In response to David Welsh’s blog post about how a publisher’s corporate personality can influence consumer perception of its product, John Jakala crafts a publisher personality quiz, or as he calls it, “Comic Book Publishers: A Field Guide to Understanding Their Quirks and Complications.”
For DC Comics, Jakala ascribes the following “Typical Behavior”:
- Is it Monday? Time for a new creative team and/or reboot/relaunch of our entire superhero universe!
- We just know this beloved character who has never been able to attract an audience will finally succeed this time
- But we also have Vertigo, CMX, and Wildstorm
As for the “Overall Impression Created”:
Strangely ambivalent about own rich history: sometimes proud of quirky characters, embracing their inherent goofiness; sometimes attempt to cover up embarrassment over silly characters by changing everything about them except name (bipolar / manic-depressive?) Compartmentalizes.
He also tackles Marvel, Dark Horse, Tokyopop, Viz, Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics and First Second.
Go read for yourselves. (Via David Welsh.)
August 21st, 2006 at 11:04 am
Awww… no Image?
August 21st, 2006 at 11:38 am
Well, the list was done off the top of my head based on the publishers that first came to mind. But I’ve been getting requests for additions to the list, so maybe I’ll update it if I can find anything to say about other companies. (Others are welcome to chime in with their thoughts/impressions, too, of course.)
Image would probably come off pretty badly based on the most public representative of their corporate personality.
And thanks for the link, Kevin!