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From around the Twitterverse, an array of reactions to DC’s news that they are rebooting their line in September and going to simultaneous digital release. New comics universes are a dime a dozen, but the digital news is really a game changer — it’s hard not to see every other publisher following suit quickly.

The next big announcement for this move would seem to be June 11, when Jim Lee and Geoff Johns are expected to “drop bombshells” at the Hero Complex Film Festival. Although HeroesCon, one of the bigger shows on the circuit, is this weekend, there are no official DC panels so no big announcements. Executive Editor Eddie Berganza is attending, however, so catch him on the bar and hope he didn’t sign an NDA.

Anyway, here’s some of the virtual bar talk:

Andy Diggle:

So is DCU continuity finally going to stop exploding? It’s been a while.

@andydiggle Yeah, is this is the end of constant events?

Call me silly but I don’t think the reason readers aren’t buying DC books is their issue numbers and lack of V-necks. I can’t help but think that DC is essentially rolling out New Coke. They’re admitting defeat and committing brand suicide.

The beginning of the end of what we once called “comics.”

The functional problem with reboots: If you don’t go all the way to the beggining, you’re not REALLY rebooting……you’re just rewinding to an arbitrary point. Has Batman met Two Face? Catwoman? If so, then it’s not REALLY a reboot. It’s just a dis to the writers and artists of the past few years. If you DO go all the way back to the beggining, like the Ultimate U, THEN it’s a real reboot, BUT…… Then it could very easily turn into a much different story with much different characters than what people used to like.(The Ultimate line was full of that problem)

I haven’t been this excited since they announced morrison and lee were relaunching wildcats!! :)

Former DC digital VP , whose last day was today:

Glad to see DC going day & date w/entire line. Digital publishing is critical at this point. To treat it as a second hit is to undermine it.

Retailer Chris Butcher sounds a very cautionary note.

Every one of the Marvel day-and-date digital comics releases sells fewer copies than comperable, non-day-and-date titles. Worrying trend.

Rob Liefeld

Bottom line, I don’t/won’t bet against @jimlee00 or @GeoffJohns0 not a good idea.

And finally, from the LA Times’ Geoff Boucher, who is hosting the Lee/Johns bombshell sesssion, a quip:

If DC wanted to real shock me, they’d restart all their titles but start at No. 2.

Also, on the digital topic, some analysis from Todd Allen:

Will this only be the superhero titles? What about Vertigo titles or non-superhero titles like Jonah Hex?
What price will these same-day releases be? The seemingly standard $1.99? The print cover price of $2.99? A premium of $3.99? If the price is higher than $1.99, will it eventually go down?

When you look at Vertigo, those titles have traditionally made their money in world of trade paperback collected editions, so digital may not be the priority. Ironically, Vertigo titles might have more appeal to the casual reader many super hero titles. However, when they make a point of calling out “superhero” titles, you get the feeling that’s the only thing that’s going for the “day and date” (simultaneous digital and print) release.

53 COMMENTS

  1. The best comic shops I visit seem to have really boosted their trade selection which I see as a way of preparing for a world of digital issues.

    Creatively, it’s a “real” reboot even if they don’t start with origin issues. Eventually you’ll learn about any new origins or new versions of villains that the hero has already met. Feh. This is like talking time travel.

    If you watch a cop drama, it doesn’t start on the day the headquarters opened. You pick up the history of the characters on the fly. A new universe could be handled the same way.

  2. It is not shocking that a comic publisher would publish online at the same time that they release print books. Book stores are closing down. Kindle sales are through the roof. Print is not dead; it’s just in a state of flux.

  3. The comic store is in it’s last death throws…and good riddance…I find it funny that Chris Butcher (the Beguiling) who runs a lauded but super unfriendly store is worried…you know what…good!…I can buy every trade for 30% less on Amazon and not have to deal with snarky salespeople!

