About DC being upset that Final Crisis was #2 to Secret Invasion. I’ve heard by about 40,000 copies. It wasn’t that long ago that if DC comic hit #2 in the listings at only 40,000 copies less than the Marvel comic in the #1 slot, DC management would have sent out for champagne, strippers and 8 foot cakes. It might not have beaten Secret Invasion, but it did beat everything else Marvel published and Secret Invasion wasn’t launched coming off Countdown. So all things considered Final Crisis hardly counts as a failure.

Nobody likes to get bad reviews, but DC’s no stranger to them and as far as I know usually doesn’t make decisions based on them.

People seem to think that because we’re politically diametric Chuck and I hate each other, but as far as I know that’s not true, and I think Chuck’s a pretty good writer. There’s no doubt he deservedly has his fans. I don’t know that he’s any more a “fan favorite” writer than, oh, Joe Casey is. I don’t know that Chuck’s name on its own merit sells books any better than mine does. That’s the mark of a “fan favorite”; someone whose NAME ALONE sells books. You know, like Frank Miller. Are there any real fan favorites these days, people whose names alone sell books? (Selling to one’s own fanbase doesn’t count unless that fanbase is big enough to buy lots and lots of copies.) I don’t pretend to be privy to why Chuck has all his DC assignments pulled but unless he was advocating the assassination of foreign dignitaries or American government officials or something along those lines I wouldn’t think politics would play any part in it. But, y’know, in the realm of work-for-hire comics, abrupt replacement of the talent happens. Hazard of the trade.

As for Jimmy… again, I like Jimmy and his work just fine. But what makes anyone think Jimmy, who’s a freelancer, would be “next in line” for anything anywhere? Why would anyone even think that if DC decided to replace Dan – which is still a pretty big If – it wouldn’t go outside the comics business again? One of Dan’s pluses as far as DC was concerned was his experience in other media and businesses, and never forget that DC views itself as a media company these days, just as Marvel does. If we’re measuring Dan’s “failure” against Marvel, pretty much no head of editorial in the last 35 years has done anything but fail by that measure. If we measure Dan’s “failure” by how angry DC readers have been about the material, failure by that standard has been familiar to DC going back at least 30 years. DC has mostly been in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t situation re: their readers for ages, since DC readers in particular tend to react badly to change, but if DC doesn’t do stories that “will change ____________ forEVer” they get lambasted as stagnant and retrograde, and get ignored by a wider audience. Which isn’t denying that coordination between Final Crisis and its many pre-series (some of which even contradicted each other) couldn’t have been a lot better — I’ve commented on this in my column – but a prevalent attitude at a lot of comics companies is now to shrug off complaints like that from the hardcore comics fans because if they weren’t complaining about “that” they’d find something else to complain about. While I think that attitude’s a bit on the stupid side, I wouldn’t say it’s unjustified. The core fans tend to feel a sense of entitlement because they’re the ones keeping the ship afloat, without acknowledging that they aren’t of sufficient mass, and within their own ranks no single taste is universal enough, to keep the ship afloat. If those factors were in play, it would be a different matter.

At any rate, entertaining as all this low-rent hysteria is, it’s a bit presumptive…

- Grant

After adjusting for inflation and higher costs (better page rates, incentive payments, etc) I suspect super-hero comics are less profitable than ever.

DC and Marvel are making much more from licensing (toys, movies, etc), though.

LL

Oh, those and “How soon is now?” So 3 Smiths songs.”

That second song is called “I Know It’s Over”

Truly, now Dan Didio knows how Joan of Arc felt… as the flames rose to her roman nose and her CGC-graded copy of INFINITE CRISIS #1 started to melt.

1969 – 372K @ $0.12 = $44,640
1989 – 261K @ $1.00 = $261,000
2005 – 112K @ $2.50 = $280,000

Tv Ratings are down and they continued to get worst.

CD Albums sales are down and they continued to get worst.

The problem is that ALL old Media is dying. While everything connected to internet and digital is rising. It’s a new generation and new generation what’s new things.

On a related note, I don’t think Chuck should be burned at the stake for his comments. Heck, even Morrison’s been badmouthing DC editorial. How the hell do you have continuity errors between Countdown to Final Crisis and Final Crisis? He gave them the first script a year in advance to avoid that. DC editorial seems to be run by a bunch of monkeys with ADD tossing around typewriters.

Also, most of the giant superhero/gaming shops (however well-lit or friendly) that I have been in recently shelve virtually nothing outside the long underwear genre.
And what little they do carry outside that genre is generally downplayed, stuck off to the side where it will likely go unnoticed by the average, curious visitor.
Again, it’s preaching to the choir. And the choir is dying off. The sales figures on superhero material (the so-called “mainstream”) tell a tale that simply can’t be refuted: Fewer and fewer comics are selling. Circulations on virtually every DC and Marvel title are less than half what they were just 15 years ago. Amazing Spider-man sold 372K in 1969; 261K in 1989 and a whopping 112K in 2005. That’s a drop of over 70% since 1969, and that was before the direct market even existed.
I don’t believe superhero comics are doomed. But comic shops that cater only to superhero fans probably are.
I believe people will always love comics and that comics will always be around in one form or another. But the Direct Market Titanic we’re all sailing on simply can’t endure if the downward sales trend continues.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=16836

…and the result is a shellacking. Not only did SI #2 sell better than FC #1, it sold over 25% better. I believe the word is “ouch.”