You know what we think about the DC relaunch. You know what you, the comic reader thinks of the DC relaunch but what about the non-comic readers out there? You know, the ones DC is actually gunning for with this big move. What are they thinking?

Deadline posted a story about Justice League #1 selling out 200,000 copies and the DC relaunch at large. It’s the same type of talk we’ve been seeing for months but what’s really telling are the comments. Deadline is a Hollywood breaking news website and while it often publishes comic film stories, no one goes there for their comic book news so it’s interesting to read what people there are saying.

Yeah, you realize X-Men #1 in the 90s sold 1 million in one week right? 200,000 is not that impressive considering what is going on. I think you’ve been mislead Nikki. – jgroove

I haven’t bought comics in decades so maybe I’m not entitled to an opinion, but I think DC loses a ton of goodwill with this move. Action Comics had passed #900, and Detective Comics was way up there, too. This is a cynical sales gimmick aimed at collectors who immediately put their books in plastic bags and never read them (or better yet, buy *two* copies), hoping they’ll be worth something someday. There’s also been speculation that rebooting Superman has something to do with keeping money out of the Siegel and Shuster heirs’ pockets. – Jeffty

And from an MSNBC.com article:

some of my favorite childhood memories are about comics.But I wonder if kids today will want to read a comic book.I remember storylines over several issues. The last time I looked comics had very little reading left in them – dks1050

And then there’s these from a NY Times piece:

I’m not a comic book fan, but DC seems a bit desperate for something to revive their business. It’s easy to see why they’re envious of Marvel – Marvel has had more hit films in the last 2 years than DC has had in 2 decades. Marvel made two hit films about Iron Man, for crying out loud, a character who barely had any backstory. Meanwhile the last Superman movie wasn’t anything more than an average summer flick. At a deeper level, I have to wonder if the rebooting frenzy is a reflection of something deeper in society. With Congress’s approval rating around 15% for the last few years, incongruous and unsustainable wealth distribution, and an ever-more complicated and tenuous foreign policy situation, super heroes might not be the only ones hoping to do better if they just start over with a clean slate. – Steve Z.

I thought the comics companies jumped the shark decades ago. The characters died, but no, they sort of didn’t. They got married, but not really? Now they’re changing ethnicities or something or other. Isn’t reporting on comic books like reporting on soap operas? I’m sure the people who care didn’t read about it first in the NYT, and the rest of us don’t care. – Joe C.

The world doesn’t want superheroes anymore, not inanimate drawings of them on paper anyway. Now they want social relevance, politics, gender neutrality…there’s enough of that in real life. The soul of comics has been lost, along with the soul of our very culture. Sad. If I worked for DC I’d be looking at China, not the spoiled brat kids of the US who can’t live without electronic toys and media. – J Wolfe

Granted this is just a small segment of the more mainstream media sources but it’s funny to see how they are responding. I haven’t looking into responses from non-comic readers who actually picked up Justice League #1 yet but some of these comments make it appear as if that won’t be happening at all. What have you heard or seen from the non-comic reading public about the DC relaunch?

Nate Cosby should write everything.

Okay, maybe that’s not exactly true; he’s probably got his hands full with the upcoming Image series Pigs, as well as Cow Boy for Archaia and putting together the Storyteller anthology (with all manner of incredible creators including Roger Langridge, Colleen Coover, Katie Cook and Paul Tobin, amongst many others). But on his NateCosBOOM blog, he’s been sharing his takes on existing superheroes in the forms of imaginary quotes from them under the “[Character X] (If I wrote [Character X])” banner, and… well, they’re all really rather great. (more…)

By now, many of you will have had a chance to read Justice League #1, the book that ushers in the New 52 and a whole new era for DC Comics – You could probably tell that by the shiny gold version of the DC logo and that “The New 52!” banner on the top right of the cover (And, as an aside, but that is one badly designed cover – The art is nice, the logo is nice, but the type placement and treatment otherwise? Way too crowded, and not at all pleasing to the eye. Is it just me?). And, if you have, you might have realized, like me, that the book is missing something potentially very important. Spoilers: It’s got nothing to do with the story itself. (more…)

Wondering if Marvel would consider their own reboot if the New 52 turns out to completely upend the direct market sales chart? Well, according to Tom Brevoort, not so much:

You and folks like you seem to consider the only answer to a successful DC reboot to be a Marvel reboot. I don’t think that’s even in the top ten–not that I think we’re going to need to get there long-term in any case.

