Tag: DC

This interview with Scott Lobdell from ComicVine was sent to us with the idea that maybe he wasn't up on the news that Static was joining the Teen Titans, which was announced at MegaCon:

Beyond sweeping a perfect 10 out of the month's Top 10 comic books, DC's "New 52" titles are also starting to show first signs of stabilization in January. The average "New 52" title dropped 7.4% in sales, down from 17.4% in December and 19.6% in November. This gives reason to be cautiously optimistic on the longer-term prospects of DC's relaunched line. The trend should be taken with a grain of salt, however, as DC made a number of changes to its various retailer incentives in January that may be affecting sales one way or another. On Detective Comics, Batman: The Dark Knight, Superman and Aquaman, the returnability incentive was replaced with 1:25 variant-cover incentives. Batwoman, Green Lantern: New Guardians and Swamp Thing, which were promoted with a special-discount incentive from September through December, also switched to 1:25 variant-cover incentives in January. Finally, the threshold retailers were required to meet in January to qualify for returnability on the 37 titles that weren't promoted through variant-cover or discount incentives changed from 125% of retailers' May 2011 orders to 100% of November 2011 orders. With this in mind, let's wait for the February figures to see if the trend holds when incentives are equal from one month to the next.

The internet is NOT forever. DC's website is undergoing a huge overhaul in a few weeks, according to The Source, with a new design, and new, exclusive content, and the old forums are going to be erased.

The new Nerdist YouTube channel is hosting the first look at the Plastic Man shorts that will be airing shortly on DC Nation. As we reported earlier, Tom Kenny voices Plas, while Andy Suriano and Stephen DeStefano are involved in the animation—the John K. influence is strong but it works with the character.

The major con season for 2012 kicked off with MegaCon in Orlando. And so did the con news tidbits season.

Via Fast Company, of all places... So this is going to be the Minutemen Frontier? No surprise there. And, of course, it does look great.

Dropped into this little item about BEYOND THE FRINGE, a digital tie-in to the popular TV show, is the news that Jhonen Vasquez, the incredibly popular creator of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, will be doing some digital comics for DC, along with Becky Cloonan. SWEET.

How many statistics can one news day handle? DC has just released results from their Retailer Survey which they launched in conjunction with the New 52. As we noted at the time, the survey was aimed at gauging interest in each and every New 52 title, as well as general readership demographics. As such, it represents the most comprehensive reader survey a comics company has made in some time. While it's very New 52-centric, it does reveal a lot. While DC has released their own bullet points, which we've shown below, ICv2 has more info and an interview with John Rood. You'll want to head over there and digest the whole thing. But here's the broad picture:

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: