Editor’s Note: DC Comics President Paul Levitz returns to Blog@ to discuss how one person made a difference on DC’s sustainability efforts.
by Paul Levitz
Indicia fans will have noticed a new symbol popping up in the fine print of some DC comics in recent weeks, a green emblem proclaiming compliance with the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. (Okay, I concede that it may be overstating things to call anyone an indicia fan, but we know some of our readers pay attention to every aspect of our publications.) It’s a good thing, and a useful example of how one person’s focus on an issue can move a large company.
Alison Gill, DC’s Vice President-Manufacturing, is a woman of strong passions: her love of comics led her from the tiny London offices of Marvel U.K. in the 1980s to running production for Marvel Comics in New York, and then uptown to our digs almost a decade ago. Along the way she had to relegate her passion for soccer and find an American sport that could give her a comparable outlet. It’s only a rumor that she personally ripped the seats out of the Montreal Canadians arena that now decorate her office, but however they got there, it’s evidence of serious hockey fandom. She picked up a husband from her Marvel service (like so many of us who found our spouses at the office), and a pack of friends who gathered recently to toast her birthday in the Village. As our manufacturing has grown steadily more complex, with increasingly varied print formats, more rapid turnaround requirements to keep titles in print, overseas plants put to work on DC Direct and some hardcover titles, and rapid cost escalation of raw materials, she’s had plenty to do. But Alison can always find time to talk about paper.
In the past year, she’s had major victories in improving the karma of our company. After years of investigation, negotiation and experimentation, she was able to switch a number of our kids’ titles to a recycled newsprint paper stock, made from 85% post consumer waste and most of the Vertigo line to a recycled hibrite paper that is made from 40% post-consumer waste. And now, she’s in the process of getting our titles to conform to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, a program that ensures that participating forest harvesters, paper manufacturers, printers and publishers are using paper which comes from forests that are being managed in a sustainable way -that is, harvested and replanted in a way that ensures they will be there for the future, without damage to the forest’s ecological balance (at least as best it’s currently understood). While many people at DC and our parent companies are committed to environmental issues, this progress is largely Alison’s own. She reacted to concerns raised by environmental activists, did the homework, and found the way to move DC to a better standard of behavior. We still have a long way to go, but she’s working on it…
And if you’re the rare, sharp-eyed reader who noticed the two degree brighter stock we had to substitute on our Vertigo titles this month during a supply glitch, you can thank Alison for that. (If you couldn’t tell the difference, thank Alison for that, too-that was the idea.)
August 25th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
I know snarky this will sound, but DC could’ve saved a lot of paper by not publishing: Amazons Attack, Countdown, the Martian Manhunter miniseries, the entire run of Superman Confidential, the current run of JLA, Grant Morrison’s current run on Batman, and any stories with Chris Kent in Superman comics, published before the last part of Last Son was published, saving readers the trouble of trying to reconcile how that story ended (even DC, apparently, isn’t trying to explain that editorial faux pas).
I also could’ve saved a lot of paper (money) on not buying any of these. Thankfully, some I skipped completely and others I quit early on.
Anyhow, congrats to DC for what they are doing for the environment.
August 25th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Kudos to DC for focusing on this.
All the same, just like Shaun above, I do have to be a bit snarky. If DC really cared about saving trees, they’d introduce an electronic subscription to their books, at, say, 75 cents to $1.50 per non-transferable e-issue. I bet we’d both save money. AND my wife wouldn’t be sore at all the piles of single issues cluttering my desk.
August 25th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Just wanted to thank Alison Gill for her efforts.
I have to say that while computers and the web may sometimes save paper, overall paper use has actually gone up rather than down in the past few decades and they also create other environmental challenges.
Electronics piling up in landfills is becoming a huge concern and companies still burn coal to generate much of the power required for the digital infrastructure of computers and the Internet.
Also, while these efforts are certainly admirable and should continue, a lot of forests are specifically grown and designated for use in the publishing industry so it’s not like DC or anybody else is marching into wildlife preserves and making endangered species homeless. At least, I hope they’re not. You’re not, are you, Mr. Levitz? lol
August 25th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Special thanks to Shaun and Primate.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:47 am
That is pretty dang awesome. I hope to see more of this kinda thing.
August 26th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Primate Says:
August 25th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Kudos to DC for focusing on this.
All the same, just like Shaun above, I do have to be a bit snarky. If DC really cared about saving trees, they’d introduce an electronic subscription to their books, at, say, 75 cents to $1.50 per non-transferable e-issue. I bet we’d both save money. AND my wife wouldn’t be sore at all the piles of single issues cluttering my desk.
Wont happen. In spite of what some believe, the potential online comics market is about 20% of the print readership. There’s no profit in it.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:31 am
AWESOME NEWS AND ALISON, YOU RULE AS USUAL.
jimmy
August 26th, 2008 at 10:50 am
“most of the Vertigo line to a recycled hibrite paper that is made from 40% post-consumer waste.”
