DC

In the 4th "New 52" writer shuffle of the week, DC has announced Gregg Hurwitz as the new writer for Batman: The Dark Knight, as of issue #10. I suspect they really mean co-writer on that, as I'm under the impression artist David Finch, for whom the title was created pre-relaunch, has a pretty good amount of input on the plot.

Oh, we all knew the Watchmen sequel was coming. The art leaked and DC's lawyers went wild -- unusual enough to know something was close to an announcement. Then the last round of announced reprint books included The Art of Amanda Conner (some of her art was in that leaked batch) and a HC reprint of Dave Gibbons' Green Lantern work (more on that in bit) made it clear an announcement was imminent. What do we get with the actual announcement? Comedy. And more comedy from the PR than from the reactions, if you ask me.

Whether you think the original WATCHMEN is akin to Moby Dick—as Alan Moore opined—or the Bible, as J. Michael Straczynski thought, it is definitely something—DC's bestselling graphic novel of all time[*], a beloved classic taught in schools, one of Time's Best 100 novels of the last 100 years, the book that defined grim and gritty. You name it. Like all great works, it's multifaceted. So doing a "Scarlet" on it brings up every argument over whether comics are literature or licensing. You wouldn't get much argument that Watchmen is literature and Moore is a literary figure. But there's also the obsessive need of devotees to get MORE -- there's a reason why 12 volumes of the J.R.R. Tolkien's jumbled, confused notes and scribblings were published as hardcover books. Once you enter a beloved fictional world you don't want to leave -- even if your hosts are yawning and looking longingly at their pajamas.

Over at his blog, Adam Hughes has posted his thoughts on drawing Dr. Manhattan for BEFORE WATCHMEN:

After years of rumors, DC has confirmed that they will publish BEFORE WATCHMEN, a series of seven interconnected prequels to the Alan Moore/Dave GIbbons classic. As absurd as the idea may seem on the surface, they have rounded up a bunch of A-listers for the project which will consist of six mini series, a wrap-up and an ongoing pirate-themed "featurette". Here's the line-up:

We've mentioned a few times here a lawsuit for copyright infringement by DC against an outfit called Gotham Garage, which sells replica Batmobiles—based on the '60s Batman TV show in particular—as well as other vehicles based on famed fantasy cars, like the Mach Five. If you were thinking of buying one, better hurry, because a judge has ruled that the Batmobile is subject to copyright.

You knew you couldn't go much more than two weeks without DC shuffling creative teams on the not-as-new 52. This time, it really is more of a shuffle than wholesale replacements, though, as three books get a new writer and DC's announcing things a little further out.

DC has released it's book schedule for Vertigo for the fall, including two originals, one yet to be announced -- THE PRINCE OF CATS by Ron Wimberly. Judging by his tumblr for the project, it an updated take on Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET starring Tybalt.

DC has released their non-New 52 collections list for September-November and it's chock full of goodies, including, at long last, a Collected Amethyst of Gemworld, which, as Kevin Melrose reports, is something people have been asking for for a long time. We're Amethyst fans from way back in the day (we even owned a piece of Ernie Colon original art form the series once, before it was destroyed in a fire. =( ) Blogger TangognaT has a longer run down of the series, an occidental take on shojo manga before anyone even knew what that was—and also a fairly typical example of the kind of books Karen Berger edited before she got to launch Vertigo. Lots more at TangognaT's blog, where she has been keeping track of Amethyst stuff for several years.

Sales of the "New 52" books show no sign of stabilization, four issues into DC's big relaunch. The average "New 52" title dropped by 17.4% in December, versus 19.6% in November and 5.2% in October. The only "New 52" titles with single-digit drops in December are Aquaman (6.0%), Teen Titans (9.6%) and Batman: The Dark Knight (9.7%). The three "New 52" titles with the biggest fourth-issue drops are Static Shock (28.2%), Mister Terrific (29.0%) and Men of War (30.0%). Overall, there are 18 "New 52" titles with drops in excess of 20% in December, down from 22 in November. The lack of re-orders on the chart also suggests that the sheen is off the "New 52." Whereas 51 of the debut issues made the chart again in October, only two of the second issues charted again in November. In December, none of the third issues made the chart again. The average drop-off in first-month sales since issue #1 for the "New 52" books is 36.4%, as of December. The three titles with the smallest overall drop-off are Animal Man (7.4%), Detective Comics (13.5%) and Nightwing (17.6%). The three titles with the largest overall drop-off are Blackhawks (58.0%), Mister Terrific (56.7%) and Men of War (55.6%). Only 7 of the "New 52" titles display an overall drop-off of less than 20%, while 9 of them have already lost more than 50% of their debut first-month sales.

All week DC Women Kicking Ass has been running polls to pick the favorite artists on various DCU heroines, such as Wonder Woman and Batgirl. It's fun to see the great artists who have drawn these characters over the years. It is also fun to observe how community standards have changed with regards to superheroines. Take Black Canary. It's a pretty safe assumption that even when the character was created by Carmine Infantino and Robert Kanigher in 1947, a woman in fishnet tights was assumed to be hot stuff. However, first general prudishness, and later the Comics Code, kept her sort of modest. In recent years, she's been unchained.

Ending some speculation, DC released an updated schedule for New 52 collections, and even the red shirt six titles that already joined the hall of heroes WILL be collected in their entirety -- all eight issues of Omac, Static Shock, etc, will be collected. Nice move there, actually.