DC

DC's September solicitations confirm the demise of Resurrection Man, decommissioning of Captain Atom, disbanding of Justice League International and leaves Voodoo VooDONE

There's some debate, at least in the comment sections, on whether or not DC is going to cut 4 books after announcing 4 new ones and keep their line at "The New 52." It looks like there will be at least 2 cuts. Captain Atom has joined Justice League International in the comic book afterlife.

Dan DiDio has frequently said that he wants to keep shaking up the "New 52." Cancel books that aren't working/selling. Add new ones. Keep the number of "New 52" titles at 52. If Dan hasn't changed his mind on that, announcing four new titles means four current titles have to go. We already know about Justice League International going away? Which books might be going away?

Old and new creators and reboots. That's what the "Next Four" of the DCU will present. Here's the creative lineup:

Four titles will end, and four will begin! What will they be? And what's a Zero Issue, anyway

The promised emergence of a Gay Green Lantern in the second issue of Earth 2 has been the big news for a couple weeks, except there's not actually a Green Lantern in this issue. Oh, hype machine, you were just a hair off-target. If you plan on reading the issue and haven't, spoiler space follows....

DC is making a bigger leap into the digital comics space... tomorrow (6/7/12). They're starting an original series of weekly Batman digital comics, titled "Legends of the Dark Knight." The $0.99 comics will be out of continuity adventures, with each issue debuting on Thursday. They aren't skimping on the creative teams, either.

Once a year, booksellers, librarians, and assorted biblios assemble at Book Expo America, the largest publishing trade show in North America. 2012 marks the tenth anniversary of the graphic novel pavilion at BEA, and while many graphic novel publishers are absent, there are many more "mainstream" publishers offering an amazing multitude of titles, genres, subjects, and audiences! This year, John Hogan of Graphic Novel Reporter hosts The Hottest Graphic Novels of 2012! panel, where a team of five diverse individuals recommend a variety of graphic novels due to be published in 2012! Last year's selections got lots of press and accolades, and quite a few of the titles below seem to be just as interesting and intriguing!

Houston, we're leveled out. It took seven months, but as of April 2012, it looks like DC's superhero line of comics, relaunched under the "New 52" banner in September, have mostly settled into what we love to call "standard attrition." The average "New 52" drop in April was 2.9%, which is a good number, at this stage. Thanks to a number of low-selling titles ending in March, the average sales figures for the publisher's comic books are slightly up on March, even. Overall, this means that the numbers are still significantly up on this time last year. The average DC Universe comic book sold an estimated 35,264 units in April 2012, for instance. The last time DC hit that point prior to September 2011 was in July 2010. Likewise, the total unit sales figures for the DC Universe imprint are the highest since October 2009. Total DC Universe dollar sales are actually lower than they were in August 2011, one month before the relaunch, but back then, the imprint had 80 titles on sale, to be fair -- in April 2012, it was 60.

Man the barricades! Release the militia! Marc-Oliver Frisch, the controversial number cruncher for DC comics, has taken a detailed look at DC periodical sales for the last 110 months. And he's armed with numerous charts and graphs, such as the above showing average monthly sales for DC and it's imprints going back to 2003. His takeaway? As you might have guessed, that the New 52 sales surge has resulted in only a modest increase in monthly sales.

It's big news that Green Lantern is now gay, but there appears to be a little (a lot?) of confusion in the general public over which Green Lantern is gay. For that matter, there seems to be some confusion in the general public over how many Green Lanterns there are. You might be getting questions about this from your friends who don't read comics and you may find this is a little more complicated to explain than you'd first thought. Don't worry, I'm here for you. This is what you need to explain (or just point them here).

In recent weeks, we've been seeing the exclusivity monster poke it's head up on the digital platform. Marvel's exclusive with Comixology. Valiant is exclusive with Comixology. DC might as well be exclusive with Comixology. But, for the most part, there appears to be a catch: the digital exclusives seem to be just for the monthly editions. Single issues if you prefer.