Comics UK

Tony, just a line to say love you site Broken Frontier hadn't seen this before very nice indeed

Starboy is bang on. Nice site.
Glad I bought this to the attention of DCM as it has got a bit of a debate going although not a thing happened on Goldenagecomics.co.uk forum. how odd.
I remember, in the 1950's, American comics being very rare things indeed. Unless you lived close to a US base or had family over there who posted newspapers - how good were those Sunday sections? But there was always someone who had a few and would trade them. But it was a bit of a revelation in 1959 when American comics appeared in newsagents here. Apart from British comics, I also found some Australian ones in Airdrie, came over as ballast, I think. Comparing a Showcase Green Lantern to an Australian comic was no contest.

philcom55 wrote:Given the current state of the world economy one can't help but wonder whether Disney is simply responding to the same sort of political pressures in favouring American workers wherever possible.

- Phil Rushton

I think it's more to do with Disney wanting more control of their characters (even though every Marvel UK story was approved by the US before it was published here). They'll be producing the material in the USA and sending it out to other territories to produce homogenized comics across the world. God bless America.

Even Disney's bizarre behaviour is paling into insignificance next to DC's decision to apparently reboot their entire line, renumbering some of the world's longest running titles for no apparent reason and probably alienating half their existing fan base in the process...

tony ingram wrote:Even Disney's bizarre behaviour is paling into insignificance next to DC's decision to apparently reboot their entire line, renumbering some of the world's longest running titles for no apparent reason and probably alienating half their existing fan base in the process...

They may be aiming for one last short term sales spike with a big brace of number ones before their print comics line finally goes bust!

Raven wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Even Disney's bizarre behaviour is paling into insignificance next to DC's decision to apparently reboot their entire line, renumbering some of the world's longest running titles for no apparent reason and probably alienating half their existing fan base in the process...

They may be aiming for one last short term sales spike with a big brace of number ones before their print comics line finally goes bust!

I think if that's the case, they'll achieve their aim. There'll be a huge sales spike in September as idiot speculators buy up all 52(!) new number ones, but six months down the line they'll realize they all failed to stick around for subsequent issues and a lot of the older readers who've followed their books in some cases since the Silver Age have jumped ship.

tony ingram wrote: There'll be a huge sales spike in September as idiot speculators buy up all 52(!) new number ones, but six months down the line they'll realize they all failed to stick around for subsequent issues and a lot of the older readers who've followed their books in some cases since the Silver Age have jumped ship.

Yes, I think it's just as likely that many readers will see this as an opportunity for a jumping off point, and that will probably happen more than new readers being brought in. I'm not sure there'll even be a *huge* sales spike, though there'll probably be a brief rise before it dips back down again after three or four months; most speculators surely realise that these number ones won't really be worth anything, and that the titles will probably return to their original numbering before too long.

tony ingram wrote:Even Disney's bizarre behaviour is paling into insignificance next to DC's decision to apparently reboot their entire line, renumbering some of the world's longest running titles for no apparent reason and probably alienating half their existing fan base in the process...

This didn't work for Marvel, so if DC are trying it on now things must be bad. A definite jumping off point if you haven't already abandoned ship.

Yeah, Marvel tried it with with Heroes Reborn, but within a year the old continuity was restored. Same thing is bound to happen here - especially the two longest running titles, Detective Comics and Action Comics, which I expect to be the first to return to their original numbering.

I took a trundle up to Banjaxx Comics in Stirling yesterday, to buy some comics and Dave and a couple of customers were chatting about all this non-reboot nonsense. He fears a bit of a spike then a rapid falling off in sales, all to the detriment of small comic shops and to punters like me who enjoy a visit and a look around the shelves.
DC are their own worst enemies in many ways and a lot of it stems from trying to fix their universe(s) at Crisis on Infinite Earths. Not only didn't it fix things, although, at first it seemed like it might work, but very soon the wheels started to wobble and then they came off. Further tinkering and reinventing, etc, didn't help. Also, DC's treatment of Charlton characters was awful. Aside from being unimaginative, it wasn't succesful. I could cry when I think how good a job a crappy company like Charlton made of The Question, The Ditko B.B., Thunderbolt and even Peacemaker, and compare it to the all new, glossy, unsubstantial stuff spewed out by DC. Mind you the Giffen JLA, with BB was rather good, if an exception.
They've done just as badly at times with other characters they've bought over.
I'm struggling to keep reading the few titles I still buy and as I don't like much of Marvel's offering, I think I'm going to take out an international subscription to Diabolik, Tex, Martin Mystere and Zagor. Good stories, good art, entertainment and a big, long read for your money.

As a longtime Charlton fan, DC's treatment of the Action Heroes has been a sore point for me for many years. I hated the way they redesigned Captain Atom, Nightshade and Thunderbolt, and the pointless slaughter of most of the others to replace them with inferior new versions-particularly Blue Beetle.

DC are always 'rebooting' their universe but I can't imagine them starting Action Comics and Detective Comics afresh from No.1. Detective Comics must be the longest running comic in the world right?

I think Blue Beetle was due to a copyright issue. The previous one was actually public domain due to being a golden-age character, whilst the new one is a different character/design. Mind you, it (and so many others) are only officially public domain in the USA, even though they are distributed in the UK (whereas Conan is PD in the UK but not in the US).

I don't see that this is necessarily a jumping-off point. The amount of comics around makes it so difficult to follow a title that I do think there's an argument for re-starting the universe occasionally. Crisis on Infinite Earths was great. Infinite Crisis was confusing rubbish.

Marvel's restarted titles then had dual numbers, switching back to the old numbers. At the moment, they have a small number of people buying lots of titles, whereas it was exactly the opposite in the past. I do think if they cut down on their titles and went back to news-stand, they could be more successful. It's a big risk, when there distribution model and advertising is doing so well (money-wise, not circulation-wise) but I guess we're stuck with it.

It might well persuade me to start buying the JLA/JSA titles again. Maybe more.

I wasn't keen at all on DCs treatment of the Charlton characters, the only good point was they didn't get their hands on E-Man. Marvel etc have done similar poor jobs when taking over other companies characters (Malibu Comics for example). I think this Flashpoint series is going to be exactly that a series ie one long massive story designed to get maximum press coverage (no doubt some character will get killed in amongst it all) and it will, as planned end with the renumbering of the original run (I cant see DC making Thomas Wayne Batman etc). Of course I may be wrong (I usually am lol) - I agree with Chris I do think Marvel or DC should make in roads back to Newstand comics in the USA again, I'm sure they could keep the direct sales people happy if the newstand editions like in the UK were packaged similar to the DC/Marvel books here and came out 6 months or so after the direct sales titles etc with all the money the big 2 spend on largely (imho) very good and successful movies you would think they would look at this if even just for titles with films on the go like Thor, Green Lantern etc - I was wonder if the FLashpoint series will see off the Batman Titan comic ? - And as an aside they (DC) better leave Jonah Hex alone !!!

Jay wrote:DC are always 'rebooting' their universe but I can't imagine them starting Action Comics and Detective Comics afresh from No.1. Detective Comics must be the longest running comic in the world right?

It is the longest running comic in the world (Dandy started a couple of months later). But they do seem to be renumbering it, and promo art for Action Comics #1 has been released already.