    The comic stores killed themselves with dark/dingy/unfriendly stores that never once did a decent job trying to get in new customers…digital is the only way forward…

  4. And yet nearly every single person contributing to the decisions announced today became wealthy on the backs of those unfriendly, horrible stores.

    Please don’t “death throw” me for saying so.

  5. The comic store of the 21st century is a very friendly and inviting environment. Comic shops can still very much stay in business as long as they keep it fun and exciting and don’t just sit behind a counter expecting to make money. There is a renaissance of great comic shops and I am proud to own one of them.

    With that said, I am not surprised but disappointed that DC decided to go this route. Tom hits it on the head, once again comic publishers show how they don’t care about the people who have allowed them to survive for so many years. The people that love comics and get excited to actually sell someone on a great story are being kicked to the curb.

  6. The shop I manage is doing fine and none of the day-and-date experiments of the last year have hurt sales. In fact sales are UP from the previous year.

    That said, retailers need to stay smart and adapt, and they should always be looking for ways to improve. As Tiger Jones notes, it’s very possible for comic shops to flourish right now.

  7. @Tom Spurgeon

    I disagree with that notion. The people making decisions at DC today got wealthy because comic book readers wanted their stories. I don’t think it was important to readers where they bought their books, just that they could buy the books. People are comic book fans. Not comic book store fans.

    The truth is that as creators, we can not allow the nostalgia of our histories with the direct market to prevent us from moving our businesses forward. It’s hard to make a living as a storyteller. Thank god we get to at all.

    I don’t think it’s fair for you to lay some kind of guilt trip on anyone for moving forward. That’s just how life works. It’s not fair. But it’s no more Jim and Geoff’s fault than the retailers themselves.

  8. That’s funny, as a B&M retailer, I’ve been sitting here all day thinking about how many ways this is going to make me a ton of money. Gotta love the “ZOMG COMIC STORES ARE GONNA DIE” that seems to follow every post in this blog. My sell-through on single issues has been going up and up, all year long. This is gonna be a great summer/fall for retailers of *all* kinds.

  9. I’m not trying to lay a guilt trip on anyone, Scott. I was responding to the implied glee of the previous message that these people might take a financial hit and deserve to do so.

    As for your note generally, I disagree strongly with its sweeping assumptions. I’m a fan of music and of great radio stations. I’m a fan of movies and of great cinemas. I’m a fan of prose and bookstores. I’m a fan of comics and comic book stores. AND I’m a fan of all of those things and the things on the Internet that have supplanted the physical things I liked. To deny that they have value just seems willfully naive to me, and to suggest these things go away because of the inevitability of the future as opposed to good old fashioned predatory capitalism wearing that slogan as a t-shirt seems to me doubly so.

    I’m all for moving forward. I make the vast majority of my living on-line and have since 1998. I co-founded the first on-line comics magazine effort and the first industry stand-alone messageboard. I’ve called for day and date programs at all comics companies for a half-decade now.

    But there’s a difference between moving forward to engage and embrace the future and moving forward for moving forward’s sake. I refuse to believe in a future that potentially encompasses fewer choices just because someone finds specific advantage in that, or one that comes without some sober, real-world recognition of the costs involved in making specific choices as to how we proceed. And I’m certainly not for someone taking satisfaction in someone else’s misfortune.

    And hey, if these people don’t matter, no guilt trip is possible, right?

    Hope you’re well.

  10. @comicsreporter

    And comic book stores got paid on the backs of everyone who actually made the stories, and were blessed for 80 years that pamphlets were the only way to read them.

    For twenty years I’ve read retailers whine and moan whenever comic book companies tried to bring in other readers from outside the direct market (Hell, they even complain when books debut at conventions!), happy to sit in their rut and let the ship sink with them. They’ll get no sympathy from me.

  11. Mainstream comics need to become mainstream again if they’re going to survive. Digital is the mainstream. This had to happen. The direct market was a good experiment but it’s not going to last forever and the number keep dropping. The only alternative is what’s being done now, catering to the already exiting readers with more and more “can’t miss” crossovers and shock value adult (rapey) nonsense. Get more money from the shrinking pool.