I like the idea that there’s a top ten of possible responses to Marvel losing market share advantage to DC longterm (even though I think Brevoort is right; I doubt it’ll happen, either), and I’m curious as to what those ten would be. I think it’s interesting that, judging from hints that’ve been dropped by all manner of Marvel editors and creators recently, Marvel seems to be going in exactly the opposite direction from DC in the near future; whereas DC is starting over and attempting to make each series as new-reader-friendly with as little continuity as possible, Marvel seems to be pushing the interconnectedness of the Marvel line – that very continuity, the idea that “for the whole story” you need multiple titles – instead, talking about the importance of Fear Itself, Avengers: The Children’s Crusade and Schism all ending at the same time with the unsaid implication that it’s because all of the various franchises will sync up again and the greater Marvel Universe will become a thing again, instead of a series of different franchises.

It’s definitely a valid route to take – You can make jumping on points on books without restarting continuity, with the added bonus of keeping your backlist alive – but it doesn’t have the same outside sales hook as “We’re relaunching everything from the beginning all over again! Jump on board!” Does placing the emphasis on a “gotta get ‘em all” mentality build out sales enough to account for that difference in appeal to outside readers, in the long term, I wonder? Or is the Marvel attitude pretty much to just wait out DC and hold on for the excitement around this relaunch to fade and things to return to normal…?

While New York City got the splashiest “The New 52″ launch event at Midtown Comics — Geoff Johns and Jim Lee handing out pizza to fans in line, and all — the west coast didn’t stay home, with multiple shops holding midnight release parties for Justice League #1 and Flashpoint #5. Newsarama was there at Meltdown in Los Angeles, who hosted DC writers including Scott Lobdell, Kyle Higgins and Joshua Hale Fialkov. We brought back some pictures.

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A few months ago we showed you a letter column from one Frank Miller about Amazing Spider-Man from 1977. Now, another letter to Marvel has surfaced, this time from A Song of Ice and Fire series author George R .R. Martin.

The image comes to us courtesy of Coheed and Cambria singer and comic creator Claudio Sanchez who tweeted it today. The letter, published in Avengers #12, was the fantasy author showing his profound love for Fantastic Four #32 and Avengers #9. “I have finally come to the decision to have both mounted in bronze and set on a pedestal in the center of my living room,” he wrote.

The issue of the Avengers was written by Stan Lee with art by Don Heck in 1964, both of whom Martin thought were extremely talented. “What a story! It was beyond words; the fast-paced action, solid characterization, and that terrific ending all gave it that extra oomph an catapulted it into the great class. Stan old boy, you can put another notch in your pen for this materpiece,” he wrote, “And that art! I’ve always like Don Heck’s work but on this occasion he outdid himself.”

And even though Martin enjoyed the issue of FF, he was very particular about which villains should and should not continue on in the series. “I feel that the only foes of the F.F. has worthy of becoming regulars are Namor, Doc Doom, the Hulk and the Rd Ghost. A few others, like the Hate Monger and the Molecule Man, were great in their first appearance but still not worthy of returns, as a comeback would destroy the effect of the first tale,” he wrote, “Some others like the Thinker, the Puppet Master, the Moleman and Diablo have definitely deserved eternal exile…please, whatever else you do, do not bring back these chaps.”

Come on, tell us how you really feel George! I love when these things surface. Martin was all of 16 when he wrote to the letter column, just one year before he won an Alley Award for ”Powerman vs. The Blue Barrier,” his own superhero story and 47 years before his series would be adapted to the HBO series Game of Thrones. With all his success maybe he did manage to bronze the issues. I’m betting not but I’m sure he still owns them, he’s a long-time Marvel fan and collector of Silver Age comics.

via Agent M Loves Tacos

There’s a lot to unpack from the latest ICv2 interview with Dan Didio and Jim Lee ahead of tomorrow/tonight’s launch of Justice League #1 and the new 52 (Part 1, 2, 3), whether it’s Didio’s “Right now we’re determining kids as being teenagers at this moment and that’s where our focus is with the New 52 books,” Lee’s “Our strategy is not to garner as much market share as possible,” or the idea that “Drawing the line at $2.99″ was a success not because it raised sales, but because it stopped sales dropping. But perhaps the thing that will reassure most fans is this, from Jim Lee on how involved Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment – rather than DC Comics – were in the redesign/relaunch of the DCU:

There’s definitely closer communication; in terms of coordination, that’s a stronger word.  When I say communication, obviously when we make changes like this to iconic characters other departments and divisions within Warner Brothers know what’s happening on a creative level.  That said, this is not about us taking initial steps to redefine the character for all media.  This is a publishing initiative… [N]one of these changes were designed to set the stage for other media exploitation of the same ideas.  When you look at film, animation, video games, they really look at the vast catalogue of DC characters and stories and pick out what appeals to that film-maker or that game developer and then they choose to focus on that creative part of a character’s history.  And that’s why you have so many different interpretations of some of these core characters.  But at the end of the day, everyone knows that they’re Batman, or Superman or Wonder Woman.

