That'sAllFolks

My first Batman was around #243. I was mostly a Batman and Spiderman fan. I also remember hiding Supergirl #1 at my local Sellers (like a 7-11) until I got my allowance thinking, like Superman it would be worth a lot one day!

I haven't collected comics for 25 years. I had my own comic shop in the early 80's and my father used to speculate in buying the character toys -- we still have some old Megos in the attic. I have read some comics here and there over the years and thought they were pretty good. I was out of comics by the time the real speculation of the 90's started -- though I do remember Spiderman #1 being released in several different kinds of covers.

This kind of wide reboot only hurts comics. The big thing about comics for me was continuity and actually making reference to things that happen in the past as being catalysts for future events. People get hooked on something because they want to see what's next. If they are constantly starting over, there's no big incentive to to buy the next issue. That's why people watch soaps (or at least used to).

I do agree with one poster in that they need to make things a little more simple and not try to do tie-ins across every book they have just to get a complete story. I remember Marvel did this with Secret Wars and for the most part, it was just too much for most readers --- though at that time I collected almost every superhero book anyway. Perhaps long mini-series are the way to go. The one thing that they really should NOT do is allow digital downloads the same day as new releases. Maybe wait a month for the digital downloads so as not to strangle the comic shops that still survive. There used to be a ton of comic shops in Houston, now I think there are only 1 or 2 decent ones left. This could really backfire if they aren't careful.

And not allowing Action and Detective to get to 1000 is beyond a travesty.

kgrogers1979

DC has been quiet on the Batman and Superman front, so we don't know if they are getting renumbered or not. Action is still 8 years away from reaching #1000 though (assuming a consistent monthly schedule is maintained). There is a 99.9% chance that even if it is renumbered to #1 it will have gone back to original numbering in 8 years time.

resinrats

Has it said how much digital comics are going to cost? Also, how much does DC make off each issue? Say an issue is $2.99, how much of that goes to DC? I can see it backfiring if it causes a lot of comic stores to close since they'd loose that revenue.

Personally, I wouldn't want digital comics. I like holding an issue to read, not look at a screen. IDW has digital comics & my friend has some. He said you can't actually download them, just few them. If I am paying for something, I want to own it and no be dependent on the service always being there.

Laertes

Anyone know what's happening with Grant Morrison's "Multiversity"? I thought it sounded like it would be fun. Is it dead?

fujishig

The thing about Viz is that these are reprints of manga licensed from Japan, taken from the original black and white, emulating the much more successful (and much bigger page count wise) Japanese Shonen Jump and other manga anthologies. It's not just the newsprint that's making it cheaper, the licensing is completely different, and this is a secondary market for it. The breadth of the manga market in Japan is due to the large readership, and it's much easier to pick and choose which ones would be successful over here (not to mention, most of the Shonen Jump stuff in the American anthology, with the exception of maybe Hikaru No Go, are basically super hero-like titles).

That's not to say that DC and Marvel shouldn't try to make cheaper, magazine-like periodicals using reprints and the like, but putting it on newsprint and in black and white would affect the art, especially stuff that relies on modern coloring techniques. And this would be in addition to the monthly comics they're putting out, which would be the source material that would enable the anthology to be cheaper. It's not as simple as emulating Viz. The other argument has always been, put out manga-like collections, but they've tried that too. And the manga market domestically is in a huge slump, with Tokyopop shutting down publishing here.

As an aside, it's interesting that Viz is held up as a pioneer here, when for the longest time they cut up manga into American-comic-sized pieces that sold for pretty high prices, until Tokyopop brought over the Japanese tankouban model (they even did the anthology first) and got manga into bookstores.

Digital comics are going to cost the same as the monthly comic for now. After a month (or something like that) they will drop a buck, which is where I was getting the whole "cheaper back issues" thing. The good thing about digital is that if you pick up #4 and you like it, it's easy to pick up and find #1 to #3. This is one of the advantages of the reboot, if they make it so that you really don't need to pick up issues prior to the new #1s to understand the story. It does simplify the process a lot.

DC has said that this is not a complete reboot but they are selectively rebooting characters and concepts and keeping others, on a much bigger scale (supposedly) than even Crisis. I'm not saying that they won't go back in a year, but there's no way that's their current plan, because they would be ticking off all the new readers they're trying to gather, and there's no guarantee that the old readers who left because of the reboot would come back.

If anything, I think Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns's storylines are the safest, like I said before they put out the top selling books and Johns is the architect of DC right now.

As far as reading comics on a screen, the one new technology that has turned this around, at least for me, is the iPad and other tablets. Why Marvel hasn't yet come out with an app for their subscription service is beyond me. I realize most are not going to use their iPads for comic books, but that's gotta be what DC and others are counting on.

Adam Tyner

Mark Millar says that at least for the deal he was offered, Apple gets 30%, and Comixology takes half of what's left. I'm sure DC is getting a better deal than that. Dark Horse said that Comixology and iVerse take anywhere from 10%-15%, so I guess there's a volume discount. So, that'd be as much as 55% for DC and, if everyone's getting the same bum deal Mark Millar is, as little as 35%.

