I Would Love To See Someone Like a Chuck Dixon Be the Batman Group Editor, Much Like Denny O’Neil Who He Was a Protege Of

General Discussion Comic Books
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There are ten billion Batman titles right now and none of them feel cohesive. I feel like getting a Batman expert who has extensive writing experience to ensure inter-title continuity would greatly improve cohesiveness across titles.

I just finished Fear State, reading all of the titles and they were all over the place. There were some high moments, particularly Nightwing 84, but overall it was kind of a bummer of an event for me. Different villains in different books and things not lining up kind of killed it for me.

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There is no need for continuity or cohesiveness in my comics. Freedom for the creators to make me the world’s greatest superhero ever is more important.

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Hell no. He’s too closely affiliated with Comicsgate for comfort.

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I’m not sure what that means, but the man was aces writing Batman and Tim Darke back in the day and literally trained under the man who nearly single handedly invented the modern version of Batman.Dixon co created several extremely popular characters and contributed a ton to Knightfall which is being used to source stories across all Bat Media.

You should read Knightfall if you haven’t it’s fricking awesome

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I agree to a certain extent, I like each comic to have its own flavor, but continuity across issues definitely matters in a shared universe or it confuses the readers of multiple titles, particularly in an event.

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I started reading comics in the 90’s, so I know exactly who Dixon used to be.

Comicsgate is a campaign in opposition to diversity and progressivism in the North American superhero comic book industry. It’s proponents target the creators hired, the characters depicted, and the stories told, and maintain that these elements have led to a decline in both quality and sales.

Dixon was asked about them, and here’s what he said:

“This is where Comicsgate comes in. Because what happened was…Because Marvel and DC chased away 60, 70% of their readership, and no new readers came in to replace them because why would they. Comics aren’t that interesting. They’re not that engaging. They’re not that attractive. And they feature characters for the most part that people couldn’t even recognize anymore because they’ve either been completely changed or altered in such a way that the general public no longer recognized them.”

“So kids going to see a Marvel or DC movie wanted a comic book like those characters, they couldn’t even find anything like those characters. So sales cratered, continue to crater. Death spiral,” he noted.

He then questioned, “But what happens to all of those comic book readers? People like you, people like me. We want to read comics. We don’t want to stop just because they suck.”

“So into that gap comes Comicsgate. I don’t even like Comicsgate as a term because it started out as a pejorative. ‘Oh you’re part of Comicsgate’ like it’s some conspiracy. Like we all live in the same house,” he opined.

“And I don’t even know what Comicsgate is. I’m not even sure what Comicsgate means. I’m always included in Comicsgate when they make a list of Comicsgate people. I’m always on it, often near the top, which is why I jokingly say I’m the Jesus of Comicsgate. I was the first. I was blacklisted by the industry and outed as a conservative,” he states succinctly.

So yeah- hard pass on him being the editor of anything in DC.

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Note that the topic is someone like Chuck Dixon, not the man himself. And I’m sure when they say someone like him, they’re not talking about his bigotry and writing crappy Q-Anon comics, but rather what made him work as a writer in the 90s.

And honestly…I’m not sure if there’s really much of Dixon’s pros as a writer that would make someone like him work as an editor.

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Would love to see this happen.

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In addition to the unfortunate Comicsgate association, I have to add that skill as a writer and skill as an editor are not the same field. Denny could do it, and so could others, but that’s not a universal truth. We have no idea how effective Chuck Dixon would be as an editor, which is essentially a job of managing people even more than it is shepherding a narrative direction.

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I’m personally of the opinion that James Tynion had a lot of the same skills that made Dixon such a strong part of the Batoffice in the 90s and early 2000s - ability to work well with other writers, eagerness to help other writers out by using their creations and willingness to let others use his creations, and ability to think in terms of both individual issues and long term planning. Sadly, he’s leaving. I don’t think you need an editor of Denny’s caliber to have a great Bat-office, but I think you do need writers like Dixon and Tynion, and unfortunately, most of the Bat-books have been dominated by solo star writers since Morrison. Now, most of those solo star writers have sold like gangbusters and been very popular, but they lacked several of the skills/tendencies that I outlined above, leading to the state of chaos I see today, a bit mitigated by Tynion’s hard work.

I think it’s also true that editors tend not to make as much money as a writer at the top of his game - when Denny left, Dixon has said he turned down the job because he didn’t want to take the pay cut, and I think Tynion leaving DC indicates the same is true.

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I’m of the mind that continuity offers a sense of stability. Sure, it might restrict a few details, but restrictions can actually benefit a story, make the writer work harder (or in some cases, put in any work at all) to make something that isn’t just self indulgent.

I’m not seeing what’s so damning about his response. There’s criticism of the general quality of comics (however long ago this interview was), and he doesn’t seem to really know what “comicsgate” even is (so he claims). Maybe I’m missing it, but his remarks seem mostly generalized, not pointing to one specific thing.
Though he may be under the mistaken impression movies have much influence on comic sales.

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I’d love Chuck Dixon to do more Batman

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I honestly think that one can argue that comics were more diverse in the 90s then they are now and back it up pretty well.

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He knows exactly who they are and what to stand for. He was given the opportunity to publicly distance himself from them and he didn’t take it.

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Go for it.

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And why should he?

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If you already don’t believe diversity is a good thing, it would be a waste of my time to try and teach you that it is.

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That’s not what we’re talking about. Dixon’s talked about creating diverse characters at both DC and in his current work many times in his ongoing Q&A videos. There’s much more than simply being in favor of diversity in storytelling to what is being discussed here.

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No disrespect, but to someone that doesn’t follow the guy’s socials or anything, those quotes don’t make your case very well. If there was something more like “I hate the introduction of new diverse characters” while he yells at a cloud or something, that would be more telling than saying some recent comics suck.
Some might read “chasing away the readership” and “no new readers to replace them” as him being anti-diversity, but me? I think “that’s basically the New52 onward.”

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He’s got a youtube channel

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