I’ve been out of the loop. Kinda busy here lately. Anyways I read online that ethan van sciver said if 5G fails that is it for DC Comics. AT&T will close it down. As a life long DC Comic fan hearing this might be the end is creating a whole new level of stress! DC Comics is an escape for me. I love DC Comics! What do you think DC fam?
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Ethan Van Sciver has no more knowledge of what is going to happen than anyone else. It is simply him speculating rather than actual fact.
Even if AT&T should decide they didn’t want to keep the publishing branch of DC Comics it would be much more likely that they’d be licensing out the comics branch rather than actually closing it. But I doubt we are anywhere near such a point, so let’s start by seeing what they are going to do with DiDio gone.
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That wouldn’t make sense. The DC IP is probably worth a lot. Comics are a part of that value.
Maybe they need to transform the business: go for all ages comics, reduce costs, increase reach, better distribution chains, crowdfund or something.
There is no reason that they should sell so poorly with such big names. DCs heroes are globally recognized. Comics you have never heard of in other countries outsells Superman’s global sales by factors, despite having a fraction of the reach.
Maybe some new leadership can change this.
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I really can’t a imagine a world without DC Comics, I think it’ll do ok once we have a new publisher who will take over.
I doubt DC will end up like WCW, it’s 2020 so here’s hoping it’ll do better in the new decade.
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I could never see it “ending.” Unfortunately DC doesn’t make much money from print. I have a bit of mixed data, but here’s what I’m seeing. 2018 final gross for all print comics was only $1.095 billion. According to Comichron that’s up about 35% from the beginning of the decade. That’s the good news.
Unfortunately DC currently represents the second largest percentage of total sales with 33.5%. So if you take the 2018 sales numbers, assuming they stayed relatively static, and the end of year 2019 sales percentage of 33.5%…then DC print only earned about $367,00,000 (2019).
I can’t find data for cost of production, staff, talent, distribution, etc. I’d imagine, just guessing, that DC can’t have a ROI significantly higher than $200 million a year. That’s not nothing, but to AT&T, a company with net earnings just under $20 billion last year, it’s not much.
I’m a little worried. I don’t think they will necessarily shut it down, but I think they might give operations over to another publishing house.
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Ethan Van Sciver is also a guy who bought a dozen Rose action figures, ranted on film how she ruined Star Wars and burned them. The guy has gone a little off the deep end in recent years, to say the least.
DC ending I don’t think is likely, but I am wary of who will be named Publisher now.
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A little off the deep end? You’re very gentle in your assessment.
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DC Comics is here as long as the comic heroes generate income on tv, movies and merch. The ongoing publishing of stories is an idea factory, generates new characters and helps keep a very profitable IP alive.
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I think with DiDio gone 5G is going to slowly grind to a halt or be scraped.
DC could make a few tweaks and go back to an early post-COIE continuity, have Bart or somebody do another Flashpoint event, and boom it restarts at flashpoint continuity, let Parralax loose and let him devour the entire dark multiverse. And those are random, off the top of my head.
All you need is a few maguffins and they can tweak/change the world significantly.
It might have been the case that if 5G epically failed DiDio was gone, but they may have already made that determination about 5G and poof DiDio is gone.
DC is a recognized brand, with recognized IP. You don’t just shut that down without good reason. Hard media is getting less and less. Maybe they make some books and mini/maxi series digital only. And only after they are done, sell them in trade paperback format. Or if something is really successful hardback format. They did this with Watchmen where they did a limited release first editions in both soft and hardback only through comic shops, and we’re pre-order only. Then they went on to sell the second edition soft backs at bookstores.
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I hate to disagree, but what are they taking from the comics? They keep making movies and tv that are, at best, influenced by the ideas and stories from print. Arrowverse CoIE was very unlike like the 12 issue story in print. I’m not a fan.
In fact I’d say that, based on announced upcoming DC movie and tv projects, they pay very little attention to source material. BoP was so changed that it’s a comic movie in name only (IMO). I don’t know those characters from my experience as a reader. I’ve never seen that story in these pages. That’s not the Black Canary I read in JSA years ago. It’s Orphan in name only.
