Dan DiDio has left DC

[thunderbolt]

RUmor floating about that Disney wants to buy the publishing arm of DC. WB is holding onto the movie rights. Looks like the actual comic company might be on the block.

[MRP]

Hoping Jim Lee gets the job myself.

Well he has the job until WB decides to do something different, as he was already co-publisher, and with Didio's removal, he is sole publisher until WB/AT&T makes another move, if they do.

-M

[The Bat]

Hoping Jim Lee gets the job myself.

[thunderbolt]

I wouldn't give Van Sciver the time of day. He's deplorable.

Chris

nevermind it took me all of two minutes to figure out he's one of those guys.

[hedrap]

What a lot of media-finance people have known for the past year: the merger with ATT was a bad move because of the debt accrued. One of the main VC firms has been calling for ATTWB to shed divisions that are money-losses. DC, like Marvel, have been that for 20+ years now. This is exactly what Van Sciver has been talking about. It's not bts gossip. It's been front and center for some time, and EVS has been a proponent of DiDio from the start.

Like Art pointed out, Didio is not a bad guy. Ironically, Art's avenue is exactly the direction DC needed to head as the larger kids market were taking hold of his work and other non-traditional DC material. But it seems like the direct market has been the tail wagging the dog, and they do not cater to anyone outside dedicated.

I don't know how many fields we have to see go the same path of death by drill-down. It has to be the single worse business and marketing decision of our generation and it's laying waste to everything we grew up with. For those that don't know the philosophy: an industry combs through it's demo and finds the most dedicated cluster niche. They "drill down" into that group to get every disposable dollar possible while forgoing the broader audience. In TV, people who believe in broadcasting call it narrow-casting, because it narrows the net. It gained mass popularity as a marketing tactic from the 2004 elections and was adopted across multiple industries. It's computer metrics gone insane.

Pro Wrestling is the ultimate example. They're down to 3 million total industry viewers, when a decade ago, they were over 6 million. They keep catering to a more and more insular group to the point where WWE is going to start selling parts of it network because they tapped the entire hardcore base and found it's too small to sustain anything. The action figure market has been on the same trajectory. The proponents like to blame market diversification, (streaming and gaming mainly), but there's enough raw data now to show that's sophistry. If you're a small business, it makes sense as you need to build an audience, but if you're a big company, it's an excuse to not fight for a larger share.

That's the real shame with DC. They had the path with Art's Aw Yeah, DC Superhero Girls and the Cartoon Network stuff. They had the outlet with Wal-Mart and libraries. Instead of betting heavy on that, DiDio went deep into DC arcana, reboots, and insane Tom King storylines. Whose the audience for PTSD Speedy? I haven't bought a monthy for myself in years. Why would I start with that?

Watch what happens if WB moves forward with DC Super Pets. It's going to do better business on all DC fronts than anything else DCWB has put out.

[jacoblb]

I don't know Dan at all but it seemed like he was a rather polarizing personality within the company. Although it's been expressed his termination was due to many editors recently leaving the company it seems like he had a lot more of that than meets the eye. I guess corporate could care less when freelancers were putting up with crap, but when it came to editors in the company charged with getting books out that crap hit the fan.

As with most things there's good and bad with his tenure in the company. I respected how he pushed things in ways I wouldn't have. I personally still think New 52 was a huge mistake, but it was successful so I'd be wrong. I call it New 50 ew. (I only liked Wonder Wonder's new origin.) While I didn't like all the DC titles before New 52 I thought Geoff Johns, among others, were doing tremendous work.

I seem to recall reading an interview from Mark Waid explaining his experience with the weekly series 52 that put Dan in bad light. (If you're reading this Mark, hello! big fan.) Plus, there was that Me Too type thing that Bleeding Cool reported Dan was having an affair with Jan Jones. What about the HR fumbling of how Brian Wood and Eddie Berganza's sexual misconduct continued, wasn't Dan around while all that was going on as well?

Paul Levitz's push from DC seemed, as an outsider like me, as if there was DC office power-trip ankle biting going on that had less to do with corporate WB higher ups not liking how Paul ran things and more about maybe one person trying to undermine another? Plenty of other creators have expressed poor opinions about Dan too like Chuck Dixon. I think Dixon had written he couldn't get work at DC because of Dan. Wasn't there some altercation with (R.I.P) Darwyn Cooke and Dan Didio too?

While I'm not personally buying comics much these days I really like some of the DC books I am borrowing from the public library whereas most of the Marvel books, save for ones by certain exclusive creators are terrible. With some exceptions I think the talent pool was overtaken on the DC side.

I've loved everything Bendis has done and I've not liked Superman comics as much since Rucka was writing the title monthly.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Here are some DC Comics by Famous Cartoonist ART BALTAZAR...

Tiny Titans
Tiny Titans / Little Archie
Ambush Bug
Green Lantern Animated Adventures
Superman Family Adventures
Green Team
Super Powers
Superman Of Smallville
ArkhaManiacs

All the above comics were approved by Mr. DiDio.
He let me have SUPERMAN!!!
He made my career.

I am a big fan of Dan and I am proud to call him my friend.
He will bounce back. He's a brilliant and passionate man.

Looking forward to the future.

AW YEAH.

See, this is why, despite my objections to the direction DiDio took DC at times, I can't completely fault the guy. And I'm just armchair quarterbacking. You were there, Art. And my family loves your work, so kudos to Mr. DiDio for giving you a chance to share your work with the world. We are certainly better for it!

Chris

[Earth 2 Chris]

I wouldn't give Van Sciver the time of day. He's deplorable.

Chris

[B-Lister]

Interesting thoughts on this from one of DC's former creatives, Ethan Van Sciver:

https://youtu.be/yJsigdXmtls

https://youtu.be/y5v8NsqZsio

I wouldn't put much stock in what he has to say these days. He's gone quite loopy off the deep end with the comicsgate crap.

He's a fantastic example of squandered talent.

[Mego Milk]

Here are some DC Comics by Famous Cartoonist ART BALTAZAR...

Tiny Titans
Tiny Titans / Little Archie
Ambush Bug
Green Lantern Animated Adventures
Superman Family Adventures
Green Team
Super Powers
Superman Of Smallville
ArkhaManiacs

All the above comics were approved by Mr. DiDio.
He let me have SUPERMAN!!!
He made my career.

I am a big fan of Dan and I am proud to call him my friend.
He will bounce back. He's a brilliant and passionate man.

Looking forward to the future.

AW YEAH.

[Blue Meanie]

I'd LOVE!!!! to see Jim Shooter take over at DC. I think he is EXACTLY what DC needs. Good old kick in the you know what's. But knowing the way things are today...nobody wants to pay someone like Shooter and nobody wants to actually listen to someone who knows what the hell he is doing when it comes to comic books. What is the old saying...Fake it until you make it. Except DC may be done. I'm a DC reader and collector and have been since I was about 7 years old (50 now) and I have NEVER seen them this messed up as to what to do to right the ship. Very sad situation right now.

[B-Lister]

He drove me away from DC. Gonna take a lot to bring me back.

[PNGwynne]

I can't take 2 hours and 18 minutes of Scriver.

[knight errant00]

Interesting thoughts on this from one of DC's former creatives, Ethan Van Sciver:

https://youtu.be/yJsigdXmtls

https://youtu.be/y5v8NsqZsio

[thunderbolt]

wasn't it announced that JJ Abrams was in charge of the movie universe going forward?

Yeah along with James Gunn, which would be great to see a whole universe thru Gunn