The News Blog of Comics Culture
Meanwhile, DC fought back with it’s OWN multi-reality spanning war that will feature all of its realities battling in a Brainiac-created wasteland. Convergence, by Jeff King, Carlo Pagulayan, Stephen Segovia and Ethan Van Sciver debuts in April. On Monday, we debuted a beautiful illustration of Convergence’s villain, Telos, drawn by Carlo Pagulayan and Jose Marzan, […]
More and more job openings at DC Entertainment are being listed at the WB web site, and where once a Joe Orlando just barked at people that Superman’s tights were blue, now it takes a village of VPs to keep the content properly strategized. Take this job, VP, Content Strategy, who works with
the Co-Publishers (Lee and DiDio), the SVP, Editorial Strategy & Administration (a person not publicly announced, I believe), Franchise Management, Business Development, and Sales. He or she will be a busy bee indeed.
Acknowledging that moving cross country and restaffing an editorial department might be distracting for its staff, DC officially announced it’s two month fill-in event today, CONVERGENCE. The event will replace the New 52 line-up for two months, April and May of 2015, with a framing 9-issue mini-series, starting with a zero issue, and spinning into 40 two part mini series. Promo art by Carlos Paguayan and Jose Marzan Jr.
The event has been rumored for quite a while, and I’m told it was hatched back in the spring as a way to ease the transition as DC personnel make the move from NYC to Burbank in April 2015. The event was originally run by Tom DeFalco but he moved on and was replaced by ex-Marvel/Teshkeel editor Marie Javins, who worked closely with Dan Didio on the event.
The event was announced this morning in USA Today. The whole event is being overseen by TV’s Jeff King, (White Collar, Continuum, Stargate SG-1) with Carlo Pagulayan and Stephen Segovia on art on the framing mini, and Dan Jurgens and Scott Lobdell helping oversee things. The 40 two-issues minis will feature a wide variety of writers and artists.
Feeling a little overwhelmed by the vast movie slates announced by Sony, Marvel and WB? So are we, but here’s a chart helpfully put together by our own Tireless Torsten Adair and edited by the Beat that shows 58 superhero, comic book, cartoon, Star Wars and Harry POtter movies between now and the next US Census.
DC All Access is a webizode or whatever they call it, that has weekly features on DC comics and movies. It has hitherto featured two perky hosts, but evidently they need a new one, and IT COULD BE YOU as explained in the video below.
Any one can be considered for this role — and here’s how to showcase your brilliance:
I imagine that every sentence of this ICv2 interview with DC Comics co-publishers Dan Didio and Jim Lee will be gone over with a fine tooth comb. I think it’s the first time the two have sat down for a somewhat frank interview in six months at least. And what a six months it has been! Certainly, from the scrum of New York Comic Con, the essential public personas come out, Lee, the glass half full cheerleader, DiDio, the without me the glass would break authority figure. Lee addresses the new demographics with a shout out to Batman editor, Mark Doyle, whose future—at DC in Burbank or leaving the company— is still very much up in the air:
It’s been a while (5 years) since we looked at Diamond’s monthly backlist chart, and now, as then, it reveals a VERY DIFFERENT ranking for publishers. In the backlist, DC is king by a wide margin, with about 30% of the market. Marvel is only a tich above Image in units, while Image books dominate the top ten with Saga, Walking Dead, and Sex Criminals. On the manga side, Attack on Titan rules, no surprise given the way it’s single handedly revitalized the category.
Well, as everyone was saying at New York Comic-Con, the last days of DC in New York are dwindling down to months, and expect a TON of jobs to start opening up in Burbank — although I’m also told that some of the contract folks already in place in Burbank are not being renewed, especially in the digital realm.
But there are some pretty sweet jobs opening up!
September is Big Event month at DC Comics, and they crushed it this September as they usually do with their super lenticular covered Future’s End event which saw stand-alone stories set five years in the future of the DCU. These “random future” events usually disappoint me as I expect to see the Flash living with is brother in law and their two kids, and Poison Ivy running a plant shop, but then, that’s me. Anyway, Multiversity talked to a bunch of retailers about how the event did compared to last year’s Villain’s month which was allocated and ignited a frenzy as they say. Most retailers I’ve talked to say it was okay but not great and the Multiversity survey yielded similar thoughts. It is a sad time when a Batman butt selfie only does okay but these are the times we live in.
Over the weekend at the Long Beach Comic Con, Tamara Brooks found some officially licensed DC t-shirts that gave messages that were a bit outmoded, to say the least. Tom Spurgeon quickly labeled them “repulsive,” and everyone else was all like reducing Wonder Woman to a victory level on a sex video game, really? Well, […]
On December 8th, UFC 181 will take place withThe cover unveiled will be used ahead of UFC 181 as the promotion teams up with DC Comics for the special poster for the event that takes place on December 6 from Las Vegas with Anthony Pettis facing Gilbert Melendez for the LIghtweight championship and welterweight champion […]
It’s month three of DC’s new variant cover ordering scheme, where retailers can order as many of the month’s themed variant covers as they want at the regular price. As previously suspected, the Selfie variants do not attract as many additional orders as the Bombshell or Batman 75th variants did. It’s hard to tell if that is because of a perceived lack of interest in the covers, or an adjustment based on the previous months, or a combination of factors. Next month DC will have round two of the 3D motion covers, hoping to recapture some of the magic of last year’s 3D cover stunt.
This was a down month for DC. Several of their top sellers did not ship in August: Justice League, Superman Unchained and Sandman Overture. Vertigo sales are particularly moribund: the average Vertigo sales of 9,082 per title is the second lowest since Diamond started reporting actual sales back in 2003. (The lowest month was November 2010, at 9,034.) With The Wake over and Sandman Overture shipping sporadically, Vertigo’s top seller this month is short-timer Fables.
As noted in my Baltimore Comic-Con report for Publishers Weekly, one of the programming highlights was a two hour “The LAst Fables Panel” which united Bill Willingham, Mark BUckingham, Steve Leialoha, Todd Klein, Andrew Pepoy, Barry Kitson and special guests for a last look at the beloved comic. Klein, the logo letterer, has a fine […]
Here’s a real picture of the #Batmobile. http://t.co/47beaZqr6f pic.twitter.com/Ez1ILa8JeE — ZackSnyder (@ZackSnyder) September 11, 2014 Director Zack Snyder tweeted the new Batmobile from Batman V Superman last night. He lated added a photo credit: Photo Credit @ClayEnos RT: iPhone photography is great but some things deserve more. (Nikon D800 ISO 500 24mm f/11 1/25th sec) […]
A report at Latino Review suggests that the Legion of Superheroes, DC’s long running cult comics about a futuristic group of space faring 31st century teenagers, created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino, is being developed for a film at Warner Brothers: According to sources, Warners is quietly sending out the DC comic book […]
Here’s a scene you might not see in the upcoming Superman vs. Batman film. Amy Adams and Henry Cavill accepted the ALS Ice Bucket challenge in full wardrobe on the set of the Man of Steel sequel. Adams challenged all the siblings names she could remember. I don’t want to ruin the end for you, but I […]
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