DC Comics

What the Market Will Bear: A Big Two Skip Week Leaves the Indies to Rule the Racks

July 7, 2020 // 5 Comments

So this may be a short column. For one thing, I’ve procrastinated and gotten pressed for time. But also… I don’t have many funnybooks to talk about. Neither Marvel nor DC released anything last week, which didn’t impact me all that much since I don’t read a lot from either of them. But not much that I DO read came out, either. It was just two books, in fact, but they were both doozies: the second issue of The Boys: Dear Becky, and the long-awaited (by me, anyway) [...]

2020 State of the Industry, Part One: The Big Two

January 21, 2020 // 3 Comments

So here we are at the dawn of a new decade. And that’s got me thinking about where the funnybook business is. Well… okay. What really got me thinking about it was poring over the latest issue of Previews. If you’re not familiar, Previews is the monthly ordering catalog for Diamond Distribution, the company that supplies every comic book specialty shop in America (with a monopolistic hold over the industry that, in a saner world, would run afoul of anti-trust laws). If [...]

Funnybook Bloodbath: The DC Comics Implosion

September 4, 2018 // 2 Comments

So I know we haven’t talked current funnybooks in a couple of weeks, but I just finished reading this book of funnybook history, and I’m dying to talk about it, so… Comic Book Implosion by Keith Dallas and John Wells In 1978, DC Comics launched an advertising campaign for the “DC Explosion,” an initiative to expand their line of titles and offer more pages per book. It sounded great, and started off strong. Then, only three or four months later, came the [...]

Funnybook Heart of Darkness: What Would It Take to Make You Stop Reading Comics?

January 30, 2018 // 13 Comments

So a reader asked me, recently, what it would take to get me to stop reading comics. It’s an interesting question, and one that I hadn’t really thought about much. I mean, that’s like asking what it would take to get me to stop watching movies. Or reading novels. Or breathing. Why would I do that? It doesn’t make sense to me. But I gave it some thought, and the first thing I came up with was “Poverty.” Because funnybooks are kind of expensive as entertainment mediums [...]

The Terrifying Notion of Survival: Alan Moore’s Twilight of the Superheroes, Part Two

January 2, 2018 // 8 Comments

So a couple of weeks back, we took a long, rambling look at the introduction to Alan Moore’s proposal for Twilight of the Superheroes, a 1987 DC Comics crossover comic that never happened. To be fair, our discussion was no more rambling than Moore’s own, but it still went on so long that we never quite got around to discussing the actual story he wanted to tell. Though I suppose we did give a hint: But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Moore’s proposal is sprawling, a fully [...]

What’s Past is Prologue: Alan Moore’s Twilight of the Superheroes, Part One

December 12, 2017 // 5 Comments

So I recently stumbled upon a file I’d downloaded years ago, and tucked away on my hard drive for posterity: Twilight of the Superheroes, a proposal for a 12-issue mini-series, by Alan Moore. The great DC Comics crossover that never was! Written in 1987, before the Watchmen deal went sour, this is the work of a younger and perhaps even slightly naive Moore, drunk with the newfound freedom to insert adult themes into super hero stories, and still of the belief that he could work with DC to [...]

Getting Back to Bendis…

November 14, 2017 // 3 Comments

So while I was off talking about Books With Words In Them, big news hit the funnybook world: Brian Michael Bendis has announced that he’s leaving Marvel Comics for DC. Now, this is not the sort of thing we talk much about here on the nerd farm, but it’s big enough news that I can’t help but speculate on it a little. So let’s start with the one Bendis book I’m still reading, and use that as a guideline to talk about where he might be going next… Jessica Jones [...]

Geoff Johns and the Ashcan of DOOM!

October 10, 2017 // 6 Comments

So at this weekend’s New York Comic Con, DC Comics released an ashcan printing the first six pages of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank’s Doomsday Clock, the upcoming Watchmen sequel that promises to give us the spectacle of Superman vs Dr. Manhattan. My response to this, of course, can be best summed up by Mr. Charlton Heston. Sigh. I’ve gone into my feelings before about how DC Comics snookered Alan Moore on the Watchmen rights, sticking to the letter of their agreement while [...]

Serious Fun: Wonder Woman is Super Heroes Done Right

June 6, 2017 // 1 Comment

So I went to see the Wonder Woman movie. And it was good. Well, that was easy! Guess I’ll knock off early and go read some funnybooks! Or… Maybe not. Seriously, Wonder Woman really is good. Damn fine super hero storytelling. It hits all the right notes and accentuates the things that make the character unique. It’s fun, but takes itself seriously enough to wrestle with big ideas. It’s got a charismatic lead who’s good enough to take on an iconic role and make it [...]

REBOOT FEVER! Comics Sales Hit a 20-Year High

September 20, 2016 // 0 Comments

So here’s a pleasant surprise for the funnybook business: Diamond Distribution is reporting that they sold more than 10 million comics in the month of August, the highest sales they’ve seen in 20 years. Even more surprising may be the character who seems to have ruled the roost in setting that new record: Harley Quinn, who was the lead character in four of the top ten best sellers in August, including the best-selling book of the month. But we’ll get back to Harley later. [...]