DC to REBOOT???

[Admiral Buzzkill]

We respect continuity, but I think even the fans will admit that once you get too mired in continuity, you start getting away from what's essential, which is character.

Berman and Braga would be proud of these guys.

 

[Myasishchev]

This isn't totally on-topic, but this is pretty much the best Comics, Everybody! ever, and they're usually pretty great already: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/06/15/green-lantern-history/

Hal Jordan is sort of neat, viewed from a distance.

 

[Icemizer]

^Sounds more like J.J. Abrams

 

[A beaker full of death]

Is it just me, or are they ostensibly changing everything every five years or so at this point?

 

[Nerys Myk]

What would your MARVEL 52 be?

My Marvel 52:

Fantastic Four
Amazing Spider-Man
Marvel Team Up (Spider-Man and...)
The Incredible Hulk
Sensational She-Hulk
The Mighty Thor
Thor: Tales of Asgard
Iron Man
Yellowjacket and The Wasp (YJ is my Pym ID of choice)
Captain America and The Falcon
The Mighty Avengers
West Coast Avengers
Avengers Academy: Tomorrows Mightiest Heroes
X-Men: The Hidden Years
The Uncanny X-Men
X-Men: The New Mutants
Marvels (starring Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeau and Rick Jones)
Daredevil
Defenders
Doctor Strange
Sub-Mariner
Power Man and Iron Fist
Black Widow
Marvel: The Lost Generation
Invaders
Marvel Two In One (super hero team ups)
Marvel Tales (Classic reprints)
Nick Fury and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D
Master of Kung Fu
Tomb of Dracula
Ghost Rider
Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos
Killraven: Worlds At War
Deathlock (Original version set in the "future")
Guardians of the Galaxy
Starjammers
Tales To Astonish (SF Anthology)
Journey In To Mystery (Horror Anthology)
Tales of Suspense (Crime & Espionage Anthology)
Marvel Triple Action (War, Action & Adventure Anthology)
Marvel Western ( Western Anthology)
Marvel Spotlight (Superhero Anthology)
Marvel Premire (New character try outs)
Crazy (Humor Anthology)
Howard the Duck
Patsy and Millie (teen comedy)
Spider-Ham and Friends ( you know, for kids)
The Worlds of Disney (Disney characters anthology)*
Mickey Mouse*
Duckburg Chronicles*
Disney Tales (classic Disney reprints)*
Open slot for cartoon tie in series

* I figure it has to happen, eventually

 

[Distorted Humor]

I enjoyed the trade paperback comics, and I do have the complete watchmen hardcover, but I do not buy comics since they are so dang expensive.

Would be curious to see if a company went with news-paper grade paper and less fancy printing and lowered the cost to say, 1$ if they might break out some sales...

 

[JoeZhang]

Would be curious to see if a company went with news-paper grade paper and less fancy printing and lowered the cost to say, 1$ if they might break out some sales...

Ed Brubaker looked into this for one of his creator owned comics, he said that because it makes so little difference to the unit cost it's not worth it.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

^Sounds more like J.J. Abrams

Exact same rap, actually.

 

[Myasishchev]

Rifftrax.com's front page poll (I've never understood what those or for, so don't ask me) is about the DC reboot. It's a somewhat frivolous example, but that's some pretty good marketing penetration, given that it's usually about pop cultural crap that millions of people have heard already of, and as far as I know Nelson/Murphy/Corbett aren't particularly big comics fans.

Ed Brubaker looked into this for one of his creator owned comics, he said that because it makes so little difference to the unit cost it's not worth it.

My understanding is that paying the people involved is a pretty substantial fixed cost (just for a the creative to afford to live, assuming that the primary creators--writer and penciller--don't have other books, I think each major release comic would have to cost at least $16,000 and obviously something by Morrison, for example, is probably around $16k just for him). And low-selling comics only pull in $60,000 a month gross. Which is one reason why it seems odd to split up the potential market with so many books, since the fixed costs go up linearly as the potential market expands at a fractional and diminishing rate for each new title.

