CBR: CCI EXCLUSIVE: McFarlane on DC Relaunch: "I'll Bet Against It"

[CBR News]

In an interview with CBR, Todd McFarlane critiqued DC Comics' impending relaunch, laying out the mistakes he sees and how the publisher could have done it better.


Full article here.

[littlenomad]

I agree with what he's saying, but I absolutely despise how he's saying it. Very unprofessional. Of course, I'm not sure if Todd McFarlane was ever that "professional" to begin with.

[lib519]

Some of those titles will never get a chance. If they were released a month a so after Justice League, maybe they would. But not too many people have $150-200 to spend on DC in one month. People are going to stick with the high profile ones, and discard the others for no other reason than they can't afford to try them.

[jsf]

I think the fallacy is the assumption that many of these books are being produced simply for the "brick and mortar" comic buying fan. It seems to me, from what I can tell, that quite a few of them are being put out primarily to test the digital market, and see if they can't make in-roads on non-traditional comic fans. I, Vampire isn't for the superhero set -- it's for the Twilight set who wouldn't ever visit a comic store to begin with.

It just seems one-dimensional to believe this is a conventional relaunch, which depends upon the traditional comic reader. It seems pretty clear it doesn't, and because of that it's really premature to predict its success or failure.

[Comicbookfan]

I love Toddie MAc and i agree with his point of View here. The move seems desperate and i just don't think its the best way to go about this. If the Market is slow and "Shrinking" as Mr. Didio has said then why flood the market with all this product. You run the risk of have some characters get lost in the shuffle.

I think back to the first wave of ultimate titles and i think about how marvel rolled them out slowly. As a fan i had time to pick up issues and figure out what i wanted with out loosing my 616 titles. And if i grew tired of the Ultimate book I still had the 616 to go back to.

And something else that i don't get about the reboot is that, These characters had been made more and more in accessible by the decisions of the very people now calling for simplicity. Who brought back the multiverse? who took their eye off the ball with the last Justice League launch? Superman didn't make his comic boring by being married i believe a story line in which he walked all over the placed accomplished that. The thing that needed the reboot was the entire editorial side not just Poor Paul Levitz.

[Bsavini781]

I agree with everything Todd Mcfarlane said, except for movies, Movies do make their biggest nut in the first and 2nd week. if they don't do well then, they ar epulled quickly and replaced with the next new movies, look at Green lantern, it's down to under 1000 screens in the United States, quicker than any other movie this summer, it is considered a massive failure, on par with Speed Racer, how many years ago.

[Jabare]

honestly if he isn't talking about Spawn I don't care what he has to say

[NickFury90]

Those are some fun pics they decided to post.

[Ebonyleopard]

honestly if he isn't talking about Spawn I don't care what he has to say

And since he never does, you never need to care.

Does Spawn even still come out?

[Mainline]

His analysis is wrong.

The issue is that DC's tail end is weak, period. There's no way for them to mete out launches, marketing, and interest because outside of the top titles people don't buy / care about DC as much (see: "Are Marvel's Floodgates Open?" by Jason Wood).

Comparing 52 new titles to Apple's scant 5 yearly products (only really 2-3 that people care about) is disingenuous. There's no way those additional products can sustain year long interest, avoid marketing and press cycle fatigue, etc. any better stretched out than if you hitch all the weaker titles to the strong ones. Even if you rely only on the strong changes you will only get a press bump for Superman, Batman, JLA, and events.

But this is what DC has ALREADY been doing for the past five years... relaunching Green Lantern, Flash, Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, etc. in staggered fashion trying to control the cycle, focus on individual character development (not just in story but in terms of marketability), etc. Whether as a matter of execution, disinterest, or what not, it hasn't worked. Telling them to do it again but with an additional 10 weaker titles tied to every Big Five character is ridiculous.