    Day and date makes sense. But they can’t keep charging paper prices for digital product. Back issues need to be sold digitally on the cheap since they double as ads for the current books. And can we lose the monthly thing while we’re at it? That made sense when comics sold alongside magazine. There’s no reason a comic should be monthly except for tradition.

    Sorry for comic shops, if they evolve they’ll survive. If they don’t they’ll be Blockbuster. They had a good run but again, comics having a shot at the mainstream audience again is a good thing.

  12. I have been collecting comic books for 25 years, and I have recently started subscribing to digital comics.

    They are a better value. They allow me to read a book before I buy it. I don’t know about everybody else, but I know a good book when I read one, and I go buy it.

    Hell, reading back issues of digital comics has led me to go buy books I missed from years ago that I otherwise would never have known about.

    If the publishers put out a good product, people will buy it.

  13. I am disappointed with comic shops already. This past Wednesday, I go to my local store one hour after opening and 3 titles that just came out are already sold out. Meaning they probably only had one issue to sell. I have to buy online all the time, I might as well buy it digital instead.

  14. I wonder if this will retcon the NEW, new new Superman re-origin, “Superman: Secret Origin”. Between that mini series, that “Earth One” graphic novel and “Birthright” not that long ago, I wonder if it’s even possible for DC to commit to a Superman origin with a straight face anymore.

  15. What do you mean, Derrick? Superman’s origin is perfectly clear. He both did and did not grow up with Lex Luthor. He was born on both Krypton and Earth. He was both Superboy and not Superboy. He both did and did not found the Justice League

  16. I might sound completely stupid here, but this seems like a Heroes World moment to me.

    The success of this seems contingent on two things: that there is a large audience of people with iPads who would love to get back into comics, but just haven’t because the storylines are too complicated, and when they do jump back on, these 52 (52!?!?) books are good enough to maintain their interest.

    This takes as a given that current DC readers stay after DC resets all the titles they’ve been following.

    This seems so over the top crazy that I can’t help but respect the chutzpah of it. But I’m afraid after a big initial bounce it’s going to flame out fast, and carry a few shops / careers with it.

    For everyone’s sake I hope it works!

  17. If mainstream comics start shifting to a model in which digital and print have simultaneous releases for two uniquely separate types of comicreaders, well, maybe we’ll actually get a world in which people who don’t read or purchase digital comics will spend less time cluttering up the internet about the disadvantages of digital products and the readers/makers/purveyors of digital comics will feel less whiney and constrained about how their freedoms are predetermined by the print market.

    This is American comics and what that market, through rather cautious predictions and parent company control, seems to have forgotten is that markets change in accordance with new technology.

    Silly costume changes and “teen-friendly” re-interpretation of the characters notwithstanding, this is the smartest market change, no, embrace of how the market has changed, since we left the spinner racks for the specialty shops thirty years ago.

    Really. Want to read a comic? Here, take a look at it online in previews or for this price. Want to own it and put it in a bag or have it in a collection on your bookshelf? Go here.

    That’s the modern newsstand, the spinner rack and specialty shop combined, and I hope it lasts through these new permutations of how we get comics in people’s hands.

    The new V-neck collars and re-booted origins they’re using to sell the thing are simply glitz that won’t last nearly so long.

  18. I remember when my grandpa used to visit his comic book shop back in 1931, and all those guys did was moan, moan, moan.

    You know, I get more hate mail from DM retailers than any dozen anonymous dudes on an Internet comments thread combined, but I could never extend my criticisms of what they do to glee or satisfaction about someone potentially taking an economic hit because they once didn’t have the comics I wanted or they’re not rowing hard enough for Team Comics or whatever. Nor would I disqualify all the hundreds of millions of dollars made through them to suggest some sort of a point-in-theory.

