DC Comics to reboot.... EVERYTHING

Well... I guess at least they're thinking big?

DC will restart all of its titles with No. 1 in September [updated]

Okay, Chimpo, I think you're our resident comics expert. Is this as nutty as it sounds?

Some thoughts on this in my blog today - http://fangirlblog.com/2011/06/marveling-at-dc-comics/

I'm still waiting for Chimpo to weigh in on this.

Well beside Wonder Woman I don't read DC Comics. But this is very risky move in my opinion but if it will work then they will be big winners. It's not the first time that DC Comics decided to reboot their Universe, but it's first time that one of the big comics companies is going to relaunch all their books. Here are good and bad things that might happen:

Good
- total relaunch will allow to creat new stories and new origins for characters
- it will be a great starting point for all new readers to start reading comics
- Day 1 for both paper and online - no need to look for LCS and bigger availabilty for international readers.
- After 4 weeks online comics will be cheapier.
- Thanks to online sales people will be able to catch up with earlier stories.

Bad
- many readers might stop reading after relaunch because they will feel cheated
- LCS might stop selling DC books ( Online sales might put a nail to the coffin for many LCS )
- many people will have second thoughts about buying DC comic books because they won't know if the publisher will not relaunch their comics in 2 years time.
- All the continuity will be gone.

It's hard to say how this will end, but I think that online sales will be the biggest factor here. If it works and new readers will show up and start buying online then other companies will replay what DC did.

Have you read comics online? Is that booming like ebooks?

I'd be afraid of committing because of that next possible "reboot"

Right now comics online are mostly:

1) at least 6 months delayed but usually 1-2 years old
2) Marvel has great archive online with over 10 000 comics available but you still have to wait at least a year for current comics to show up.

From what one major publisher said usually online comic book that is released on the same day, as traditional version, sales the same. So for a comic that sales 30k copies in normal distribution, they sold 30k copies online. In other words from a business point of view they should make all comics available online but they don't do it for some unknown reason.

They need to face the truth: traditional distribution is not doing well and if they want to have new readers then they will need to start selling comics online.

This post has been edited by Chimpo on Jun 10 2011, 12:27 PM

Update from MTV Geek about the nature of the Superman stories DC is going to be telling at the start of the reboot.

I have to say, it sure sounds to me like the article has it right at the end -- that DC is kinda missing the point about what most fans like about the character.

So far this reboot is a huge hit in sales. Still we need at least a year to see if it really worked or was it just a one time stunt.

I read some interesting articles on Catwoman and Starfire. Guess some of the ladies aren't happy...I'll post the link shortly.

Here's a good summary of some of the things I read today.

This post has been edited by T'Keira Lea on Sep 23 2011, 07:41 PM

Yikes!

Semi-transparent bikini is serious art yo. Think of the depth it adds to the story!

All looks like trash to me. Hope Lobdell gets run over by a cement truck.

Ok that Starfire part I didn't see before

I think the relaunch could have been good. If any of the titles I read had been fantastic. Instead, it really feels a lot like the FotJ stuff - all cliffhanger, no character. Oh, and a lot of objectification of women for no good reason (other than the fact that they only have one female writer and no regular female pencillers - and no female designers at all). I'm still looking forward to the Huntress miniseries, but so far, all my favorite titles (Birds of Prey, Batgirl, Wonder Woman) have been depressingly generic. Not that what they replaced was really excellent (even the two titles I was following, Batgirl and Birds of Prey, weren't as brilliant as they were in the mid-2000s). Some of the titles, like Scott Snyder's writing and the art on the main Batman title, are quite exciting (and whoever's doing the Batman and Robin title is doing some promising things), but mostly I'm very, very uninterested. I'll mostly be following through libraries, borrowing, reading in the store, and other non-financial ways until they actually start telling great stories and stop jerking me around with faux-intense, plot-over-character idiocy.

Also, Catwoman and Starfire have really been turned into lazy male fantasies. And I don't think that's very sexy. And I'm a dude.

This post has been edited by millernumber1 on Sep 27 2011, 08:57 PM

Smart summary comic:

http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book...adulthood/math/

Holy cow, someone reviewed all 52 comics, including gender and race breakouts.

Oh my...

Wow, that is an impressive project. Very helpful as well. I agree with a lot of his assessments, even on Batgirl (though his general stance of disliking Simone as a writer seems ill considered, though I sadly concur that her recent output hasn't been very consistent in quality). Especially true is the review of Wonder Woman - I wanted so much for it to be amazing, like Greg Rucka's run on the title in the early 2000s, but it was mostly just pretty art over very meh story, with seriously misogynist undertones (three innocent young women being incinerated after mind/bodyrape by a god...which will probably never be addressed again, despite Wonder Woman standing for, you know, Justice...)