By doing it this way, they can get maximum bang for their marketing buck as well as taking advantage of digital. If the retailers aren't agile enough to gauge and adapt to demand, then they'll lose to digital... that was always the inevitable challenge they'd have to overcome, no point in acting like this is a sudden surprise. As for the expense issue... it is only unreasonable if you expect to hemorrhage readers on each of your staggered launches (because otherwise you'd be accumulating monthly titles anyways and by the last launch you'd STILL be paying for 52 titles). By doing it this way, you create a few advantages for yourself:

0. Put yourself in a position to believe you will succeed. Staggering assumes you will fail. Simultaneous launch hopes you'll see enough growth to sustain.

1. Provides a single concurrent marketing push. Yes, the smaller titles will get lost in the shuffle. They would have ANYWAYS (DC's tail is weak). This way you can focus more on the event than the individual titles in order to bring in new readers. New readers don't care about individual title quality, per se, otherwise Jonah Hex would be doing spectacular... they need a spectacle to justify spending money and simultaneous launch gives them that.

2. Options and choice. Again, a single marketing push means the new readers are going to have an entry point and with simultaneous release there's at least one book for everyone... you stagger that and the effect of the marketing and the feeling of choice is massively diminished. A meager 5-6 monthly titles instead of a buffet of 52 is just as likely to turn away a new reader who suddenly pigeon holes the whole DCU based on 5 available titles. Is that new reader going to wait around 12 months for the issue that actually interests them?

3. Creative impetus. We routinely say all that's necessary is "good writing" and its true, but writers and human and fallible and right or wrong they do get invigorated, inspired, and invested in relaunches more than telling just "another" story. Simultaneous release takes advantage of that by also creating a line-wide sense of recreation... everyone is in the same boat and jockeying for position and wanting to stun and shock, etc. You simply don't get that if you've got only 5 titles a month with everyone sequestered by staggered NDAs... this way, everyone can be in the room together and feed of each others' impulses.

4. Instant feedback. Self explanatory, the sooner you release, the sooner you know what is working and what isn't... and the less poor performance of prior unrelated books is imputed to later books released in the staggered form. That is, if the first 5 new titles didn't set your world on fire, how likely are you to take a chance on the next 5 and the next 5? In this manner, getting it all up front, both you as a reader and DC as a publisher know what you like.

5. Digital tail. He worries about the 47th title getting lost in the launch (but again, it would have been lost anyways even if staggered) the difference now is that with a common launching point to reference back to the digital sales can continue long after the initial launch. DC, evangelists, and new readers alike can all point back to the New 52 years from September for a selection of books to use as jumping on points. You can argue that the same thing could be aggregated on the digital sales page for staggered releases, and that's true, but it wouldn't aggregate the press, the reviews, the buzz, the forum responses, etc. archived on the web when that reader dives in. When the whole thing is grouped, that unified marketing push will last much longer digitally than you'd think... whereas isolated, say, All-Star Western #1 reviews are just another review.

Bottom line, sure the past is prudent but it's also in a downward spiral, so the current push may be desperate and different, but that's what it takes to see positive change.

[adeathinthefamily]

Wow, Todd McFarlane being a bit of a jerk. I did not see that coming.

[flavioeldritch]

Oh God, what a asshole....

[Brian from Canada]

I agree with everything Todd Mcfarlane said, except for movies, Movies do make their biggest nut in the first and 2nd week. if they don't do well then, they ar epulled quickly and replaced with the next new movies, look at Green lantern, it's down to under 1000 screens in the United States, quicker than any other movie this summer, it is considered a massive failure, on par with Speed Racer, how many years ago.

Actually, McFarlane has that part right: box office is front-ended to the theatre, which gets a flat rate first followed by a percentage in descending ratio. Or, in other words, 60% of the opening week stays with the theatre, 55% the next week, and so on down to 45-50% which is the right balance. The studios make their money later: home video, pay-per-view, network television, etc.

[Chadhulhu]

Todd is a one trick pony, asshole, jerk, etc. I do not like what they are doing with DC, other than we all can get an Action #1 or whatever, nothing great will come of it. Tho I'd like to check out JLA and Aquaman tho.

[britishmixedwhiskey]

I agree with most of what he said . As far as i know Spawn is still going strong but i havent followed it for years so cant be a 100%.

As a Marvel Zombie i honestly Hope DC does really well....for a little while as it's good for the overall future of Comics .

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