    Maybe I’d feel slightly differently if this decision was announced, say, before all the orders for the weeks leading up to the changeover were in; I don’t know.

  19. It’s incredible how bitter and snarky Marvel creators are truly they represent exactly why I can’t stand that entire companies direction the past 10 years.

    I have no idea if this will work or not this is a huge risk for DC. But can we at the very least not have people who work for the industry to not come off worse than the typical mb fanboy smfh.

  20. “And yet nearly every single person contributing to the decisions announced today became wealthy on the backs of those unfriendly, horrible stores.”

    It’s a lot like the relationship between a pimp and his junkie hooker.

    WWPD?

    What would Pixar do?

    Write material for an audience different than the same few dozen people they meet at every con.

  21. What if Bendis is right? What if this is the Wildcats relaunch all over again… except with the entire DCU? Look at how great those Wildcats books are doing right now! (And I say that as someone who doesn’t read Marvel anymore nor Bendis’s Marvel U books.)

    I think I just soiled myself.

  22. Tom, Tiger, Scott and all: when it comes to progress, I like to use the milkman example. In olden days, the milkman used to come and deliver us our fresh, chilled dairy products. This enabled folks to stay home, get creamery fresh butter and also gave rise to many babies with secret fathers to strengthen the gene pool. But that doesn’t mean that the milkman was here to stay.

    Or the telegraph. The telephone killed the telegraph; the fax killed the telex; email killed them all. I can admire those who stand by their original technology, but not endorse them.

    As Tiger said, today’s comcis shops are a new breed, tougher, smarter, stronger. If anyone can survive, it’s them and I would not bet against them.

  23. i don’t know, this whole venture just smacks of desperation. like a broke poker player betting his car on a pair of aces. not so much the comics going digital aspect of this gamble as the relaunching of 52 titles, with every last character getting a uniform change with tweaks to their origins or current status in the DCU. if these relaunches fail to engage long time readers and also fail to bring in new readers (in both print and digital), the result is gonna be a disaster of epic proportions (not just for print comics, but for digital comics as well). i’ve read some comments of how marvel should rush to catch up to DC in the digital arena, but really, why should they stick their necks out when DC is doing such a great job of that. marvel can just sit back and see if this gamble DC is taking works or not and learn from any mistakes DC makes or improve on what DC is doing right. i’ve also read some folks saying that while this is a jumpimg on point for readers, it could also be a jumping off point, which is the direction i’m heading in. after a while these relaunches with re-imagined takes on characters gets really tiresome (especially when you’ve been investing time and money of what the characters have been doing for the last X number of years). i don’t know, maybe if DC keeps the price of the 1st issues really cheap (like a buck), i’ll reconsider, then again maybe not. thanks for letting me rant!

  24. i hope this helps…but honestly i enjoy going to my local comic book store…friendly staff, good customers that you can shoot the crap with, and good recommendations… If it weren’t for them I’d never have tried scott pilgrim in 2006, and later chew, the 6th gun, Fables, Casanova, and other comics… I was about to give up until that point.

    They do their best to be involved with their community and local charities. The store is family friendly… and a lot better than I remember most stores as a kid growing up. how do you keep the local comic book store viable?

  25. I would *love* to visit one of these awesome “today’s comic shops.” Where are they? Because all I’ve been to are the ones that are kinda dank, have very rude people working behind the register, and have tons of product everywhere in no sort of discernible order. I miss Rocket Ship in Brooklyn, NY. That was the only shop I’ve been to that was cool and it died.

  26. I think it’s a brave move for DC to go day and date first. I think that someone had to do it and it was never going to be the “right time” to move forward with it.

    There are people who want to read the new comics on their ipad or on their computers and don’t want to go into a comic book store. You can’t blame DC for wanting to tap that audience and grow their readership.