Even if only 10% or 15% is going to Comixology, that's a lot of money being left on the table if digital really takes off. Dark Horse probably did it right by just creating their own store. Didn't anyone learn anything from Diamond's monopoly? I haven't used Dark Horse's app on my iPad, but the one that DoubleFeature put together handles the reading experience pretty much perfectly. Clearly the cost to get an app like this off the ground isn't astronomical. I'm happy with the way Comixology works when I'm actually reading a comic, but the way they handle searching/browsing and the inability to group/filter is pretty terrible. I don't think they're doing much to justify the cut they're taking.

resinrats

How much does DC get for a physical issue? I know they sell to Diamond & Diamon sells to LCS. Both have to make a profit.

Josh-da-man

DC's comics that are being released "day and date" will cost the same as their paper counterparts, $2.99 for a standard length issue. After one month the price will drop to $1.99.

As to how much DC gets from physical comics, the retailer discounts go up to something like 55% for the biggest retail accounts, and I think Diamond takes something like 10-15%, so I think DC probably gets something like 40% of the cover price. I'm not completely sure about Diamond's cut, but I sort of remember it being in that ballpark in the 90s, though that could have changed and it probably depends on what kind of contract the publisher has with Diamond. I'm sure Marvel and DC have good deals.

brayzie

I forgot about Disney Adventures Digest. That was a fun little book. It had Uncle Scrooge, Talespin, and Chip N Dale stories inside, interviews with some teen celebrities, science contests, etc. Didn't know it sold that well though.

Now that it's brought up, why not go with the Digest format? No kid cares about Mr. Terrific or Deadman. Just focus on the big names.

brayzie

Good point. That said there probably should be a balance though. INFINITE CRISIS is only accessible to hard core comic readers. I was trying to explain to my friend Superman, Superman from Earth-1, Superboy, Superboy Prime, the previous Crisis On Infinite Earths, etc. It's gotten to the point that you need Wikipedia to make sense of the stories.

I prefer the continuity of The Simpsons and I think that DC and Marvel should be more like that.

kgrogers1979

The new Nightwing outfit.

brayzie

The more I read about this, the less I believe it's an honest attempt to attract a new audience, than it is, one more attempt to bleed older readers out of their cash.


Batman #1
Batman The Dark Knight #1
Batman Inc #1
Batman & Robin #1
Detective Comics #1

Also:
Batgirl #1
Batwing #1
Batwoman #1
Nightwing #1

The reason I think this is because in the late 80s and early 90s when you only had 2 Bat-titles, they were selling 300,000+ copies.

Today, the top selling Batman comic averages 60,000 copies. Considering new readers, ie kids, don't have alot of mone/allowance to spend, I can only see the multitude of Batman titles as being discouraging to them.

I'm a Batman fan now, and even I don't know where to start when going to the comic shop. "Which comic is the MAIN one," I'm thinking. "I think Batman & Robin is the main one, because of Grant Morrison, but this issue is mostly about some red headed guy in prison and Thundercats. Maybe BATMAN is the one to buy, but if there's no Damien does that mean...What's this Batman: Arkham City? Is it in continuity?"

I'm an adult and I'm not going to be buying all these different Bat-titles each month just to get the whole story is not something I want to do. Even as a kid, I like to follow one or two titles every month, and once in a while try something new. I don't have the cash or the time to be buying and reading all these comics featuring the same character.

kgrogers1979

Its official. Babs is Batgirl again.

I think I am pretty much done with collecting comic books. As bad as a rep the 90s gets, I enjoyed that decade more than I have enjoyed this decade. Unless this reboot gets absolutely stellar reviews, I doubt if I will be buying any new comics any longer. I have thousands of comics from the 80s and 90s I can re-read whenever I get the itch to read comics.

Travis McClain

I look back on my heyday as a reader in the 90s, and while I don't regret delving into Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Star Trek and Star Wars comics, I do wish that those five things hadn't wiped out my entire budget--and that was after passing on quite a lot of annuals, one-shots, trade paperback collections, graphic novels, crossovers/guest appearances in other titles and mini-series. Had there not been one or more Batman and Superman comics a week, I would gladly have explored Bone and Strangers in Paradise while they were active titles. I loved The Tick animated series, but only recently bought my first Tick comics in large part because their $2.99 cover price at the time represented that week's Batman & Superman issues in my budget.

I guess my point would be that, while I appreciate some characters have much greater popularity than others, maybe it's a good thing for the industry not to allow a few characters to dominate the shelves. No one forced me to get into Batman or Superman, but because I did get into them, it was a sort of black hole of a commitment just to keep up with it because of the massive stories told across so many titles.

I mean, hell, at one time I was buying Batman, Batman: Shadow of the Bat, Catwoman, Detective Comics and Robin just to keep up with one storyline...and that was on top of The Batman Adventures (or whichever incarnation was in print at the time) and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (which, for a brief time, was also drawn into participating in the main story). By the time I had become exhausted with all the Bat-books, I had become so burned out that even when I quit buying those I just didn't even want to begin exploring Bone, Strangers in Paradise or The Tick or anything else and I just quit buying comics altogether until recently.

