terms for what you had to do to sport the Best Western name, they frequently sent around inspectors unannounced for quality control, and when you checked into a Best Western you had reasonably good odds that, even if unspectacular, the room you got would be clean, with fresh linen, a few extras, and good service should you have any problems.

Comes the mid-80s, and some Reaganite ended up running the Best Western organization. (I forget how, whether he bought it or became chairman of the board or whatever.) He looks at the company and says, "We're not maximizing our profits." He figures the organization makes its money from a cut of what the motels make, as well as the franchise fees and a few other things, and he doesn't like how difficult Best Western makes it for motels to buy into the Best Western name. He doesn't see the point of spending money on quality control investigators. He sees the money in quantity, not quality, so he cans most of the investigators, dumps the regulations, and opens the door to anyone who feels like ponying up. And, yeah, a lot more money floods into Best Western's coffers... but now if you stay at a Best Western motel you stand a pretty good chance of finding yourself in a real shithole.

From DC's perspective, and within the structure of the Time-Warner organization, it might be their perception that they are maximizing profits to the best of their ability. Given the strictures of the direct market, they may very well be.

Somehow, given the example i used above, i don't think DC is hitting the equilibrium point if they are not maximizing their regular books, and instead letting what should be the gravy, the "events", form a portion of their "regular" yearlies. They may not be in the "red", but they aren't in the black the way they should be.

But they may be in the black the way they can be. It's fairly easy to say, yeah, THE FLASH should be their #1 title, but I predicted way back around 1989 that the future of mainstream comics would be the special event, not the monthly standard comic, which both Marvel and DC mainly cling to because it has always been a staple. But if DC were really about maximizing profits, they'd do the exact opposite of what you suggest. They'd can THE FLASH and BLUE BEETLE and CHECKMATE and whatever else doesn't reach a certain sales threshold, they'd narrow down the editorial staff and focus on Superman and Batman (well, Batman, really) and they'd generate nothing else but special events, because those are what they can sell the best. This isn't entirely DC's manipulation; it's the way the market has gone, and at this point it's easy to chicken-and-egg it, but the fact is that their audience made it very clear that special events were what they were willing to spend money on. Producing comics the vast majority of your audience is willing to buy and not publishing those that majority isn't willing to buy is maximizing profits.

So if you want to bring "maximizing profits" into it, the end result would be the exact opposite of what you're saying. I guaran-damn-tee that if a business major with no emotional attachment to comics suddenly took the reigns of DC Comics, there would be a wholesale slaughter of DCU titles. Vertigo, which sells fewer comics than the DCU titles, usually, has a buffer most of the DCU books don't: Vertigo tends to do very well with trade collections, and those have become a tentpole of its "maximizing profits." DCU titles don't do quite as well in that venue, on average. This isn't DC's fault. They've tried. But in publishing past a certain point it's the buying audience that decides what's a financial success, and that's the barrier to "maximizing profits" that DC has always had the most trouble with.

- Grant

[Steven Grant]

Not neccessarily. Corporate comics with no following would more likely be loss leaders for movie and TV deals.

Ummm... yeah, the way that usually works, at least with DC is this: they may introduce a book and keep it going for a little while and try to cut a media deal of it during that time (various restrictions to that, since Warners usually has first dibs and Warners hates to make up its mind about anything) but if, say, someone decides they want to make a project called BILLY BATSON & THE POWER OF SHAZAM (actual movie in the works) DC isn't likely to start up a new Shazam comic just to keep them interested. They're not likely to start up a new BILLY BATSON comic on the off-chance a movie gets made. When the movie is in production and a release date is set, then they're fairly likely to generate a mini-series to correspond to the movie. Or, these days, more likely to pull together a selection of Billy Batson stories in a BILLY BATSON & THE POWER OF SHAZAM trade.

And even if they create a new comic as a "loss leader" for a media project, they won't keep it going indefinitely while all the barriers to greenlighting get passed. (Did you know the average amount of time it takes to get a movie made in Hollywood is roughly six years?) They're going to do a mini-series or maybe even a one-shot to establish rights, then get out. You don't need more than a one-shot to have a project demo, and doing more than a one-shot, if you can get a whole story into it, is kinda dumb. Even if they do a comic mainly as a come on for a media project, they'll only keep it going as long as it's making money. They may not can it the instant it stops making money, but at that point it's usually living on borrowed time, with the creative team often given an opportunity to wrap it up so that while its fans may be disappointed by the cancellation they'll at least have something like closure, which tends to minimize the long term bad will.

I got involved with CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN c. '96 because Jenette Kahn wanted to sell the project to Hollywood - and came very close on several occasions (one that I just found out about last week) - and DC did start up the book based on my pitch to help her do that. But that's very rare for them. Unlike a lot of companies these days, DC rarely starts up whole new projects with the sole interest of selling them as Hollywood projects. They don't have to. They're hairline deep (and I mean Dan Didio's hairline!) in back catalog to work with. While they may see the filmic possibilities in something, it still has to work (at least on their terms) as a comic book first.

- Grant

[Sabrinaset]

While they may see the filmic possibilities in something, it still has to work (at least on their terms) as a comic book first.

- Grant

*cough*MenInBlack*cough*

[NatGertler]

Vertigo, which sells fewer comics than the DCU titles, usually, has a buffer most of the DCU books don't: Vertigo tends to do very well with trade collections, and those have become a tentpole of its "maximizing profits."

And Vertigo tends to generate a lot more new-and-truly-different "properties", as opposed to, say, the latest version of the Blue Beetle, which works for Hollywood stuff.
The most-recent-new-DC-published-things-turned-movies are, off the top of my head so feel free to correct:

• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -- an ABC title
• The Road to Perdition -- a Paradox title
• Constantine, which clearly comes from the Vertigo realm (even if I cannot recall immediately whether JCs first appearance in Swamp Thing came before the introduction of the Vertigo line)

(And yes, yes, DC didn't actually make any money directly off of the LoEG and Road films, but the concept stands that the main DC universe books are not where the new, soon-to-be-Hollywooded ideas are coming from.)
Plus, the Vertigo books seem less likely to be competing with the DCU books than more DCU books would be.

BTW: DONG=Death of the New Gods, some piece of DC Continuity stuff which apparently has conflicts with whatever Grant had decided to do in his boss-of-the-universe role.