    I mean, at the heart of it, that’s the business decision that was made here, correct? They’re not doing it to lose money or audience. They’re not doing it out of spite to the existing retailer relationships they’ve had for years. They’re trying to survive and thrive and grow.

  27. I have no idea why people keep suggesting that questioning elements DC’s plan amounts to some sort of fear-of-future response. It’s funny to read this on blogs and messageboards, though.

    If only Marvel and DC had stopped making comics in 1957 to focus on original television programming like they obviously should have, we might all have happier lives.

  28. Scott, I don’t really understand how those points follow from expressing doubt about elements of this plan.

    I guess we just disagree.

  29. “I have no idea why people keep suggesting that questioning elements DC’s plan amounts to some sort of fear-of-future response”

    —that would be because you are tone deaf, Tom.

    to many many people, that is exactly how it sounds.

    i guess we just disagree…

  30. If only Marvel and DC had stopped making comics in 1957 to focus on original television programming like they obviously should have, we might all have happier lives.

    If original superhero material appeared mainly on TV and the big screen, superhero comics were practically all tie-ins, and the rest of the market consisted of independent, alt-type comics, everybody might actually be happier. The fate of the independent publishers would be linked to the fate of publishers generally, and fans could get their weekly pleasures from the TV shows.

    The reaction to the failed WW TV pilot — I wasn’t aware how many pilots based on Marvel characters had been made.

    How many people know that there used to be stores devoted to board war games and associated merchandise? I bought a couple dozen of the SPI games, more to admire the products than to play them, since playing time for many of them was measured in days. One legendary game, The Campaign for North Africa, had an estimated playing time of 1,500 hours.

    The market for the games eventually disappeared. Hardly anyone cares.

    SRS

  31. Day and date: basically good news, unless you own a comic store, in which case it’s bad news. With one major caveat: the risk here is that you cause serious damage to the direct market at a point where the digital market isn’t well enough developed to take its place. Hopefully this will turn out to be a great move forward. This had to happen at some point, but there’s a legitimate question as to when you can safely make the move.

    New number ones: that’s a tired gimmick and I don’t much care one way or the other. But to have that many number ones, they must be launching a load of new titles. It seems unavoidable that a lot of them will get lost in the shuffle, and that seems like a bad idea.

  32. Here’s a question; (A) if most people are no longer buying comics for speculative reasons, ie: resale, and (B) with digital comic rentals having NO resale value, why would anyone in the market respond to a a first issue anymore?
    #1 is meaningless now, could just as well be issue #26. or #1.01, etc

  33. #1 says to a new reader, it’s safe for you to start here. This won’t require you to have read what came before it to understand what’s going on. That’s the point of starting over. To make discovering these books less daunting for new readers.

  34. Will those new books be more accessible and attractive and involve better editorial and marketing decisions than their current line?

    Given that the exact same people that have been running DC and its books for the last seven, eight years will still be running DC and its books, it’s hard not to view the changes as window-dressing. Who cares if there’s a new Aquaman or Hawkman, or if the old JLA gets back together. Those kinds of changes have been happening all the time, and I doubt if doing all of them again and at once will result in better comics.

    What I’m missing in the announcement, frankly, is some indication that DC is going to be run differently from the way it’s being run now. And if it won’t be, what’s the point of the relaunch?

  35. Disney did something similar a few weeks ago: they released the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie worldwide simultaneously, setting new records (and guarding against piracy (ha!) and possible negative reviews). Usually, a movie is released periodically around the world over a period of months. With worldwide press and internet reporting (and file sharing), it makes more sense to release it simultaneously worldwide, making the event even bigger. (I expect to soon see simultaneous screenings, where the first screening is all pegged to Coordinated Universal Time, so fans all experience the movie simultaneously.)

    Day and date does the same. If something goes viral, it’s accessible everywhere. There’s no sell-outs of digital files… everyone can get a copy, and at a decent price. Sure, it would be great to see another November 18th Death of Superman, with stores packed to the rafters, but why not exploit such an event as much as possible?

