Lots of Jobs Gone at DC Comics and DC Universe

[Darth Wedgius]

https://boundingintocomics.com/2020/08/10/report-massive-layoffs-at-dc-comics-and-dc-universe/

https://cosmicbook.news/dc-comics-cancels-aquaman-suicide-squad-more

The cancellations will start to take effect in October and November, as Batgirl, Batman and The Outsiders, and Justice League Odyssey ends in October.

For November, coming to an end includes Teen Titans, Young Justice, Suicide Squad, Hawkman, and John Constantine: Hellblazer, with The Batman's Grave and Metal Men limited series also reaching their planned end in November.

DC Comics has reportedly experienced a major shake-up, with editor-in-chief Bob Harras and several other editors among the employees laid off and Jim Lee removed from his publishing role. ComicBook.com has learned that several employees including Harras, editors Mark Doyle, Brian Cunningham, and Andy Khouri, VP of marketing Jonah Weiland, senior VP Hank Kanalz, and VP of global publishing initiatives and digital strategy Bobbie Chase are all out of the publisher.

Hopefully they'll land on their feet, but the whole western superhero comics market seems a little shaky at the moment.

Aubrey Sitterson has taken this opportunity to call for a union for comic book creators.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2020/08/12/former-g-i-joe-writer-aubrey-sitterson-calls-for-unionization-of-comic-book-creators-after-massive-dc-comics-layoffs/

I'm skeptical; I don't think they have a lot of bargaining power at the moment. I think they'd do better getting together and doing independent publishing. Ethan Van Sciver has done this with a lot of success, and they wouldn't have to negotiate with the company owners because they'd be the company.

[GreyICE]

I think they'd do better getting together and doing independent publishing.

Have I ever told you the story of Image comics?

TLDR: Shaky results, but some absolute gems produced.

The biggest problem is Diamond. Diamond is just such a choke hold on this. It's an actual monopoly, and as a monopoly it has every fucking problem of one.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

This seems a more News forum appropriate thread. Why must the sci-fi forum be subject to this principled assessment and culturally topical regard that plagues the plebeian social manifold?

[GreyICE]

This seems a more News forum appropriate thread. Why must the sci-fi forum be subject to this principled assessment and culturally topical regard that plagues the plebeian social manifold?

Eh, there's a LOT of speculative fiction comics out there. It's to the level that I'd say that english-language production of non-spec fic comics is virtually zero. For non-English, there's a tad more, Japanese comics have a more robust market for that stuff, as do many European markets, but in America outside the funny pages, comic is synonymous with spec fic.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Oh yeah.

[King Green]

Sad to see it gone down the same way Sony's failure did back in 2014 mid-autumn.

Are robots going to take their jobs?

[GreyICE]

Sad to see it gone down the same way Sony's failure did back in 2014 mid-autumn.

Are robots going to take their jobs?

Nope, they're going to focus on their "core titles", which means titles that are tied in to movies, TV shows, and video games that they're producing. Essentially DC comics will become a series of movie tie-ins.

This honestly isn't bad news for comics as a medium. The big two have had a death grip on the industry for years, and muscled out other books. Japanese comics poked a hole in their stranglehold, and that hole turned into a gash, and that gash into a flood. At this point American comic books are in the ridiculous position where they were picking winners and losers based on issue sales, while for many lines they were making much more money off trade paperbacks.

DC has constantly struggled to find any success outside Detective Comics and Adventure Comics. The New 52 debacle was the final straw, killing off long-time fans' interest while failing to win new ones. And even those have been flagging. How bad is it? Detective and Adventure are both set to be eclipsed in total lifetime sales, which is horrific considering they are the longest running comic book series in the world and should have an insurmountable head start.

Being bought out by AT&T is horrible, but outside that I can't really mourn the death. This has been a long time coming.

[King Green]

Sad to see it gone down the same way Sony's failure did back in 2014 mid-autumn.

Are robots going to take their jobs?