We felt incumbent upon us as co-publishers that we needed to drive as much interest in the characters as they originally started out with as published characters.  We felt that the plans we have for September maximize our ability to drive interest in the characters and that we had this once in a lifetime opportunity to remold them in a way that would pay greater dividends down the line.

Of course, if modernizing the characters as published entities makes them more attractive to other media, I doubt that’d be seen as a bad thing…

While DC Comics’ official blog The Source spent yesterday publishing posts from the publisher’s sales and marketing division telling you how big of a deal this Wednesday is going to be, there was one throwaway line from Senior Vice President of Sales Bob Wayne that seemed particularly weird:

And please take a look at OMAC #2 in October… Trust me on that one….

The official solicit for OMAC #2 reads:

Brother Eye gives Kevin Kho the ground rules to their new “arrangement.” New players are introduced to the game as Sarge Steel and Checkmate begin their hunt for the One Machine Army Corp, but O.M.A.C.’s appearance may be short-lived when he faces the incredible threat of Rocker Bonn, the Amazing Man!

So, should we be looking at the issue for Rocker Bonn, the Amazing Man – Such an awesome Kirby name, by the way – or something else altogether? I’m halfway convinced that Rocker Bonn’s secret identity might end up being Bob Wayne at this point…

All hail screenwriter Christopher Markus. Why? Well, he co-wrote Captain America: The First Avenger, which is nothing to be sneezed at, but it’s his dream villain for the follow-up that has entirely won my love:

I love MODOK and I think you could make a terrifying movie with MODOK but nobody seems to be on my side at the momentum.

Dear Everyone At Marvel Studios: YES PLEASE TO THIS PLEASE. It gets better; Markus sees Peter Dinklage in the role:

I will win you over to Peter Dinklage as MODOK. If he came around the corner and you saw him floating there you would be terrified. It would be amazing… In [the first] movie, the great thing is [the visual effects and makeup team] really pulled off the Red Skull. It doesn’t look like a mask. it looks like it’s fully integrated into his flesh. And I want to see what they can do with MODOK.

Seriously, do we have to kidnap Joe Quesada to make this happen? Because I know enough hardcore Kirby fans that that could probably happen, if it needs to.

Monday on The Source, several different DC bigwigs weighed in on why fans should be excited about the really, honestly, almost here launch of The New 52. One of them was John Rood, DC’s Executive VP-Sales, Marketing and Business Development, and in his testimonial he managed to work in a not-too-subtle zing at the competition:

To be clear – DC is not a market-share-chaser.  If we were, we would not be creating a quality lasting direction across a controlled number of titles.  We would instead be flooding the market with over 200 titles a month, changing your prices with abandon, killing off a character every quarter or so, and/or randomly announcing decimal-pointed event-ish thingies.  We haven’t.

Yep, those are clear shots at Marvel, down to the recently announced Fear Itself #7.1, #7.2 and #7.3 books, and/or the year long Point One issue initiative. (Just thinking aloud and not taking sides, but if Marvel — or anyone — were indeed to release more than 200 titles a month, killing a character off every three months would seem proportionately low, no?)

You either love Angry Birds or you hate it. I’m pretty sure there’s no in between considering the addictive nature of the cell phone game. Like many other pop-culture phenomena, Angry Birds has been tinkered with to make it even more fun. I give you, the Angry Superheroes. And boy, are they angry…

A plethora of DC and Marvel characters (plus Judge Dredd!) have been transformed into their own unique Angry Bird forms thanks to Ryan, aka Senor Picante. On his blog, the artist has posted the above individually as well as one pig resembling Magneto. Although that one he wanted to rework so I decided not to post it here.

Ryan is not the first to add superhero flair to the Angry Birds, Ript Apparel sold a fantastic Batman and Robin spin on the famous game a few months back. That one was designed by SpiR and Seth. And let’s not forget the epic Angry Birds of Prey by the Gutters crew.

What do you think? Would you like to see a comic book themed Angry Birds? They already teamed up with the creators of the animated film Rio for an altered version of the game. I could easily see them making a deal with DC or Marvel. Are you listening Rovio?

