Ok, I need to rant.
‘The Button’ thing pissed me off and made me confront an army of corporate apologists on Twitter today (why do I do this to myself) and it sparked something. So here we go.
‘the Button’, if you don’t know, is a Flash/Batman crossover where they someway somehow interact with the smiley face button from Watchmen. Which will lead to a connection to Dr.Oz (gee wonder who that is) and who knows what else. I also saw a frame from a Superman comic where they have the tentacle alien from Watchmen as well. All of this is hacky. All of it is gross.
Now I’m not always huge on authorial intent. But the battle between DC and Watchmen’s creators has become a famous cautionary tale for creator rights and led to some good in the company. Until the Image Reliance Vertigo, DC’s imprint had the best creator deal in the biz, I think part of that came from Watchmen’s Legacy, though clearly more V for Vendetta’s as well, but still the Moore connection.
Years ago they did ‘Before Watchmen’ and this debate got a new light and the time I heard about a great deal of this with clarity for the first time. Moore hated it and made it known he was against it. Gibbons went with DC on it, in part because they promised him that this and Watchmen wouldn’t be connected to the DCU.
Now here we are another promise broken, and for what? An ongoing story where the multiverse reset of DC is brought on by the cast of Watchmen? It’s gross, and another tired idea from a burned out DC who’s quality has been dropping with double shipping nearly every one of their books. For example, King’s Batman (the same in this ‘Button’ issue) just wrote a whole issue of Bane punching other noted Batman villans to set up that he’s a ‘big bad’ Just one page to the joker, riddler, zazz, and so on. Meet, greet, punch, move on. And you can see it in the art too. Of course, these issues are in 9 panel spreads But with fairly barren backgrounds and about 0 subtext.
Oh, but to say DC comics need to focus on fewer events and covers and focus on good storytelling that stands on it’s own right. Man do the fanboys come out. The fact I’m calling them fanboys… I’m sitting in a room with access to thousands of DC comics but some good and bad. To say the whole line is good at any given time is insanity. There’s always good and bad comics. But when I point out declining quality, which sure is arbitrary. But if you take about any random DC comic from even the late 90’s through to the new 52 relaunch, I bet you’d find more to the comic in the story it’s in and less reliance on pre-existing ‘meta’ notions of what’s going on, and a higher word count, and more detail in a given panel. Exceptions would happen of course but most DC rebirth issues read like popcorn, you can finish it in about 5 minutes because there’s very little there, there.
Not to say I’m not enjoying some of them. Some are fun, and some are fun, for being light frankly. I think Nightwing has a good balance, for example. But I point some of that out (it’s twitter) and the financials come out. Their point being Rebirth is selling better than the New52. First. woo, Image is still growing faster than DC, and relatively right now IDW is growing way faster and if they make a couple of big moves I think we could have a ‘big 4’ more honest diversity in comics, and a lot more people reading. Beyond that. Comic sales figures right now are Diamon Direct only. Meaning we get a fraction of single issues sold in a month only. Direct Market. So anything sold at a normal bookstore, airport, drugstore, or whatever low as that may be, is not counted. Also, no trade sales or digital is counted which is where most new readers start. (Also where Image makes the Lion’s share of their money) Also, keep in mind Diamond issue sales don’t differentiate covers. So A/B covers and variant covers are all under a single line. But given how varients are sold, and that people will buy all the covers, how much a comic sells vs how many readers it has in the direct market only is never accurate but always lower.
Sorry, that was an aside, but I think relevant. I also think DC needs to focus on just telling quality stories with their characters and focus on Not doing events every five minutes. That was what Rebirth was supposed to be, and they’re already breaking that promise. Because they can’t leave a good thing to stand on it’s own. I love some of DC’s characters. I love some current DC creators. But I hate DC as a business. Same goes for Marvel. I wish there was more contention in the comic book side of the world today, because ‘the button’ is gross.