When they do draw from the print stories they seem to take from older material as well.
Sci-fi sells. Heroes sell. They know they add a certain amount of butts to seats when they use known comic characters because people like myself keep going (or tuning in) hoping for the best. I don’t know anyone who watches Flash on WB that isn’t a fan of the character from print. Not one person.
Do they exist? Sure. I don’t know any though.
My position is neutral, but I believe it’s dangerous to think they’re going to keep print alive just because of the movies. It also creates the question…
What happens when these movies are no longer profitable? One day people will be burned out.
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Ethan Van Sciver is what can commonly be referred to as a “HATER.” don’t listen to anything he says. he has no inside information on what is happening at dc. he will forever p!ss on the big two because no one in the industry wants to work with him now that he is a crazy person.
DC is not ending, just getting a new direction,
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Having an in-house superhero comic publisher guarantees access to copyright licensing for highly profitable adaptations, while also producing small but existent incremental revenue. It’s a tiny division of a major entertainment conglomerate that pays for itself and generates a ridiculous amount of value for its size. To suggest that the conglomerate’s parent company would intercede to shut DC down is nothing short of paranoia.
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I don’t think DC will end, they are going to publish books because the movies are going to become sucessful and they will make tie-in things that show how cool the character is. People should relax and start to think of a replacement for who should be incharge. Like Dr. Manhattan said, Nothing Ever Ends.
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I hope you’re right. Early last year 10% of the Warner Bros. Consumer Products division was let go. DC now has fewer than 240 employees. If this DiDio thing wasn’t taking place after the cuts last year I don’t think I would give it a second thought.
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I know this is how a lot of companies think, but personally I just don’t get the thinking. Unless you can use the employees for something that will bring you even more money, why shut something down that is bringing in a profit, no matter how small. I’d understand it if the comics weren’t breaking even, but as long as they are and are not only just breaking even, having comic book creators write stories that you can feed upon when doing movies or which can help bring in licensing deals, because they are in the public eye it just doesn’t make sense to shut it down.
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Companies like this like to make what they consider proactive cuts before something has the chance to cost them money… based on trends. If DC was selling 1960’s numbers this wouldn’t be a discussion. DC would be insanely profitable. Even if it was numbers like they had (I randomly picked a month and year when I was a teenager) in July of 1996. DC had 55 issues that sold over 25K copies that month. AT&T isn’t the kind of company that will ignore that last month there were only 80 comics across every publisher that sold that much. They definitely won’t ignore that only 24 of their titles were among them.
I get that, but when you’re still earning around 200 million a year, things need to get quite a bit worse before you start losing money. But as I said, I’m well aware that companies do this. I just think it is a bad business strategy. For comics in particular where most of the employees are freelance creators it wouldn’t take a lot of time to shut things down if things started to look like there’d be red numbers in the near future.
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MCU Civil War, Winter Soldier, Captain Marvel all based on relatively new stories
DC Flashpoint, supersons for Superman and Loos, Harley as a stand-alone standout character all relatively new
The publishing side is an idea factory that turns a small profit
What happens when the movies and tv run their cycle? Then as AT&T you have to decide if books are the best way to keep the IP fresh, probably keeps going but not as much of a slam dunk.
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But if they do something when it’s profitable they stand to make more money. 
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I’m not trying to be upsetting to you here. I don’t want to see an end to my beloved print comics. I love these characters more than a healthy person should maybe.
I don’t disagree with you. I’m not talking about Marvel though. They’re doing a completely different thing. Just the same those movies are extremely loose adaptations. I used to be a Spider-Man fanatic growing up, and those Tom Holland movies are not based on anything I’ve ever read.
My point is they’re taking known characters, kinda sorta adapting stories, and that is where the print influence ends.
I disagree that the print will stay alive to keep the movies going. The Eternals is up soon. I’m sure Marvel is printing them over the last 18 months to help bring attention to them, but prior to that? The last time I remember seeing them was Neil Gaiman’s mini-series. 14 years ago.
There are decades of stories and thousands of characters that exist to draw from. I feel it’s naive to think they wouldn’t stop print because of the films.
Edit: please forgive typos. Keyboard broken and having to type with screen.
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