Nope, they're going to focus on their "core titles", which means titles that are tied in to movies, TV shows, and video games that they're producing. Essentially DC comics will become a series of movie tie-ins.

This honestly isn't bad news for comics as a medium. The big two have had a death grip on the industry for years, and muscled out other books. Japanese comics poked a hole in their stranglehold, and that hole turned into a gash, and that gash into a flood. At this point American comic books are in the ridiculous position where they were picking winners and losers based on issue sales, while for many lines they were making much more money off trade paperbacks.

DC has constantly struggled to find any success outside Detective Comics and Adventure Comics. The New 52 debacle was the final straw, killing off long-time fans' interest while failing to win new ones. And even those have been flagging. How bad is it? Detective and Adventure are both set to be eclipsed in total lifetime sales, which is horrific considering they are the longest running comic book series in the world and should have an insurmountable head start.

Being bought out by AT&T is horrible, but outside that I can't really mourn the death. This has been a long time coming.

Thanks, though I did wanna become a web comic hobbyist with having to be legally scammed out the Yaoi artists that loved too much of my characters.

Good bye Leeman Brookstater, a your epic drug tripping adventures with an awesome TOS Enterprise expy will live in my memories. Because I can no longer use copyright unless I join the horrible jobs because I can no longer use copyright unless I join the horrible jobs of bad writing with mundane porn.

[GreyICE]

Sad to see it gone down the same way Sony's failure did back in 2014 mid-autumn.

Are robots going to take their jobs?

Nope, they're going to focus on their "core titles", which means titles that are tied in to movies, TV shows, and video games that they're producing. Essentially DC comics will become a series of movie tie-ins.

This honestly isn't bad news for comics as a medium. The big two have had a death grip on the industry for years, and muscled out other books. Japanese comics poked a hole in their stranglehold, and that hole turned into a gash, and that gash into a flood. At this point American comic books are in the ridiculous position where they were picking winners and losers based on issue sales, while for many lines they were making much more money off trade paperbacks.

DC has constantly struggled to find any success outside Detective Comics and Adventure Comics. The New 52 debacle was the final straw, killing off long-time fans' interest while failing to win new ones. And even those have been flagging. How bad is it? Detective and Adventure are both set to be eclipsed in total lifetime sales, which is horrific considering they are the longest running comic book series in the world and should have an insurmountable head start.

Being bought out by AT&T is horrible, but outside that I can't really mourn the death. This has been a long time coming.

Thanks, though I did wanna become a web comic hobbyist with having to be legally scammed out the Yaoi artists that loved too much of my characters.

Good bye Leeman Brookstater, a your epic drug tripping adventures with an awesome TOS Enterprise expy will live in my memories. Because I can no longer use copyright unless I join the horrible jobs because I can no longer use copyright unless I join the horrible jobs of bad writing with mundane porn.

wut

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Sad to see it gone down the same way Sony's failure did back in 2014 mid-autumn.

Are robots going to take their jobs?

Nope, they're going to focus on their "core titles", which means titles that are tied in to movies, TV shows, and video games that they're producing. Essentially DC comics will become a series of movie tie-ins.

This honestly isn't bad news for comics as a medium. The big two have had a death grip on the industry for years, and muscled out other books. Japanese comics poked a hole in their stranglehold, and that hole turned into a gash, and that gash into a flood. At this point American comic books are in the ridiculous position where they were picking winners and losers based on issue sales, while for many lines they were making much more money off trade paperbacks.

DC has constantly struggled to find any success outside Detective Comics and Adventure Comics. The New 52 debacle was the final straw, killing off long-time fans' interest while failing to win new ones. And even those have been flagging. How bad is it? Detective and Adventure are both set to be eclipsed in total lifetime sales, which is horrific considering they are the longest running comic book series in the world and should have an insurmountable head start.

Being bought out by AT&T is horrible, but outside that I can't really mourn the death. This has been a long time coming.

Kinda like when Windows took over as the parent operating system for IBM-compatible computers from DOS.

And also didn't Marvel consolidate all their stuff practically under the Marvel Entertainment headed by Feige?