Oh, and random thought: Batman of Africa? The whole place, huh? Either that's sort of fucking insulting, or Batwing is one hundred times better than Bruce Wayne at his job.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Here is the entire interview that CBR did.

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/dcnu-bob-harras-eddie-berganza-history-in-tact-110615.html

Indeed. It would appear that this is just a relaunch not a full blown reboot as was incorrectly assumed at first.

Well, that's a shame. I was hoping that there wouldn't be so much fidelity to the continuity that has been choking the books for the past decade.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, that's a shame. I was hoping that there wouldn't be so much fidelity to the continuity that has been choking the books for the past decade.

There's a lot less than meets the eye, I think. Basically, they're cherry-picking "greatest hits" stories from the past runs of the various most popular characters, and pretty much freeing themselves to do whatever they think will be most successful going forward.

Stuff like "A Death In The Family" and "Blackest Night" have, as they note, penetrated pop culture consciousness far enough beyond the relatively limited number of people who actually read comics that they'd be foolish to dump them. OTOH, fan favorites like the JSA that are pretty much meaningless to anyone else are easily put down for the moment.

Their choices look reasonable if you look at it from the POV of heightening the general public profile of the whole line.

 

[Distorted Humor]

Would be curious to see if a company went with news-paper grade paper and less fancy printing and lowered the cost to say, 1$ if they might break out some sales...

Ed Brubaker looked into this for one of his creator owned comics, he said that because it makes so little difference to the unit cost it's not worth it.

well that answers that, but still have the issue that comics are too pricey for regular consumption.

Heheh, evil mastermind says...
Time to outsource drawing to Eastern Europe, Asia, and other inexpensive locations. Get some poor guy/gal to draw me 10 books for the price of one...

 

[Distorted Humor]

My understanding is that paying the people involved is a pretty substantial fixed cost (just for a the creative to afford to live, assuming that the primary creators--writer and penciller--don't have other books, I think each major release comic would have to cost at least $16,000 and obviously something by Morrison, for example, is probably around $16k just for him). And low-selling comics only pull in $60,000 a month gross. Which is one reason why it seems odd to split up the potential market with so many books, since the fixed costs go up linearly as the potential market expands at a fractional and diminishing rate for each new title.

Just curious, (I don't know much about comics, except that I enjoyed watchmen and the Authority under the first drawer/writer, and preacher before it got too over the top (guessing I should try sandman sometime). But in the Golden and silver age, was it usual for a artist to do only one book? (Let alone the less then one book a month that seems typical) Guess I seem harsh but did the "Old school" guys put out more work then the current folks?

 

[A beaker full of death]

Can't speak to Golden Age, but in the late Silver/Bronze age a lot of artists worked on only one or two books. But they made their deadlines. You could count on those books being out every month.

 

[Nerys Myk]

My understanding is that paying the people involved is a pretty substantial fixed cost (just for a the creative to afford to live, assuming that the primary creators--writer and penciller--don't have other books, I think each major release comic would have to cost at least $16,000 and obviously something by Morrison, for example, is probably around $16k just for him). And low-selling comics only pull in $60,000 a month gross. Which is one reason why it seems odd to split up the potential market with so many books, since the fixed costs go up linearly as the potential market expands at a fractional and diminishing rate for each new title.

Just curious, (I don't know much about comics, except that I enjoyed watchmen and the Authority under the first drawer/writer, and preacher before it got too over the top (guessing I should try sandman sometime). But in the Golden and silver age, was it usual for a artist to do only one book? (Let alone the less then one book a month that seems typical) Guess I seem harsh but did the "Old school" guys put out more work then the current folks?

Look at Kirby's output. He was drawing several books: FF, Thor and Captain America. When Kirby came to DC he was drawing and writing New Gods, Mister Miracle and Forever People.