Axel Alonso fights the belief that Marvel editors are as involved in the writing of the publisher’s books as its writers:

Well, let’s be clear: The writers write the books, not the editors. The most we do is confer on a general roadmap and a general destination that’s rarely, if ever, a pinpoint landing. The story always evolves… Bottom line: An editor’s job is to know when they’re needed and when they’re not. A bad editor is one who feels that they need to see his fingerprints on everything he edits or he hasn’t done his job. That’s foolish. Sometimes, an editor’s job is as simple as saying, “Wow, that’s great. Send it to the artist.”

I admit to some skepticism as to whether Marvel’s editors are quite as hands off as Alonso describes, but part of me wonders how much of the pushing of this message – Seemingly from out of nowhere, unless I’ve missed recent accusations of Marvel being particularly creator-unfriendly (besides Marko’s Fan Expo appearance last Friday, of course)? – has something to do with presenting itself as an opposing narrative to DC’s reportedly top-down approach to the New 52. Is Marvel going to become the new DC, in terms of being the creator haven that DC used to be…?

Over at his blog, Jim Shooter spills a truly surreal fact about the comic industry from the 1980s: Marvel almost bought the license to publish DC Comics:

The first part of the business plan was the publishing plan. I decided that we should launch with seven titles and build from there, if all went well. The titles were:

SUPERMAN
BATMAN
WONDER WOMAN
GREEN LANTERN
TEEN TITANS
JUSTICE LEAGUE
LEGION OF SUPER HEROES

I projected that we would sell 39 million copies the first two years generating a pre-tax profit (gross revenues less cost of goods sold, royalties, staff, SG&A, etc.) of roughly $3,500,000.

That was huge money for a comic book publisher in 1984.

That was with just the original seven titles—no expansion of the line—though if we were doing that well, obviously, we’d add titles. Slowly and carefully, if I had anything to say about it.

The deal fell apart, of course, and DC ended up doing Crisis On Infinite Earths and revitalizing itself soon afterwards but – if ever there was a “What If?” for fans to play with, this is it.

Even with a hurricane shutting down much of New York City and swamping plenty of the East Coast, it couldn’t keep away Read Comics in Public Day, a celebration of our medium that coincides with the birthday of Jack Kirby, one of the godfathers of modern comics. And plenty of ‘Rama reviewers tackled the challenge, with photographs as posterity:

Zack Kotzer (center) and friends, reading Daredevil #2, by Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, and more

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This panel report from this weekend’s Fan Expo in Canada is eye-opening, if only for the clarity of how badly Marvel has apparently allowed its relationship with artist Marko Djurdjevic to get:

Around this time, Djurdjevic received a cord for his MacBook, cut Hickman off and began to share variations on his Spider-Man redesign. Coming from a video game background, Djurdjevic said he usually bills hourly. “Not in comics.” Hickman said.

“Exactly — and you keep on doing it and doing it,” Djurdjevic replied. “I was fighting with the guys at Marvel about this. You can’t make people re-work your shit because you can’t decide what you want. Either pay or leave.”

Tension in the room mounted as Djurdjevic illustrated the problems between himself and Marvel editors, sharing with the audience numerous mock-ups of Lady Bullseye’s redesigned costume, citing it as an example of his problems with Marvel art direction.

“I did a couple color sketches, and it just went into revision mode for the face paint forever and ever,” he said, forever being about two weeks. “I think I made so many face variations for that character until they finally decided, ‘Oh yeah, that’s the one that people are going to recognize forever,’” Djurjevic recounted, mocking his editors in a high-pitched voice, yet again.

Hickman tried to alleviate some of the tension by telling a few jokes. “Marko, we need you to turn this into a gatefold cover with every character,” he said, imitating Marvel’s editors more playfully.

Djurdjevic was having none of it, replying, “When they would not interfere with my direction, they would get results that would amaze even me.”

Losing Djurdjevic is going to be a blow for Marvel – Over the last few years, he’s become the go-to artist for covers and redesigns, it seems, and his art has become particularly popular when it comes to company branding (Look at the art heading the Marvel page on ComiXology, for example). Given Marvel’s traditionally-strong creator relations, it’s surprising that this has gone so badly wrong, so publicly.

(Update: Rich Johnston has Djurdjevic’s Facebook announcement of his quitting Marvel, from two weeks ago. “No more sad men in tight clothes”? Ouch.)

