DC

by Mark-Oliver Frisch -- Three months into the wholesale makeover of DC's line of superhero comic books, the direct-market numbers suggest three main things: One, the "New 52" relaunch was extremely successful at mobilizing comics specialty retailers; two, this success doesn't seem to be affecting, for good or ill, any other comics beyond the initial 52 titles; and three, the number of new comics readers the "New 52" has brought into comics stores seems negligible, overall. Retailers continued to adjust their orders for the "New 52" titles in November, and this time, the downward correction was more noticeable. On average, sales of new DC comic books dropped by nearly 10,000 units or 19.2% in November, versus 10.4% in October. The average drop on the third issues of the 52 new superhero titles was 18.8%, versus 5.2% for the second issues. Animal Man (-8.0%) and Detective Comics (-9.7%) were the "New 52" books with the smallest drops in November, while Blackhawks (-29.5%), Mister Terrific (-29.7%), Blue Beetle (-29.9%) and Captain Atom (-30.0%) were at the tail end of the spectrum. In contrast to October, when all but one of the "New 52" debut issues made the chart again with significant re-orders, only two of the #3 issues -- namely Batman and Aquaman -- charted again in November. On balance, the drop-off on those titles is still better than average. The fact that the larger drop came in November and the lack of more #2 re-orders both suggest that customer interest in the "New 52" peaked early, however.

The first four pages of ACTION #5 by Grant Morrison, Andy Kubert, and Jesse Delperdang has just been previewed at Geek Dad and Underwire and not only does it present the new origin for Superman, as he's rocketed to earth by his parents, but we learn why the new DCU will not have a happy, yappy dog in a cape flying around -- instead there's a "Ghost Krypto". Oh, Grant Morrison, how could you?

Stopping digital piracy has become a full-time obsession for most major entertainment companies; but the Stop Online Piracy Act now wending its way through Congress is probably not the way to do it -- a far too broad law that would give lawmakers powers to stop just about any activity they don't like via cutting off funding to the site and other zero tolerance measures. Although aimed at hard-to-stop foreign websites that recognize no copyright laws, opponents say the bill goes way too far in allowing copyright holders to choke off stuff they don't want with an arsenal of tools.

From 1958's SUPERMAN'S GIRL FRIEND, LOIS LANE #5 Can you imagine what would have happened if the Internet existed in 1958? Perhaps people like Mort Weisinger could not exist in a wired world. Julie Schwartz would probably have been running a website and playing Halo.

Today, the final issue (#72) of DMZ shipped. With a quiet epilogue, a series that started as a love letter to New York City ended as a love letter to New York City. This time, a bit more literally as the narrative was driven by excerpts from protagonist Matty Roth's prison-penned book.

Wow those WATCHMEN 2 leaks are getting better and better. On Christmas Day, Bleeding Cool posted some WATCHMEN 2 artwork -- a Nite Owl pin-up by Joe and Andy Kubert and a Comedian pin-up by JG Jones.

Amazon has the deets on GET JIRO!, the graphic novel brainstormed by master chef Anthony Bourdain, co-written with Joel Rose and drawn by Langdon Foss. it sounds a little like our dream of an American version of IRON WOK JAN has finally come true.

With the March (issue 7) solicitations out, we have a little better idea of what the first round of changes for the New 52/DCnU are. Some of these departures are thought to be the writer choosing to leave (Simone, Brandon) and some appear to be the writer getting the quick hook (Cornell, Gates). When these change decisions were made, there has been history of collected edition sale and it may be a little early to judge digital sales. (Do we know what happens to sales when the titles drop to $1.99? This is new enough, you'd really like to see more than 2-3 months of digital sales before trusting it.)

These are being removed left and right -- but luckily the trailer will be officially released on Tuesday. Until then we'll have to make do with these handheld versions.

Marc-Oliver can tell you how the actual sales levels of the DC relaunch are, but let's take a look at a slightly different metric: how do the relative popularity of the "New 52" compare to the way that retailers initially ordered them? With November's sales estimates, we see orders where the retailers had a chance to see how the #1's moved and potentially the #2's in some cases, before the cutoff dates for adjusting orders.

Scottish novelist/playwright Denise Mina has been chosen to adapt the Millennium Trilogy into comics, it was revealed in The Scotsman. Known as a purveyor of "Tartan Noir," Mina already has solid comics cred, having written a year's worth of HELLBLAZER and A SICKNESS IN THE FAMILY for the Vertigo Crime line. The GN adaptations of Stieg Larsson's hugely successful books, starring investigator/hacker Lisbeth Salander, were announced back in October -- to be published by DC's Vertigo imprint -- but no further details have been released. The first book in the comics adaptation will be out in March -- each novel will be split into two GNs for a total of six books.

Ever since the New 52's flagship book -- Geoff Johns and Jim Lee's JUSTICE LEAGUE -- was announced people have been sniggeringly wondering when it would miss shipping because of Lee's lateness. Well, haters, they just aren't going to let that happen: Gene Ha has been announced for JUSTICE LEAGUE #7 -- as excellent a fill-in artist as you could find. Message: DC is serious about shipping on time.