    Oh, and here’s some analysis from February:
    https://www.comicsbeat.com/2011/02/13/digital-is-the-new-direct-market/

  36. “#1 says to a new reader, it’s safe for you to start here.”

    A new #1 on an established character which is already part of the popular lexicon says to me, “Oh, Noes! We don’t know what this character is really about, and we really don’t care; but we gotta make more money off of the licensing. Maybe if we make this thing more ‘young’, ‘dark’ and ‘edgy’, it’ll suddenly become hip again. Maybe more Hollywood wanna-be’s will want to take a crack at these things between movie and TV series pitches.’

    People keep thinking that this reboot is about the comic shops and their clientele, but they’d most likely be wrong. Today’s Big Two comic books are about selling the licensing to anyone OUTSIDE of the standard comic book audience. These are loss leader marketing pitches instead of real stories.

  37. I started reading Amazing Spider-Man with #232. It was part 2 of a two part story. I didn’t get part 1 until many many years later. But that issue got me hooked. There was so much history that I knew I missed, that I wanted to find old comics to get caught up. I wanted to get new comics to see what would happen next.

    For me, number one issues have never said “it’s safe to start here”.

    In the end though, it really comes down to great comics. If these 52 new issue number ones are WELL DONE, then I think comic readers will give DC a standing ovation. If not, well… it becomes another comic embarrasement.

  38. Comics have been available to pirates on day 1 for a long time now. And don’t shrug them off as being not legitimate, because those are potential customers who are not buying comics. Day and date digital release is not going to be a big deal. Retailers are already dying, and this is but a small step in the way towards that mercy killing.

    I don’t have much sympathy for comic shops, because most of them are pretty gross places. I was constantly in fear of being seen there throughout high school.

    Is that a sign of weakness and insecurity in me? Well, yeah, but it’s the state of our culture, and most people have the same insecurities. It’s not about me, it’s about the rest of the people who feel the same way. Good riddance, comic shops.

    (Of course, a friend of mine pointed out that these gross stores can exist without comics. They already do: they’re called gaming stores. And I don’t mean Gamestop).

    This won’t expand the market, but it might temporarily give DC a bigger share of it. It’s the kind of thing that lead a former Marvel Zombie such as myself into trying out new DC books. But it won’t increase the overall market. What I would be more concerned about – though I don’t read superhero comics anymore – is how exactly DC will capitalize on the opportunity. By that I mean that here is an opportunity to really start fresh, and increase the quality. But that’s 52 books, and there’s just not that much real talent working between the big companies.

    Not to mention that whatever new creative teams are in place, they won’t last. Jim Lee on a monthly book? Please.

  39. “Given that the exact same people that have been running DC and its books for the last seven, eight years will still be running DC and its books, it’s hard not to view the changes as window-dressing. Who cares if there’s a new Aquaman or Hawkman, or if the old JLA gets back together. Those kinds of changes have been happening all the time, and I doubt if doing all of them again and at once will result in better comics.”

    EXACTLY.

    What’s the point of re-launching the fleet if all the ships will be on the ocean floor again in 12-18 months?

  40. BTW, I have a copy of the SPI game “Campaign for North Africa.”

    It’s everything you may have heard. :)

  41. Fixing DC’s problems yourself:

    Is the primary problem the characters, or how they’re being handled?

    If the problem is the creators and/or editors doing their jobs badly, then they need to be replaced. That would be time-consuming and expensive — and who would fire them? How far up the chain does the blame for mismanagement go?

    If the problem is the characters, can they be fixed? Can what DC is doing now, tinkering with continuity, work, or is a clean break needed? If the break was clean, and old stories done before the break no longer existed, then a new history for each character and institution would have to be devised. The bible system might work, but it would be laborious, and how would complaints from writers who didn’t like a character’s history be handled?