In a spectacular edition of his Tilting at Windmills column, retailer Brian Hibbs considers the ComiXology retailer contract, DC’s shifting relationship with retailers, and why the content of modern mainstream superhero comics may have moved away from new readers:

We keep seeing attempts to bring back the mass audience to serialized periodical comics, whether it is efforts aimed at what’s left of the “actual” newsstand market (7-11′s have probably replaced the “general store” in most locales), or whether it’s pushes to get material into generalist book stores like Barnes & Noble or Hastings, and none of these experiments seem to garner anything but the mildest of responses. Some of that is that the last time comics did well on the newsstand, the average issue was extremely new reader friendly, and also generally a self-contained reading experience, which is hardly the case for most comics today; and some of that is that comics, especially with the bulk of books today being multi-issue story arcs, have lost a great measure of the perception of value-for-the-buck. But the reality of things really is that if you don’t already know comics, comics are crazy confusing, and a guide, a Sherpa, the retailer is really very valuable. Perhaps essential.

It’s good, if depressing and frustrating (on behalf of the direct market retailer community), reading. Go check it out.

Remember last December, before we really knew what Fear Itself launched, and Marvel decided to tease fans with a series of six images asking whether we feared specific things? Now that Fear Itself only has two issues left – Well, okay, five issues, if you count the .1, .2. and .3 issues following the “final” issue – I thought it’d be fun to revisit those teases and see how well they connected with the actual series. Join me, won’t you? (more…)

The CW has found its Smallville follow-up. Creator of Supernatural, Eric Kripke, will be writing and producing a Deadman television series for them, currently in the developmental stage.

The series will be a drama says Deadline. Based on the character created by Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino in Strange Adventures #205, Deadman, aka Boston Brand is a former trapeze artist murdered during a performance and fated to continue on as a ghost. Deadman, who is starting in the upcoming arc of the new DC Universe Presents series starting in September, is given the “gift” to inhabit any living beings’ body thanks to the Hindu goddess Rama Kushna in order to help them solve crimes in their own lives.

“We’re looking next year to do a superhero show if the right superhero comes to be,” CW president Mark Pedowitz said at TCA last month, noting the advantage of having Time Warner-owned DC Comics in the family.

Back in September of 2009, it was reported that Guillermo Del Toro was producing a big-screen adaptation of the character for Warner Bros. but it would seem they changed their minds about which direction they wanted to go in.

Boston Brand has been the focal point of several recent DC events such as Blackest Night and Brightest Day. giving him the kind of spotlight he’s never had before. It’s an strange direction to go in after Smallville but maybe that’s why it will work. Deadman’s turned into a much more interesting character for me and I think his story will make for a cool show.

What are your thoughts?

Once a week I sift through the millions of Etsy listings to find the best in geek chic for Blog@ readers. Last week it was all about Vampire Hunting but this week we return to an old friend – The Doctor. A few months ago, at the start of Doctor Who Season 6, I did a special extended edition of Etsy Made Me Do It to celebrate one of my favorite shows. Well, the season being split in two (besides giving me an appropriate title) and starting this weekend gave me a fantastic excuse to show off more Doctor Who items! Enjoy!

I’m a big fan of the minimalist-poster-of-pop-culture-items movement so I was delighted to find this collection of Minimalist Doctor Who Canvas Posters. User geekasms has the set available for $100 or you can buy your favorite Doctor individually for $10 a piece.

The episode “Vincent and the Doctor” from season 5 was surely a memorable one, enough to inspire user horcruxesunlimited to create this Doctor Who Van Gogh Ornament. The hand-painted glass item depicts an image we see later in that same season of the TARDIS exploding, Van Gogh style. $10.

“The Fires of Pompeii” gave us our first look at Amy Pond, or should I say, actress Karen Gillan. It was her original appearance on the sci-fi series. Now you can recreate the look of her and her fellow sisters with these Doctor Who Sybilline Sisterhood eyes knit fingerless gloves. From user tinybully for $20.

One of the scariest villains to ever appear (or not appear) on Doctor Who were the Silence. With the Doctor Who Silence Amigurumi you can always keep your eye on one. This one’s from user SherbertLemonCrochet for $20 but there’s also slightly different version available from user AmyLDice for $25.

And finally, a piece of art I think is particularly beautiful, a Stained Glass Mini TARDIS. User GeekyGlass created this one and it can be yours for $25.

As always, bear in mind, since Etsy is a craft website and not a commercial, mass-market dealer, items are almost always one-of-a-kind or in very limited availability. When you see something you like, buy it. It may not be there the next time you surf round. (Yes, it’s a very dangerous site for your wallet.) Also, since most items are created individually, many sellers are willing to customize something specifically to suit your needs. Just ask!

Over at the Bendis board, Mystery Men and Hulk artist Patrick Zircher stated that he’s in favor of a “line-wide relaunch” at Marvel, similar to what DC will be debuting in under a week with “The New 52.”

His initial post in the thread simply said “you know you want it,” but after some folks thought he might have been joking, he clarified his position and explained his thoughts in detail: