That's part of the problem, though, isn't it?
Conversely, Marvel seems to have most of their creators happy and on the same page with each other and editorial. DC, for whatever reason, doesn't.
I will say that the best books in DC > the best books in Marvel in terms of quality (which isn't to say they're aren't good), but Marvel's more "reliable", if that makes sense.
mmm
Originally posted by Golgo13
Just another gimick to inflate sells, just like double shipping and multiple events a year. Now take that away and Marvel would be in the same boat. Hell, they have had a steeper drop off at #2 issues and beyond than DC has. Yet, DC is a failure. Go figure.
your view honestly seems pretty skewed in favour of dc upper management. And this is me; I have no desire to defend Marvel for what they did to my favourite characters.
Originally posted by JakeTheBank
That's part of the problem, though, isn't it?Conversely, Marvel seems to have most of their creators happy and on the same page with each other and editorial. DC, for whatever reason, doesn't.
I will say that the best books in DC > the best books in Marvel in terms of quality (which isn't to say they're aren't good), but Marvel's more "reliable", if that makes sense.
I wish that most books just did their own thing. That is the beauty of Wonder Woman and Dial H (Both books being at the top of the list for 2012), just to name a few. They are telling their own stories without crossing over into the big picture and sometimes it just gets messy.
Originally posted by -Pr-
mmmyour view honestly seems pretty skewed in favour of dc upper management. And this is me; I have no desire to defend Marvel for what they did to my favourite characters.
The only upper management I respect at DC anymore is Geoff Johns. Maybe Jim Lee. Everyone else can suck it! I'm honestly getting tired of the so called "decisions" DC is doing and in turn affecting their top talent writers. Remember this for when you tease me for making "excuses". 😛
Originally posted by Golgo13
The only upper management I respect at DC anymore is Geoff Johns. Maybe Jim Lee. Everyone else can suck it! I'm honestly getting tired of the so called "decisions" DC is doing and in turn affecting their top talent writers. Remember this for when you tease me for making "excuses". 😛
We'll see. sneer
I'm getting really tired of them hiring writers, telling them they can write the stories they want to write, and then letting editorial come in and change all of that.
Originally posted by Blair Wind
Zatanna getting a new costume blows - especially that one. Hopefully another artists makes it look better.Introducing Carrie Kelly as Robin doesn't seem to sit well with me. I'd rather have her character confined to the alternate reality story she was in. I kind of liked Harper as a candidate.
I still prefer the fishnets and corset, myself. The new one isn't great to me.
Originally posted by Golgo13
I'll give you on the shuffling, but the quality has increased across the board. For the exception of the Young line.
I dunno, there's some good stuff, but a lot of the people doing good stuff did good stuff before the reboot, and there's a lot of stories cut short or dropped due to changes. There's a pretty good batch of titles where we started going one way, then another way, or just ended.
Green Arrow, JL Dark, etc.. Rapidly ended books like Amethyst and Beetle and Static and Terrific (each of which *could've* been good but weren't well handed).
The Edge line has improved, the Dark line has improved, the Justice League line has improved, the Superman line has improved, etc... From the start of the relaunch, some of those lines were pretty average, especially the Superman line.
Well, are we talking compared to before the relaunch or the start of the relaunch?
The launch had a couple bombs and those have been largely cleared out, but I think we're pretty close to where we were before.
DC's sales are STILL up and not only do they charge less for their books on average, they have less mega events than Marvel and no double shipping, which inflates Marvel's sales.
There's been a lot of crossovers. Not mega ones, but there's been almost constant Bat and Lantern events, the Superman events, as well as the Animal Man/Swampy event and such.
Marvel has bigger events, but it doesn't have the numerous small events.
I will mention I think the relaunch has been good for the industry. The cash injection to the comic stores helped the other companies raise their boats.
I do, however, think it was a missed opportunity to raise their sales status quo to a new level.
That's not entirely true, though. Editorial has wanted to do line events for a while that connects all their books. We have seen it with the COO storyline, Superman storyline, and now the Justice Leauge line will be connecting with one another as well. They have a direction. Editors have maped out directions, but it seems a bunch of writers don't want to be on the same page, since we have seen multiple writers walk off. Andy Diggle and Joshua just to name a few.
Editors map out a direction, then change it, is one of the biggest, most consistent complains we've hard from all over DC.
Josh left GL because he was asked to add in the death of John Stewart to an already mapped-out and approved story.
Furthermore, the writers don't directly communicate with each other (from what I've heard that's discouraged- Perez not knowing what Morrison was doing or that Morrison's Superman book took place before his was the biggest example), they get orders from their editors, who aren't necessarily in close communication with other editors and writers.
At Marvel, everyone is brought together in a big retreat where everyone gets their marching orders at the same time. They not only know what they're doing, they know what other people are doing, and that doesn't change part way. Once they know the direction they're given fairly free reign within that.
At DC, they know their orders, but not what the others are doing, and their orders can and do change, and they can even get contradicting orders from different people, with micromanaging being pretty common.
I really give kudos for the writers for keeping DC as good as it is, and some of the individual line-editors who've managed to keep their writers steady, and the writer cycle is ironically giving a lot of writers more exposure which also likely helps the wider industry, but it's not a well-oiled machine.
Originally posted by Q99
I dunno, there's some good stuff, but a lot of the people doing good stuff did good stuff before the reboot, and there's a lot of stories cut short or dropped due to changes. There's a pretty good batch of titles where we started going one way, then another way, or just ended.Green Arrow, JL Dark, etc.. Rapidly ended books like Amethyst and Beetle and Static and Terrific (each of which *could've* been good but weren't well handed).