JasonF

iFanboy is compiling a definitive list of the titles/creative teams/covers that have been announced so far:

http://www.ifanboy.com/content/artic..._Comics_Reboot

boredsilly

To be fair, while there are a lot of Batman books, they aren't really reliant and dependent on each other. They seem to all tell their own stories, just featuring the same character, unless something like Return of Rhas Al Ghul or something comes along which ties the books together.

But I do hear what you're saying.

Timber

Damn it, the only thing that could get me to by a DC comic (and at this point any comic in general) is Jim Lee. I hate myself for being a Jim Lee fanboy.

I didn't read all 5 pages but this is obviously just a limited storyline and the numbering will go back when the story is done. See Heroes Reborn, see Age of Apocalypse.

fujishig

Maybe you should re-read the details...

Timber

I just did, I still don't see where it says it's a permanent change in numbering and or character history.

PhantomStranger

DC is being very cagey right now about the numbering issue, trying to ramp up fanboy angst to generate publicity. Action and Detective will definitely go back to the classic numbering at some point. I do think some of the character revamps will be permanent. Wally West fans better accept Barry Allen as the main Flash now, because certain characters are definitely getting less attention moving forward. Returning Barbara Gordon to the role of Batgirl is interesting, that seems a move largely dictated to get the mainstream understanding of the character in line with the comics.

FantasticVSDoom

I was excited about hearing the news of digital comics getting more of a push and thinking "Maybe Ill come back and stay back now." Then I read about Batgirl and decided "naw, same old shit..."

fujishig

They are canceling most current titles and relaunching with 52 #1 issues, proclaiming that most things are changing, including their most iconic characters, and declaring that this is the perfect jumping on point for new readers. They are doing this to get new readers, not to please the existing fanbase. It would be suicide for this to be a planned "Age of Apocalypse" type story with a definite end, and not say that in the beginning, because you're going to tick off the new readers, who aren't going to put up with the shenanigans.

I'm not saying that they won't do this eventually if sales tank and they realize it's better to have the old fogey readers than none at all (though I'm not sure all would come back), but I can't see this as part of the plan. They change Superman to an electrical entity, or they break Batman's back, sure, those are big events, but you know it'll go back to status quo. Do it Heroes Reborn style and keep the majority of the books in the "old" universe, sure, that'll go back eventually. But reboot a ton of characters and almost the entire line of comic books... how long did it take them to unwind Crisis (which I still think was a monumentally bad idea, and probably started all this)?

Timber

The old fogey is their audience and that's not going to change. It's an incredibly tight rope to walk when they they're trying to say to new readers that "look our characters are young and hip and you can even read the first issue" then put the classic version on screen. It's always going to go back to catering to the fogey's because they're the only ones that can put their minds around 5 different versions and origins of the same character.

And keep in mind that this is only a perfect jumping on point for one month. It's one of the reasons that all of the Marvel reboots always go back to normal along with the old numbering. How easy is Daredevil to jump on now? Captain America?

fujishig

As for the jumping on point, the difference here is day and date digital distribution. Missed issues 1-3? They're available online, and cheaper to boot. Hopefully they sell cheaper collections that digitally that are easy to get. That doesn't help the local comic store, but as discussed before, the LCS gets screwed here in more ways than one.

The problem with the old fogeys: you are alienating this readership with this move. You are basically telling them that all the stories they invested in for the past few months/years/whatever never happened, which is a tough sell for a community so invested in continuity. Granted, this happens all the time in comics, but this makes it blatantly obvious.

Now it may be true that we are sufficiently addicted to monthly comics that it doesn't matter how much you abuse us, we'll come back. But if you lose even a small fraction of the already small and diminishing audience and if you don't at least replace that same number with new readers, that's bad. Personally, this moves me to official wait-fot-the-trade mentality for DC and only if things get reviewed well. That may not make much difference in the bottom line for DC, but a lot of comics and characters I've loyally collected for years monthly will be dropped. So hopefully they use this opportunity to put out some awesome books.

madcougar

Completely agree. For the record, I think that this is a one year "stunt" myself and that next summer everything that didn't work goes away, everything that worked stays, and we get back some of the old stuff like Oracle.

My thoughts exactly. In my obvious-to-me-tounge-in-cheek post on page one I said that most existing fans would not be able to resist the new books. I stand by this assesment. Oh sure some folks will FINALLY quit, but the possible gains with new readers outweigh the losses. I for one am giving picking some of these up serious consideration and I stopped collecting 3 years ago.

I think DC and Marvel could put us over a barrel and abuse our nether regions and it would be OK with the average comic book fan. You would think that the price of these things would be enough to drive the hard-core collector away, but nope. I see people driving cars being kept together with duct tape buying hundreds of dollars worth of stuff at the comic book store. If the $3 didn't drive us all off, screwing with continuity isn't going to do it.

Honestly, as long as they keep most of the biggies (Supes is from Krypton, Bats parents were killed, and so on), most people won't care. How many times has a new writer taken a left turn with a character, only to see new writers basically throw that stuff in the lake when they take over? No revamp. No new number 1 issue. And yet that's OK with everyone.