    New (title) characters could be created, but there’s a risk of failure with each one. Simple characters would resemble other characters, be labeled “derivative,” and perhaps cause lawsuits; complex characters would turn off some potential readers.

    My inclination would be to cleanly break with old continuity and create a universe-wide bible for creators and editors to follow. Tight editorial control doesn’t necessarily mean restricting creative freedom; it just means that what’s in the bible for a character can’t be contradicted.

    Even with a clean continuity break, though, the old stories would still be available, writers would repeat old stories in some ways, and sales of old stories could plummet.

    There might not be simple solutions to DC’s problems.

    SRS

  42. I want to know who the “new readers” are that these reboots are going to attract? The mainstream general audience (read, “middle America”) has no interest in them. My wife, who is pretty savvy, just rolled her eyes when I explained the changes to her. I imagine she’s not alone.

    Is it kids? Do the kids today really want to spend three bucks for a comic book that stars an 80-year-old character and which will take them ten minutes to read?

    Is it Marvel readers? They have Marvel characters who are done much better in that style.

    Who’s this audience that’s just clamoring for a darker, younger, edgier, Superman?

    I just have to wonder if, in their mania for “diversity,” if they’ll finally have Dick and Bruce come out of the closet.

  43. @akiel- comic shops are “pretty gross” places?,”constant fear” of being seen in one?, the “state of our culture” is what keeps your insecurities and weakness intact?, and most people have the “same insecurities”? and it’s “not about you”? actually ,it’s completely about you. these are your insecurities and most people that frequent comic shops don’t have the same insecurities about them that you do. the first rule of going to comic shops (or for that matter getting into this hobby) is: you don’t give a rat’s ass about what other people think! and if you do, it’s your problem and no one else’s. why would you give complete strangers (or even friends for that matter) that kind of power over you as to make you feel embarrassment over going to a comic shop? if they don’t understand…screw ’em! as for “good riddance to comic shops”, i spoke to my friendly neighborhood comic shop owner today and he feels that this latest development in the short term won’t make too much of a difference and in the long term (if paper comics start to fade), will just have to adjust to market forces and stock up on the latest or popular fads (with comics,trades, toys, statues, cards, etc.) going on at the time. if anyone thinks comic shops will fold over these events, guess again.

  44. Wondering if some of these 52(!) new DC books could simply be one-shots (e.g. upcoming SUPERMAN BEYOND from DeFalco & co) to help introduce the new status quo. Anyone else?

  45. Chris Hero,

    Come to my shop in Staten Island, 2220 Forest Avenue. Go to A Comic Shop in Orlando, Bergen St Comics in Brooklyn, Isotope in San Francisco, Challengers in Chicago all among many others. All of these shops are amazing with an excellent staff and amazing environment. Forget about some of the best comic shops in the country, they are some of the best retail stores in the country. The comic shop has been reinvented – you’re not looking hard enough or you just don’t care.

    Also, (as far as I know) Rocket Ship didn’t die. The owners decided that it just wasn’t for them anymore. Much different than traditionally going out of business.

  46. I thing it’s fitting that an event that signaled the end of the newsstand in favor or the direct market (Crisis) gets replicated by an event that signals the end of the direct market in favor of digital distribution.

    Ballsy, but not the first time DC does it.

  47. If blockbuster superhero movies cannot bring in new readers during the last decade, than how can a company-wide reboot suppose to help? Young people today have no interest in reading anything that is written in a complete sentence, thanks to text messaging, it must be an acronym of a short sentence to get their attention. And if I am 18, and comics did not interest me when I was 8, than I will not start reading it just because is in a digital format. The problem with the comic book industry is that reading and collecting comics has been an exclusive hobby with the introduction of direct market books. It prevented children from buying comics at a newsstand, which is how most kids got their comics, before comic book stores began popping up in the early 80’s. And when you throw in the high cost of buying a comic book these days, you pretty much wrote your own obituary for the industry. With three generations of potential readers lost, it will take more than a reboot to get them back.

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