TWCL

[TBROtomo]

For those who haven't heard, DC Comics is relaunching their entire line with all new #1s, 52 books in one month and more than that, they're going to be releasing each of their titles digitally online the same day the print book is released. From the titles so far, they're keeping mostly with their standard superhero books, but they are launching a couple horror and western with the line, and integrating some of the Wildstorm books.

This is the first big company to really embrace a transition to online media. Do you think this impacts webcomics at all? Does it lend creedence to them, detract and make them seem more amateur? Do you even care? Will you be checking out the new DC books digitally?

I think this is an interesting topic.

I personally think it's great. It's getting media attention for comics, which makes people look up comics. Getting people to go into specialty shops is not a great way for this art form to survive, and having big name professional artists putting out digital content only forces people to up their game to stay competitive.

I've never been a big DC guy. I won't be buying all 52 books certainly, but I'll be checking out a couple, especially the different genre ones like Swamp Thing and All-Star Western.
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A hero and villain in love. Updates Wednesdays.

[James Sawatsky]

I don't see this as impacting webcomics. Considering you'd still have to pay for the DC books.

I like the all #1 stuff. Maybe I can start buying batman without the 30 year back log.

[wendyw]

I'm part of the crowd that thinks this whole thing of all new issue ones just resembles a bunch of people at the top flailing around trying to find a gimmick to boost sales without putting any actual thought into why sales aren't as good as they should be.

Try and find out why a large chunk of the readership for a particular line has decided to stop buying it? Address people's issues with continuity issues between different writers for the same series? Make a serious effort to get non-specialist chains to pick up their titles again? Nah. Let's just reboot the numbers and some of the stories. Much easier.

Also, from what I've read of Wildstorm's output integrating them properly into DC mainline (not just a few crossovers) seems... interesting.
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[lexia]

wendyw wrote:

I'm part of the crowd that thinks this whole thing of all new issue ones just resembles a bunch of people at the top flailing around trying to find a gimmick to boost sales without putting any actual thought into why sales aren't as good as they should be. Try and find out why a large chunk of the readership for a particular line has decided to stop buying it? Address people's issues with continuity issues between different writers for the same series? Make a serious effort to get non-specialist chains to pick up their titles again? Nah. Let's just reboot the numbers and some of the stories. Much easier. Also, from what I've read of Wildstorm's output integrating them properly into DC mainline (not just a few crossovers) seems... interesting.

I agree with you 100% My guess is they do not remember the first time they did this in the early 90's... The one that made comics loose most there readership... That be my guess... But really there is better ways to do it then this idea they have..

[smbhax.com]

I don't really know where to go for good comic book news on the web, but the few places I managed to come up with didn't mention that the "digital" versions will be free, and if they aren't, then they aren't really competing with the standard free webcomic; in fact, it seems to me that if anything it will help webcomics by getting more people used to reading comics online.

I've felt for a while now that the move to digital for the old print comics was inevitable, so it's nice to see DC taking the initiative, relatively speaking.

On the other hand, rebooting their entire portfolio is weak. I don't like reboots in general--with films, which I'm aware of a little more than the print comics these days, it seems to have gotten to the point of true ridiculousness, with each new "sequel" being a "reboot"--and it seems to me that if I was currently a follower of DC print comics, this would be akin to throwing nearly everything out except the copyrights. And from my old, old collector's point of view, having the issue numbers restart is just really annoying. :P

In any case, the reboot aspect of this is a gimmick that smacks of true desperation. Hopefully it will work out for them and they'll soon be able to settle back down and tell stories without constant resets that dumb things down in a desperate pursuit of sales.

EDIT: Hm I guess another thing this mass-reboot is probably doing is bringing the characters in line with the simplified, contemporary versions of them seen or soon to be seen in movies, like Marvel has been doing for the past ten years with their "Ultimate Marvel" alternate universe...which apparently is due for a full reboot of its own this year, according to Wikipedia. :P
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[Casual Notice]

lexianee wrote:

I agree with you 100% My guess is they do not remember the first time they did this in the early 90's... The one that made comics loose most there readership... That be my guess... But really there is better ways to do it then this idea they have..

If you're talking about the crisis on Infinite Earths, that was the late 80's and it didn't actually kill comic book sales, it actually helped to clarify and and unify a "universe" that had never given more than a passing nod to continuity on the large scale.

What happened in the early nineties to almost murder comic books was the speculation boom. Spurred on by rumors of insane value for rare issues, amateur collectors (and professional investors) started buying comics in lot-loads without regard to the quality or influence of the story or art. The big publishers took this uptick in sales to be an actual trend and started increasing their putput while improving the quality of their process (there was a time when comics were saddle-bound, printed offset on newsprint, and not perfect-bound trades printed on archive paper using a cel process). When the bubble inevitably popped, they found themselves with huge warehouses full of unsold stock on overpriced plasticized paper.
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[mooncity]

I'm with Wendy on this. Basically, by "resetting," they're sort of saying they want to jettison their legacy and all that "annoying" continuity they need to keep track of. It definitely smacks of something that came out of a marketing committee meeting (that is, totally uncreative), rather than a sensible plan for their titles.
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Mooncity
Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow since 1976!


The comic strip that never was.

[Dutch]

To be honest, it makes no difference to me. I've never been a comic book fan. Closest I got to all of that was slowly collecting the Asterix series, but that's quite a bit different to the DC and Marvel stuff, I'm gathering.