 

[Distorted Humor]

Can't speak to Golden Age, but in the late Silver/Bronze age a lot of artists worked on only one or two books. But they made their deadlines. You could count on those books being out every month.

Look at Kirby's output. He was drawing several books: FF, Thor and Captain America. When Kirby came to DC he was drawing and writing New Gods, Mister Miracle and Forever People.

ok, confirms some of what I suspected...I guess I come from a job that if I messed a deadline, I would have heck to pay for it. yet comics miss deadlines all the time, and the writer and artist are working one book. Then again if I was running a comic book company, I prob would have the worst reputation as a taskmaster who insisted that work get done on time or take major cuts in pay or replaced.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

That's the virtue of having a talent that's in demand. As long as your behavior isn't too egregious relative to other people in your field, you have some leverage where this kind of thing is concerned.

A lot of folks are in jobs where they're easily replaceable cogs in the machine. That's not true to the same degree in many creative fields.

Remember, CBS put up with Charlie Sheen for years.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Of course in the Golden and Silver Ages, the stories were more selfcontained. So you could plug in an inventory story without missing a beat. With the "epic sagas" of modern comics ( starting in the 70s) you pretty much have to wait for the roses. I'm still pissed over a crappy fill in in during Engleharts first Avenger's run.

 

[Hound of UIster]

But in the Golden and silver age, was it usual for a artist to do only one book? (Let alone the less then one book a month that seems typical) Guess I seem harsh but did the "Old school" guys put out more work then the current folks?

The old folks had less detailed backgrounds or none whatsoever and they relied more on their inkers to fill in and do the more detailed work. It was a case of quantity over quality while currently the situation is now reversed with quality over quantity.

 

[JoeZhang]

Can't speak to Golden Age, but in the late Silver/Bronze age a lot of artists worked on only one or two books. But they made their deadlines. You could count on those books being out every month.

Look at Kirby's output. He was drawing several books: FF, Thor and Captain America. When Kirby came to DC he was drawing and writing New Gods, Mister Miracle and Forever People.

ok, confirms some of what I suspected...I guess I come from a job that if I messed a deadline, I would have heck to pay for it. yet comics miss deadlines all the time, and the writer and artist are working one book. Then again if I was running a comic book company, I prob would have the worst reputation as a taskmaster who insisted that work get done on time or take major cuts in pay or replaced.

You'd be finished in six months flat. The difference between now and then is that most of the major talents can get work in other fields for more money, for example, Frank Quitely is slow but people will buy his books - so sure you can replace him with Joe Blow but most of the buzz and readership will go with him - who wants a collected All-Star Superman which is nine issues FQ and three issues Joe blow? Moreover Quitely would not struggle to pick up work.

Also people forget what used to go on to make those deadlines - lots of awful mediocre work was turned out, it's just nobody remembers it. Moreover, Kirby always comes in those sorts of discussions but Kirby was a freak (in a good way) - hell one of the 'top' inkers back in the day was Vince Colletta - he could always be relied on to make sure stuff went out on time - and how did he do that - well he was a hack.

Vinnie erased background figures and simplified backgrounds and turned fully realized drawings into silhouettes. I have quite a few pages of original art from Kirby’s run on “Thor” and Vinnie erased or whited out incidental figures or details frequently -- in one case, Vinnie whited out an entire train.

Like all artists, Vinnie was paid by the page, and Vinnie was paid poorly. There were no royalties or reprint money -- the original art was not returned, so there was no incentive to do good work. As long as editors gave him work, he'd take the money and spit back the work as quickly as possible. Doing that meant taking shortcuts and Vinnie took shortcuts aplenty.

A trick Vinnie utilized often was to scribble in excessive skinny lines in a frantic random pattern, which gave the illusion of pages being worked over, while simplifying or eliminated elements that needed to be inked with care. This made it appear as though he was bringing a lot to the page even though he was taking away as much as he was adding.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=16355