The recent onslaught of critical hate-on for DC’s weekly series Countdown, not to mention the company’s recent slagging sales in general, has led some folks to wonder if the company that Superman built is in trouble. I’ll start with Andrew Hickey, who recently decided to stop blogging about Countdown every week:
Countdown may well be the biggest mistake DC have made in ten years or more. Because they’re turning Countdown into a brand, but what that brand says to me is ‘steer clear’.
If you put out Steve Gerber writing Dr Fate, I think “this is something I need to pick up.” Put out Countdown To Mystery and I think “Danger! Run away!”
That post leads Dick Hyacinth to cast a pall:
Put it all together: the critical reception to Countdown, the glut of Countdown tie-ins on the horizon, and the declining sales figures. There’s no way to look at these figures and not question the effect on DC as a brand. DC is not giving fans (of any stripe, really) what they want. Their line-wide identity is tied into a loser of a maxi-series; many of their highest profile books are perpetually late, leading to clumsy/destructive schedule-juggling; their biggest intellectual properties are selling fewer books than Moon Knight. To his credit, Dan DiDio is not so incompetent as to maintain the disastrous status quo. But does anyone expect Waid on Flash and McDuffie on Justice League to turn things around? Shit, Justice League is DC’s only consistent, monthly bestseller; if anything, Meltzer’s imminent departure will see sales drop by a significant amount.
Even our very own Graeme can’t help but sound dour:
Something that’s easier to judge is that Countdown is currently the big problem at DC. I was thinking this the other day, writing up the solicits for the latest newsletter and realizing just how many books DC is spinning out of this not-as-popular-as-they’d-like series, as if each new book that comes from it will somehow increase the core book’s popularity… And not only that, but each successive spin-off seems more and more unnecessary and existing only to take up shelf space (“Lord Havok and The Extremists”? Who wants to read that?!?) – DC is trying so hard to brand itself around Countdown that it’s eclipsing its other, better, books; we’re at an unusual point where the Superman, Batman, Flash and Green Lantern books are all pretty good, but DC still seems to be in terrible trouble because they’re forcing the public face of the superhero line to be a series that readers are practically running away from. You’d think they’d know better, but then you remember that this is comics, and nothing makes sense here.
And the folks at CHUD as the question, “What if DC Comics ended?”:
Let’s be honest: comic book publishing isn’t the best game in town. For a big company like Warner Bros, DC Comics exists for one reason: to produce licenses that can be marketed, whether they be via films, video games, toys or underwear. The real money in comics lies not in comics, but products based on them. On top of that, the monthly comic as we know it is on its last legs: the floppies are mostly only available at comic book specialty stores, and how many of those are near you these days? The real future of comic books is in graphic novels and trade compilations, sold online and at book stores. On top of that, the world of comic book publishing – especially at continuity-mad DC – is so insular that the readership of comic books today is probably made up of the exact same people who were reading a decade ago. The market is dwindling and becoming more and more niche. In ten years, who will be left to go to comic book stores?
And there’s insult to be added to injury: if you look at the recent spate of movies and TV shows based on Marvel and DC characters, almost all of them take their cues from stories and characters that are a decade old or more. The fact is that no one is creating new characters or stories that will have mass appeal beyond the comic book audience. So why even bother with it anymore? Why does Warner Bros bother continuing monthly adventures of these characters? What if they just stopped?
OK, I’ll bite. What if?
July 24th, 2007 at 9:00 am
I can’t see them doing it, but I think DC are at the point of needing to do something radical to stop the chronic decline in sales relative to their main competition.
It is all very well to persist with Countdown, which will presumably lead to Final Crisis and the next big ret-con but unless they do something now there will be no one left to care. I am a huge DC fan, always have been, but right now I am buying more Marvel and Independent books by a considerable margin. Personally, I think they should wind up Countdown in a few months, chalk it up to a bad judgement call, and focus on beefing up their core properties.
By the way, a big epic story doesn’t have to involve a big cosmic wind-ding. Been there DC, done that. Over and over again. We need something new.
I can’t see DC stopping publishing altogether but I do see the current low sales levels become a more or less permanent feature, and a consequent glut of cancelled titles, unless they take proactive to stop the rot. Such steps do not include bolstering the failing countdown brand with yet more pointless tie ins.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:37 am
“What if they just stopped?”
The cynical answer? I’d save some money.
The realistic answer? They won’t stop. But there does seem to be a need to stop and reassess things at this point. Dan Didio’s hyperactive publishing style (he never met a spin-off proposal he didn’t green-light) seems to be “diluting the brand” as they say in marketing circles. Rather than just flood the market with derivatives and carrot-on-a-stick nostalgia fixes, they need to instead do the serious work of figuring out a real publishing strategy that can compete with Marvel Comics, a company that’s eating more of DC’s lunch with every passing month.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:37 am
DC Comics ending… I don’t even want to think about something like that. I love Countdown, and I think people are hateful of it to an exaggerated degree.
July 24th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Life would go on. We would go on. The creators would spend interview after interview blaming the fans.
July 24th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Actually they’d blame the bloggers and the internet as a whole…
I don’t think DC as a whole is going anywhere, though it’s “fun” to speculate about it. Of course, if DC ends up cutting back significantly or imploding, then you’re looking at some pretty dire consequences for the DM as a whole.
Frankly, what’s more troubling is the second paragraph of CHUD’s comments. Franchise maintainence is not going to get new readers. But then that doesn’t seem to be in the plans of the Big Two so far.
July 24th, 2007 at 10:27 am
“Frankly, what’s more troubling is the second paragraph of CHUD’s comments. Franchise maintainence is not going to get new readers. But then that doesn’t seem to be in the plans of the Big Two so far.”
I believe that’s the “double-edged sword” aspect of the movie strategy behind the licensed superhero characters. If you spin-out successful (or even mildly successful) movie adaptations of superheroes, that pretty much eliminates the need for comic books alone to introduce and maintain the brand to the general public. Kids can grow up and know of Spider-Man (while wearing his t-shirts and playing with his toys) without ever reading a single Spider-Man comic book.
So, while superhero movies are (for the most part) a great thing for comic book fans, at the same time we have to realize that making us happy and bolstering the comic book industry was never the end-game of the license owners. It’s actually to sell product independently of the comic book.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Hmm… I wonder if Joe Quesada’s looking at this wondering how he can publish this issue of “What If?”…
July 24th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Countdown isn’t so bad as it is VAGUE. The problem that DC has–that any company that makes something successful (like ’52′)–is that you want to try and bottle lightning and make the magic happen again and again.
That may work in a comic book, but not so much–in the real world.
DC ending? No chance–that’s the most time honored publisher of comics in existence. Someone has to bare the responsibility of Countdown’s apparent failings and there needs to be some sort of upheaval that garners fan response.
Someone BIG needs to die…and things REALLY have to change–not sort of change then go back to normal.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:22 am
“Someone BIG needs to die…and things REALLY have to change–not sort of change then go back to normal.”
I’ve read that DC’s first response to flagging interest in Countdown is to bring in a series of big-name “ringers” to do the artwork for certain issues….definitely a step in the right direction, but not enough to fix the underlying problem you identified so well (the “sort of change, then go back to normal” policy).
One of the biggest disappointments of both 52 and now Countdown has been the wildly varying quality of the artwork, some of it quite good and some of it appallingly amateurish. It’s good to know DC’s recognized that they can no longer just slide on by with the relative “cheap labor” of novice comic book artists.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Good point on the Countdown spinoffs. I would buy an Animal Man book in a heartbeat but will never get the Countdown to Adventure book.
July 24th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I must admit I’m looking forward to Lord Havok and the Extremists, because the idea of doing a series- even with two creators I like, Frank Tieri and Liam Sharp- is so absolutely insane I have to check it out.
July 24th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
“Countdown isn’t so bad as it is VAGUE. The problem that DC has–that any company that makes something successful (like ‘52′)–is that you want to try and bottle lightning and make the magic happen again and again.”
Ummm…problem is, they didn’t try to bottle 52. They took a bottle the same size as the 52 bottle and put something entirely different in it. Current time…wide open in the universe…show-run by Dini AND Didio (who probably is overreaching in trying to have this much influence)…more of a “highlights of what is going on” than an actual story. It makes sense that they are hitching stuff to the 52 wagon, but it is sad that they are hitching to the Countdown heap.
July 24th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Personally, I see the problem with DC being their seemingly haphazard way of putting out books.
You want some 52 spinoff books? Fine, but have them ready to go once 52 ends… not months down the road. With Countdown now top of mind, 52 is kind of old news.
Now we’ll have Countdown spinoff books as well… which will probably take place 3 months after Countdown ends.
Lastly, they really aren’t doing a good job of telling a story. In the past year, there has been no falling action or denouement. While the denouement may not really apply to comics (as they are mostly ongoing), we haven’t seen the heroes have to deal with the repercussions of the past few BIG events.
The only Crisis that has reverberated throughout the DCU is Identity Crisis. We saw Ralph have to deal with the loss of Sue, but we have also seen other heroes, Batman especially, having to deal with trust issues.