I won't be out chasing superhero books because of it, but at the same time, a new release of some of my favourite novels, etc, I'd be interested in looking at and picking up if it's a major anniversary edition, etc, so in that regard I can see some use to their thinking.
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[LukeSurl]

The important thing, re: webcomics, is the day-and-date digital distribution. It means that there will be significant comics on the web that require payment to view. I assume Marvel and others will follow suit within months.

Will this work? I don't know. With webcomics people were trying that a few years ago, but we undercut each other with free online distribution to the point where asking for payment for content became untenable. Perhaps, considering that there will be an influx of people looking for comics on web who are prepared to pay for content we could see a revival in this business model.

Alternatively, we could see a swelling of independent capes and capers webcomics (free-to-view) as people try to lure punters away from the DC/Marvel stable. If that happens, things could get ugly (i.e. lawyers. Remember how DC/Marvel own the word "superhero").

A third scenario is possibly quite interesting. Should this be a roaring success, DC may try and expand their online stable - this could involve trying to bring in established and up-and-coming webcartoonists into the professional fold - producing a collection of webcomics of assured professionalism and quality. Essentially, this could mean a re-emergence of the syndicate, but in a digital age.

Who knows? The costume redesigns and continuity reboots or whatever don't concern me that much, but from a market POV this could be game changing.
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[TBROtomo]

The day-of-digital is the primary thing that impacts web comics. Whether we like it or not, it does create a big behemoth of "professional" content, while I think we'll be looked on more as "do-it-yourself amateurs" in the long run. It's the self-publish vs. "real" publish stigma that I think might have an impact, paid or not. Sure our stuff is up there for free, but isn't it up there for free because we'd have a harder time actually selling it than DC would with their comics? I know this isn't probably a popular thing to say, but the elephant in all of our rooms is trouble monetizing our content, or I think a lot of us would be doing this full time.

The reason webcomics doing this in the past didn't work is just like Luke says, there are too many comics out there to undercut others in the "free amateur" world, and that's how webcomics are typically viewed.

As one of those independent capes comics, I hope I can lure people away from the DC/Marvel stable, but people are funny about their worlds and continuities. It's not a long term marketing strategy of mine to get more readers, that's for sure.

What my idealist hope is, that DC and Marvel going digital will allow for exclusive digital content (which they've both got their toe in the water, but have not really dove in), and that allows for them to tap us for talent on those test products. I think that's still down the road though. Though they did grab Dr. McNinja for Deadpool.

What's interesting to see is what one post mentioned already: will this get people used to reading comics online? It'd be very cool if the marketing gets enough mainstream media buzz for new readers to check out web comics or digital comics. That's what the #1 gimmick is really about, telling people who don't read comics "join us."
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A hero and villain in love. Updates Wednesdays.

[rocketpig]

wendyw wrote:

I'm part of the crowd that thinks this whole thing of all new issue ones just resembles a bunch of people at the top flailing around trying to find a gimmick to boost sales without putting any actual thought into why sales aren't as good as they should be.

I second this.
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[The Putto]

I think they should have left the titles like Detective Comics alone on the numbering front. It has such a great legacy stretching back to the 1930s they should respect it and not knock it back to number 1. I will not buy it.

Having said that, there is no way they will miss out on things like issue 1000 of Detective Comics, so I expect them to revert back and reveal all as a gimmick in a year or two.

[4LS]

TBROtomo wrote:

The day-of-digital is the primary thing that impacts web comics. Whether we like it or not, it does create a big behemoth of "professional" content, while I think we'll be looked on more as "do-it-yourself amateurs" in the long run. It's the self-publish vs. "real" publish stigma that I think might have an impact, paid or not."

I don't know - to be honest, the main reason I read so many more webcomics than mainstream print comics is because I just don't like the superhero genre much. Sure webcomics might be by "amateurs", but obviously I'm going to read an amateur comic I'm interested in - rather than a professional comic that I don't care about. And I can't believe I'm the only one who feels that way.
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[rocketpig]

4LS wrote:

TBROtomo wrote: The day-of-digital is the primary thing that impacts web comics. Whether we like it or not, it does create a big behemoth of "professional" content, while I think we'll be looked on more as "do-it-yourself amateurs" in the long run. It's the self-publish vs. "real" publish stigma that I think might have an impact, paid or not." I don't know - to be honest, the main reason I read so many more webcomics than mainstream print comics is because I just don't like the superhero genre much. Sure webcomics might be by "amateurs", but obviously I'm going to read an amateur comic I'm interested in - rather than a professional comic that I don't care about. And I can't believe I'm the only one who feels that way.

I like superhero books and even I feel this way. I actually wrote a short rant about why DC and Marvel just don't get it anymore. They're lucky they have the licensing market to keep them afloat because I don't see them actually making money on the books until they pull their collective heads out of their asses.

My little rant if you are inclined to read such things:

http://selfcentent.com/blog/dc-comics-reboot/
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[4LS]

rocketpig wrote:

My little rant if you are inclined to read such things: http://selfcentent.com/blog/dc-comics-reboot/

That was an interesting read, and yeah, I agree with pretty much everything you've said.
I was particularly interested in your maths here:

rocketpig wrote:

Most of DC’s digital books are going to come in at $1.99, or a $1 savings. So, I don’t get any kind of physical property and I save one dollar. I spend $2 and get roughly 20 minutes of reading from the purchase. That’s ten cents a minute. Ridiculous. If I was to break this down for any novel, it’d be fractions of a cent per minute. If I broke it down for Angry Birds, my calculator would run out of digits before I saw a number other than zero.

Um. That's ... no. No, I am not scared of that.
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