Well, are we talking compared to before the relaunch or the start of the relaunch?
The launch had a couple bombs and those have been largely cleared out, but I think we're pretty close to where we were before.
There's been a lot of crossovers. Not mega ones, but there's been almost constant Bat and Lantern events, the Superman events, as well as the Animal Man/Swampy event and such.
Marvel has bigger events, but it doesn't have the numerous small events.
I will mention I think the relaunch has been good for the industry. The cash injection to the comic stores helped the other companies raise their boats.
I do, however, think it was a missed opportunity to raise their sales status quo to a new level.
Editors map out a direction, then change it, is one of the biggest, most consistent complains we've hard from all over DC.
Josh left GL because he was asked to add in the death of John Stewart to an already mapped-out and approved story.
Furthermore, the writers don't directly communicate with each other (from what I've heard that's discouraged- Perez not knowing what Morrison was doing or that Morrison's Superman book took place before his was the biggest example), they get orders from their editors, who aren't necessarily in close communication with other editors and writers.
At Marvel, everyone is brought together in a big retreat where everyone gets their marching orders at the same time. They not only know what they're doing, they know what other people are doing, and that doesn't change part way. Once they know the direction they're given fairly free reign within that.
At DC, they know their orders, but not what the others are doing, and their orders can and do change, and they can even get contradicting orders from different people, with micromanaging being pretty common.
I really give kudos for the writers for keeping DC as good as it is, and some of the individual line-editors who've managed to keep their writers steady, and the writer cycle is ironically giving a lot of writers more exposure which also likely helps the wider industry, but it's not a well-oiled machine.
I disagree on Justice League Dark. Milligan put his own spin on it and it has been consistently strong title. Green Arrow started out really bad, but now that Lemire has taken over the reigns with the new artist, the book is now gold. Which is why I said quite a few titles have improved. Even Falwks JLD is better than Lemire's, IMO.
And you can say BOTH the start and before the relaunch. DC was pretty stale. DCnU/52 has breathed some new life, whether people hate it or not.
Sales are up and it brought in new readers for a bunch of companies like Valiant and Marvel.
Marvel still has their events (Avengers VS X-Men and Ultron), while DC will have their first mega event this summer.
And writers DO converse with each other. I've read this on their twitter accounts and interviews. Maybe not every title, but within each lines (Superman, Dark, Justice League, etc...) but they do have a pretty close ties with each other.
And you can say BOTH the start and before the relaunch. DC was pretty stale.
I disagree! We had the Bat event stuff and Lantern stuff same as we do now, but we also had the excellent Red Robin and Batman Inc. on the Bat side.
We had Secret Six and Batgirl (which, while not as high-selling as Gail's Batgirl was still pretty awesome), and other nicely-written books (talking quality).
We had big, successful events not far back. Brightest Day was doing well. Generation Lost was cool.
Zatanna and Power Girl were both nice female-lead books. Wonder Woman was great under Gail.
It's not at the peak for DC, but it was improving at the time, IMO.
Also, they did have the same editors so you got your share of dumb moves back then too, like killing off Ryan Choi and other newer heroes, discouraging people from showing an interest in new books. Current editorial was a problem back then too, but you were not short on good books.
DCnU/52 has breathed some new life, whether people hate it or not.
Mind you, it remains to be seen whether it levels out here or keeps declining.
Things were rising a bit pre-reboot, and while it may be argued a year and a half of raised sales is worth it, it may have been a poor long-term move. For them at least, the industry as a whole benefited.
DC is suffering from a problem it had before, but even more- that is to say, a couple books doing great, but everything else sinking into the medium and low sales ranks. A book's either already doing great and safe, or not and readers shy away from it because they expect it to be canned or changed or what have you.
Finally, I will note that the stuff that's doing well is, with rare exception, not the stuff changed significantly in the reboot.
The Gl line has been the same, under the same writers and for the exception of johns, the titles have been stale, which is why I am pumped for the new writers and artists. The new writers have a proven track record. And speakubg of Vendetti, his demon knights has been excellent. Better than cornels run.
The lesser tier books simply wont sell, no matter how good they are. Hell, marvel has cancelled a bunch of them, so they can double ship on titles that will. Avengers for example.
Dc is doing fine. Sales are up and that is all that matters to them.
Originally posted by Golgo13
Rl became good once the new artist came on board. He draws a bad ass atrocitus.
RL started off with Ed Benes; your argument is invalid. sneer
Originally posted by Blair Wind
👆The dialogue in NG was horrible.
Agreed.
Originally posted by Golgo13
Doctor Light is back?
I'd be surprised, but happy, if that was Kimiyo. That's probably Arthur, but him I care less about. Just curious what they'll do with his personality.
Superman July solicitations: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=44740
Loving that Kirkham cover.
Details about Simone's new book: http://www.dccomics.com/blog/2013/04/05/gail-simone-talks-the-launch-of-the-movement
Originally posted by Q99
Lesser titles can and have sold better than DC's have been doing.
Like what? MOST lesser titles don't sell the way both companies want them to. If they did, they would still be around. I was just looking at Marvel's list of books this month and they hardly have any mystic and cosmic titles. Why? Because they aren't big sellers like Avengers or X-Men titles. DC had some war books. Some mystic books and a bunch of street level books that got canceled, because they didn't sell and a bunch of them were given their fare chance. Some up to issue 12-19 or so. That's a decent run.