Article on the success of DC's solo efforts with diversity pertaining to the New 52

[R0NIN]

I believe they aren't using the Milestone characters right now due to some licensing contracts with the original creators. I remember hearing at NYCC that DC had some bigs plans for a Milestone push, but these legal issues had to be resolved first.
I believe is was due to the Milestone people thinking they deserved more money for the property, but to be fair I'm not 100% certain I'm remembering that part right. I do konw there are some legal issues, and when they are resolved more Milestone characters will be appearing like we see in Young Justice. Or at least that what was told to everyone.

[glennsim]

I believe that DC wants to be more diverse, but they have to try to do it in a manner that does not destroy the bottom line.

I would speculate that as much as we might like to see creator-popularity and character-popularity be crossed to create a more even combination (put popular creators on less popular characters, but newer/less popular creators on more popular characters), DC has to literally consider that if a book isn't projected to sell big numbers, they need to keep costs down on it, and hiring a newer writer like Wallace probably kept costs down, as his page rate is probably lower (because he's new, not because he's black).

DC also instituted strict rules around deadlines at the same time as well as heavy editorial input, and I think a lot of the writers selected to work for DC overall were the ones who could make their deadlines and be willing to work with lots of editorial changes.

So as I was saying in another thread, increasing diversity involves two things - because it's the right thing (although this could also be referred to as "making sure the public image looks good) and to increase marketability. The former dictates why they do it, the latter dictates HOW they do it.

[Den]

While I'm not sure I agree with everything said, it was a pretty good article. I liked Static better than the Opinion Columnist did, but yeah, it had its problems and they totally messed up by changing too much that didn't need changing. A similar problem happened with Blue Beetle imo, but at least he's getting a second of sorts in Threshold.

Frankly, I think that the gay characters in Nu52 came out pretty well.
Bunker was one of the best things to happen to the Nu52 Titans. He's a fun character.
Batwoman has been heaped with lots of praise.
And Alan Scott /Green Lantern of Earth 2 is one bad ass superhero who happens to be gay (I do know there's some controversy over the death of his loved one but I still think Alan himself comes across well)

[Brave Sir Robbin]

Well, since we are talking about the article as well as the points made, I would like to say that the article itself is rambling, unorganized piece of crap. It is honestly pretty poorly done. He takes a lot of time saying that other writers suck, but he leads the pack. I barely got through it. He should make his points to someone capable of intelligent, persuasive communication so they can write his article.

That being said, from what I could glean out of that was 1. Diversity characters get short shifted because they are poorly written and not given good plots. 2. I am not sure what else. There had to be something in there.

Writing drives comics. A big character can survive on bad writing but a new character has to grab attention and be better than others. Writers that want to create characters that are not totally white bread are typically not good writers. Minor characters can thrive when well written. See Batgirl and the various books at Image that garner attention with a fraction of the support that the big publishers can bring. But to get a non white bread character into the big time, it has to be assigned to a very good writer that will give it great characterizations, plots and attention.

It is not just minority characters that fail. But they fail in DC because they get the same hack idiots writing them that write the other crap books that hover near extinction. Some poorly performing books are well written. My fear for cancellation at the current time is Demon Knights. It is not great but different and has promise. I know I Vampire has a very serious fan base that struggles with the bad sales. But most stuff on the bottom deserves to be there. The problem with Diversity and DC is that most of their books are down there and most of them are pretty poor. The books with different characters are lumped in there with them.

My final point is that based on Simone's leaving DC, I assume that DC has strict editorial direction that handcuffs what could be interesting and good books with corporate direction that emanates from minds that are best left to figure out how to keep from drowning when looking up in the rain. Diversity will thrive when the creators are unshackled so we can get books like the ones at Image, Oni and Dynamite.

[nightrider]

Isnt this being written by one of the poster who got banned here?

[Dr. Cheesesteak]

I meant the quality and/or name value of creative teams on minority books.

I think this is key here - the creative teams on the books. I've said before if DC wants Static Shock/Cyborg/Vixen/Katana/female Dr. Light/Jaime Reyes/any-other-minority-in-a-solo-book to reach near-A level status, they need to put the top creative talent on it. However, it's the case that the top creative talent could always reject the book and/or maybe DC truly feels it's too risky to pay their top talent for a book that won't make up for it in sales.

[[]D[]/\/\[]D @ Nite/So-tite]

Can you explain what you mean by that? I don't know what these other books are and now you are talking about pre-Flashpoint. If I was to take wild guess I would say that it was a combination of Jurgens wanting something to write and DC trying to keep it afloat while figuring out how to market the character (there were talks of a TV show or something). Whatever DC was trying to do with it though doesn't really have much relevance to how they have done with the diversity of the New 52.

Your statement was that only established franchise characters can succeed. Contrary to that, Booster Gold, who is not connected to an established franchise, was able to find some measure of success. The book lasted a good while and would have continued if not for the reboot.

Just because there's a reboot doesn't necessarily mean strategies for success would stop working arbitrarily.

I think this is key here - the creative teams on the books. I've said before if DC wants Static Shock/Cyborg/Vixen/Katana/female Dr. Light/Jaime Reyes/any-other-minority-in-a-solo-book to reach near-A level status, they need to put the top creative talent on it. However, it's the case that the top creative talent could always reject the book and/or maybe DC truly feels it's too risky to pay their top talent for a book that won't make up for it in sales.

I think, like glennism stated, DC might want to put big-name or high-quality writers only on big-name/non-minority characters to maximize sales.

[glennsim]

I think, like glennism stated, DC might want to put big-name or high-quality writers only on big-name/non-minority characters to maximize sales.

While I think that's true, more specifically I think that DC looks at book and projects that *regardless* of the talent, it's only going to sell in a certain range. So with their anticipated revenue in hand, they then look at ways to keep the costs down, which includes hiring talent that doesn't have as high a page rate. Thus maximizing profits.

I'm reminded of a story once about how when they made the movie "Jerry Maguire", by the time they had hired Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr. there was no longer any money in the budget for any other name actors, which is why unknown Renée Zellweger gets hired as the love interest.

[Mr. Holmes]

I guess Arnoldo still contributes on this forum looking at where that "article" comes from.

[JaggedFel]

Interesting still my biggest problems were wig static and blue beetle.

For BB, Dc went darker and edgier and changed what people liked in the first run so much. The family feel.

On SS moving him to NYC was just stupid keep in dokota and I would suggest using the show as a basis to maximize appeal.