But after Infinite Crisis, what happened? One Year later… we don’t see how the heroes cope or move on from the crisis. I suppose Countdown is following up on 52, but its not really doing a good job of that. It’s more of the rising action for its own arc.
DC seems determined to try and maintain the intensity of the “climax” over a long period of time. The problem with this is twofold: 1) the audience becomes exhausted and 2) as a company you become reliant on gimmicky events and the like.
DC needs to focus on telling good stories. What’s funny is right now between Dini on Detective, Johns on JSA and Green Lantern, GL Corps, Waid on Flash (first issue was promising), and Brave and the Bold (just to name a few) DC’s main books are all telling solid stories. The mistake they’ve made is over saturating the market and almost forcing people to buy Countdown as it is the “essential” DC book.
What they need to realize is there are very few DC dedicated readers. A lot of folks, myself included, may prefer DC, but with great books like Iron Fist, Cap, etc over at Marvel, we’re not going to be DC exclusive. Additionally, instead of trying to get new readers via Countdown or 52, why not get someone hooked in through the Sinestro Corps storyline? This looks to be a great story arc that will set up the GL universe for a long time. If you get someone in on the ground level, you could have a devoted reader buying two GL books per month.
This is why team books are so important. JLA, JSA, Avengers, Checkmate, etc. If they are done well, people choose a favorite character and then want to read more of that character in his/her own book. The problem is, DC just has too much going on right now.
Ok, I am starting to ramble, but you get the idea!
July 24th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Despite all of DC’s problems I still read about three DC titles for every Marvel title I read, and most of the Marvel books I get are part of the “Ultimate Line”
I’m not getting Countdown but I’ll probably be picking up Countdown to Adventure and The Search For Ray Palmer. The Sinestro Corps event has me buying both Green Lantern titles where I wasn’t before. I bought Infinite Crisis and OMAC Project but not the other tie-ins. But I didn’t get anything related to House of M, or Civil War, or World War Hulk.
DC needs to start using Checklists. That seemed to work the best for Marvel.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
I can easily see DC Comics cutting their line way, way back to a couple Batman titles, a couple Superman titles, Wonder Woman, Justice League, and a couple anthology books. I can also see them re-vamping their entire line into something more suitable for “mass audiences” and children and getting out of the Direct Market altogether, or just publishing a couple token books for the DM.
They’re owned by a massive corporate parent who makes money off of the cartoon characters IN the books, and not the books themselves. Eventually the comics will be just another licensed product — in fact, I could even see Warner Bros. shutting down in-house comic book production completely and farming out “DC Comics” to independent production houses…
July 24th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
I am glad this over-reliance on mega-crossovers and strict adherence to continuity is coming back to bite DC in the ass. I hope they are forced to pare down their titles because of reader apathy. Charcters have become diluted due largely to their overexposure. How many Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Avengers, Green Lantern, and X-Men titles do we really need? The fact that stories are less than fantastic is because just about everything you could possibly throw at the characters has been thrown. There hasn’t been a fresh new idea in many of these titles in a long time.
July 24th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
DC had been on a roll for four or five years starting with Hush. Superman/Batman and Teen Titans sold higher than expectations. Identity Crisis had multiple printings. The Infite Crisis sequels sold better than expected. 52 sold better than expected.
So now Countdown is starting to slip. What’s the problem? One, they took success for granted. 52 was self-contained and retailed for less than a traditional comic. It also featured four of DC’s best known writers. This made sense. DC’s last weekly book was in the eighties, and it didn’t last a year. DC wanted to make a weekly series work, and DC priced and marketed the book to work. Now after having success, DC pushed things further. If DC can sell a weekly book and crossover books, why couldn’t they sell a weekly crossover book?
I believe that DC is smart enough to realize that they pushed too hard this time. The problem is that given publishing schedules this will not be reflected in DC’s books until late ’08 or early ’09.
July 24th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
My concern is that they’re going to take the wrong “lessons” from this and think it is just a statement that a weekly book won’t work. That’s not it.
On 52, the writers worked together, but they also expressed that certain writers found the voice of a character a bit better than the rest and more-or-less became the point person for those characters. On Countdown, we have Dini and Didio deciding the directions and tasking 4 or so writers to script their vision. From how it has been described, it isn’t nearly the collaborative process that 52 was and is no where near as organic.
July 24th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Countdown, Amazons Attack, and all the rest… I’ve been having daily flashbacks to the days of stinker events like War of the Gods, Millenium, Zero Hour, Legends… I’ve never been so bored or depressed by DC comics before. Final Crisis makes my skin crawl…
The fact that the Sinestro Corps War is doing so well, self-contained in it’s two books… should be saying something. But I believe everyone is right, that the publishers only listen to the dollars, and the dollars say crappy, badly planned, badly executed megaevents still sell.