I’ve always wondered why the paper on titles like Y and Hellblazer was so terrible… thanks a lot.
August 26th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I can’t believe all the negativity posted above in response to good news about a person and a company working hard to help the environment. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.
>>DC could’ve saved a lot of paper by not publishing: Amazons Attack, Countdown, the Martian Manhunter miniseries, the entire run of Superman Confidential, the current run of JLA, Grant Morrison’s current run on Batman…
Umm…you realize that they’re a company, in business to make money by publishing comics, right? And that at least some of the books on your list sold or are selling quite well for them?
>>I’ve always wondered why the paper on titles like Y and Hellblazer was so terrible… thanks a lot.
I can’t vouch for Hellblazer, but I have nearly a full run of the Y issues, and I was too busy being blown away by the story and art to notice anything wrong with the paper. Actually, Mr. Levitz said the change in paper stock happened “in the last year,” so probably few if any Y issues were affected by it.
Thank you, Ms. Gill. And thank you, Mr. Levitz, for spotlighting good work by one of your employees. Some of us enjoy hearing positive news.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Radomski, thanks for your thoughts. I don’t think I’m smart enough on the issue to suggest the market for e-comics is there. Simply that that’s what I’D like to see.
Y’know, perhaps I’m being too hard on DC and Mr. Levitz. They are, after all, putting atoe into the e-pond in the form of Zuda. Perhaps by mid-2010 I’ll be able to enjoy non-pirated e-copies of the newest issues of Green Lantern and House of Vinyl Underground, too.
Perry, I’ll grant your point that my post, and others, are kind of poo-pooing all over something Levitz and DC are obviously doing out of the goodness of their hearts. Perhaps I got carried away. I also want to invest in green efforts, and I feel guilty each week i hit the comic shop. I think I’m just constantly in a state of shock that neither of the big two has (to my knowledge) committed significant resources to weaning the comics industry off of paper. Sequential art and paper need to get a divorce, or at least a trial separation!
August 26th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
there isn’t an inexpensive E reader that would drive people to E comics.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Shaun -
I agree! DC should only publish books based on your tastes and whims.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:17 am
I really appreciate that a company like DC is taking the time to consider things like this that really matter - sustainability is (Alison) key.
Publishing industries where the product is typically retained by the buyer or resold (think comics and books) differ from those whose product has a limited life (think newspapers and some magazines). If we’re saving trees I’d far rather see less newspapers published than less comics.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Rats, why isn’t there an edit function…I had a whole Alison Gill play on words thing in an earlier draft and I deleted some of it and now the first sentence just looks random… Oh well, at least I didn’t waste any paper doing that!
August 27th, 2008 at 8:31 am
This ties in well with the top story for this week’s PW Comics Week: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6590126.html?nid=2789, though digital publishing isn’t necessarily the result of a focus on the environment.
(Also, I hate to use this as a personal forum but I don’t know how else to contact you, Mr. Levitz. Your daughter Nicole brought me and our friend Sam home with her for spring break our freshman year where I precociously started to refer to you as Uncle Paul. I’m sure you hardly remember since I haven’t seen you since, but I just wanted to say hello. Hello.)
August 28th, 2008 at 12:48 am
There may be a certain market for digital comics. I think comic strips are the best for digital because you don’t have to sacrifice page layout in some of these new e-comic reader apps.
But the idea that everybody wants to read comics on their iPhones and therefore, print comics are doomed, is simply ridiculous.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:38 am
While I applaud the reasoning behind the choice, I think you have made a poor one.
The Sustainable Forestry Initiative group is the paper industry’s greenwashing answer to the true sustainable answer to paper use.
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
Here are the principles of FSC-certified forests:
* Never harvests more than what grows back
* Protects biodiversity and endangered species
* Saves rare ancient trees
* Guards local streams
* Supports the local people
* Uses narrow skidding trails so as not to disrupt the rest of the forest
* Prohibits replacement by tree plantations
* Bans toxic chemicals
* Bans genetically modified trees (no GMO)
In the first year under FSC, you map and inventory all of the trees and assess the biology and the streams. Then you make a sustainable plan that will do the least harm and mimic the natural life and death cycle of the forest. Trees do fall down naturally which we see while hiking!
Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)
Here is what is allowed under the industry’s SFI standard:
* Allows large clearcuts
* Allows logging close to rivers and streams that harms water supplies
* Allows use of toxic chemicals
* Allows conversion of old-growth forests to tree plantations
* Allows use of genetically modified trees
Just do a google search on the two and you’ll see some in depth information on the two. Including pictures like these:
http://www.heartofgreen.org/.a/6a00d83451cedf69e200e552a27a518834-500pi
http://credibleforestcertification.org/sfi_facts/photo_gallery/
please consider switching to FSC!
thank you!