Knocking Down DC Comics Rumors…

COMMENTS (7)

• Weirder things could happen.

  However, her jumping into the DC world could be a good thing if she focused NEW comics towards the younger kids demo. Notice I used the word “new”, because it would be horrible to drop the current roster to kiddie level (especially since they want the films to be gritty a la The Dark Knight).

  Also, there’s a market for it, since Archie/Casper/Richie Rich are very stale.

  Comment by njames — Friday February 12, 2010 @ 3:11pm PST  Reply to this post

• DC Needs someone who understands the current comics market,as well as the growth of the Trade Paperbacks/Mass-Market collections and the future of digital publishing.

  Comment by Herb Finn — Saturday February 13, 2010 @ 12:13pm PST  Reply to this post

• There is no way without totally reforming distribution that comics could be written to appeal to younger kids.

  Right now, comics do not appear anywhere but comic shops, of which there about 2,000. They are priced at $3.99-$4.99, making them too expensive for kids. The talent that writes them is both too left-liberal and adult male (think: Aint it Cool News crowd) to appeal to young boys wanting simple tales of heroism and adventure, sans irony and self-loathing.

  Making new characters appealing to young boys would require dumping Diamond Distribution and getting comics into places like Wal-Mart, supermarkets, and drug stores as well as Borders and Barnes and Noble. It could be done, but DC has had no appetite for it for about twenty five years.

  Making new characters that have any appeal to young boys ALSO requires new writers, ones that can appeal beyond the aging fanboy demo of late thirties and beyond. THAT requires a systematic eye for new talent and an ability to go beyond the PC driven dogma that characterizes much of comics today.

  IMHO, it would be wiser to simply step outside DC comics, create a new start-up, with new people using a limited budget to publish on the web and limited, direct mail to experiment and see what works. THEN go wide with distribution to mass market. Having ZERO DC COMICS people, particularly editors. The skill set that is needed to make a “dark, gritty, PC driven” tale that appeals to a 45 year old reader of AICN is mutually exclusive of that which appeals to an 11 year old boy.

  Jim Shooter is not doing anything. Let him run it. He helped create the Valiant universe, and did a good job there coordinating the development of the characters. In fact, purchasing the Valiant Universe (or Dark Horse’s Comics Greatest World, or the defunct Malibu line purchased by Marvel) and rebooting the characters oriented towards boys would be a smart move. Much of the storyline and character work is already done, and only needs polishing.

  Comment by whiskey — Saturday February 13, 2010 @ 1:47pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Yes, BUT:

    Maybe it’s just as simple as DC acquiring the Harry Potter license for comics. Even if all the comics are distant-past prequels, JK Rowling’s HP world could blow open a marketplace starved for new Potter content that’s officially sanctioned.

    But Whiskey is right — you don’t really see kids these days reading the Iron Man comics, which are pretty sophisticated and definitely cued to the older male crowd — but you sure see a lot of them going to the Iron Man movie.

    There’s a big disconnect in the marketplace right now.

    Comment by INterested Observer — Sunday February 14, 2010 @ 3:23pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Four paragraphs about how the only way to succeed is to throw out all the old, and then… Jim Shooter and resurrect characters and concepts which already failed in the market?

    Wha Huh?

    Comment by Echo — Monday February 15, 2010 @ 12:21am PST  Reply to this post

  • One of the problems with the comic industry is right there in your post — the assumption that only young boys want to read comics or could be comics readers. Girls don’t just equal Manga. Young girls also want “simple tales of heroism and adventure, sans irony and self-loathing.”

    Comment by Thebigapricot — Tuesday February 16, 2010 @ 6:18am PST  Reply to this post

• Re: Whiskey

  DC has plenty of IP to aim toward kids. Kids already love Batman, Superman, etc.–we just need entry-level comics about those characters.

  It doesn’t make sense to buy out other failed superhero characters. Better they should come up with different types of stories.

  Scholastic got BONE into the hands of kids and they love it.

  Let Mike Kunkel create a series a la Bone (or publish more Herobear) and develop the animated film/series simultaneously.

  Comment by Carr D'Angelo — Sunday February 14, 2010 @ 4:31pm PST  Reply to this post