LET THE COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS LIVE! – a grassroots movement, with no real organization, just united fans who want to have some fun again.
July 24th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
As a comic fan(I am 34) that grew up reading comics in the 1980′s and 1990′s. I quit collecting when the entire clone saga got WAY out of hand and Superman red and blue hit. It was not too much after that the entire comic market crashed (god how many mutiple chorme and 3D covers do we need?) I have a feeling that the comic market MIGHT be headed in that direction again. I hope that the leadership at both companies can get their act together and fix what is wrong with their titles.
There is one idea that is floating around that I like ALOT. Its the idea that DC does a TOTAL re-boot after Final Crisis. Can you imagine the buzz if Action Comics started over with issue number one or Dectecive Comics starting over with issue number one? The entire DC line could be re-invented with no continuity issues or remembering what happend in the past. “Everthing comes from Superman.” Alex Luthor. That quote has stuck with me since I read Infinite Crisis and I feel hopleful that when it is all said and dome that DC will kick Marvels ass and say look at what we had the balls to do!!A total re-boot leave the past behind and embrace the future. Then 20 years after that you can have crisis of some kind!LOL
July 24th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Heh @ “Bring Back Bryne”
The problem with a total reboot is that limited versions of that has been done to death in DC (exemplified by Superman: Man of Steel, Birthright, All-Star, Current…).
And i agree, Countdown sucks (writing, art, and editing (continuity watch).
July 25th, 2007 at 12:36 am
We need to start out by recognizing DC’s publishing plan for expanding the line:
The first Countdown leads to four miniseries:
Day of Vengeance (DoV)
OMAC Project (OMAC)
Villains United (VU)
Rann/Thanagar War (R/T)
Each are $2.99 and, in theory, ship once a month taking a slotted week of that month.
These lead to Infinite Crisis (IC) right? Wrong. They lead to 52 AFTER IC. Didio himself defended 52 by saying “Well people bought all four of the “Countdown” miniseries and that technically means a book a week.”
But wait. If 52 is our weekly comic then what about the series that spun out from the Countdown minis?
DoV=Shadowpack, Trials of Shazam
OMAC=Checkmate, Ion
VU=Secret Six
R/T=Mystery In Space, Ion
Now some of these books were minis but the fact remains that DC added books to our pulls while maintaining a guaranteed weekly book from us. Then we add Countdown to the mix. Then we add the 52 spin off books.
So if you’re really interested in the line, this is what you’re buying:
Countdown Minis + 52 + Countdown=A weekly comic for three years you didn’t think about.
+
SEVEN books that spun out of the pre-Infinite Crisis minis. (And that numbers being kind.)
+
FOUR 52 spin off books (Black Adam,Four Horsemen, Booster Gold, Crime Bible)
+
SEVEN “Countdown” Books (Adventure, Mystery, Lord Havok, Search for Ray Palmer, Suicide Squad, The Flash Special, and Gotham Underground, Death of the New Gods) and that’s just in October!
And I’m not even counting all the titles that really tell the Countdown story on their own like JLA and Green Lantern.
Starting to feel fatigued yet? This line is so diluted with uninspiring comics tied to the same story it’s no wonder Marvel is kicking tale.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:06 am
I don’t think the question whether DC should quit. They’ll always be there in some form or fashion. The real question?
Should the DIRECT MARKET die?
I know it’s more convenient for all involved in the industry, but honestly, it has been killing comics for the past decade and no one in the industry seems willing to do anything about it. Jumping to graphic novels isn’t the answer, there isn’t an easy answer. Comics need to get into every possible venue they can as quick as they can and find out what the next step is, because the CURRENT next step is something none of us want.
July 27th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I don’t understand why so many people are repeating the line about DC’s sales slump as if it’s a fact. It has been shown that DC’s sales are quite a bit higher than they were four years ago (27.9% through May ’07). Frankly, Marvel’s crossover events (Initiative, World War Hulk) are more popular with the market (for whatever reason), so they’re selling better than DC’s crossover events (Countdown, Amazons Attack), but in no way is that a sign of DC’s impending failure. DC ruled the market when they killed Superman, Marvel’s in the lead now after killing Captain America. Give it time – the pendulum always swings back the other way.
December 7th, 2007 at 1:10 am
3 to 5 issue self-contained stories published as a whole. Don’t publish until the story is done. No more creative restrictions on exact page counts either.