DC Comics to re-start from number 1

[Lew Stringer]

More details (amongst lots of marketing hype) from a DC press release:

http://www.comicsbeat.com/2011/07/01/dc ... he-new-52/

[swirlythingy]

I can't see it having any impact, long term. Most comics readers are collectors, so the digital model will not appeal-you can't bag, box and keep a download.

You can't really collect digital music downloads the way you did vinyl and CDs, or have lots of attractive bookshelves full of ebooks, either, Tony, but that doesn't seem to be bothering younger people; perhaps that collecting gene has changed. The comics really need to appeal to a wider readership than the baggers and boarders (do most of them even read the titles beyond a quick skim of the artwork?) anyway - to a much broader, general readership.

Now, this is an excellent point. Comics are, when all is said and done, written to be read, and drawn to be looked at, with collecting simply an added bonus. If there were no more to a comic than an issue number and something to do with all that spare money, then DC would be better off simply distributing a set of otherwise blank index cards with an ever-increasing series of numbers printed in the corner, sold at a vastly inflated price. To mix things up a bit, they could print more of some than of others, so people could feel smug about owning a 'rare' edition.

Do you see a comic as a regular dose of adventure or humour, a gripping story, a work of art, a periodical ritual, an investment for your retirement fund, or something to pad out all those empty shelves and fill all those overpriced freezer bags and cardboard boxes? Do you, in short, buy comics because you like them, or because you like owning them?

Is a comic collection something to read on a rainy day, a neatly indexed set of childhood memories, a fascinating glimpse into humanity's history, or the reason you can't see the floor in your basement? If the answer is the latter, then digital comics are not for you. But do please excuse those of us who prefer to judge the product, not the medium.

Sorry, went on a bit of an rant there, but this thread says it better than I ever could.

[philcom55]

It occurred to me on the bus this morning that all this re-launch, reinvention, going back to #1 malarkey is a cynical ploy and one which didn't happen to many British heroes and series.

In a way Stan Lee gave birth to a monster, then found it was out of his control. Before the advent of the Marvel universe American comics were pretty much like their British equivalents in that they looked for a winning formula then stuck to it, apart from occasional 'tweaks' to keep up with the times. Nobody really expected Superman to get married, or thought that Sugar & Spike would ever age. The trouble is this meant that readers quickly outgrew the same old routines and, faced with the challenge of television, editors like Mort Weisinger found themselves adding more and more novelties like Supergirl, Superdog, Kandor, Bizarro, etc. to retain their interest. Then along came Fantastic Four and Spider-Man and Stan Lee discovered the ultimate novelty by allowing their lives to progress like real people. Peter Parker left High School and went to College, one of the original Howling Commandoes was killed in action, Reed and Sue got married and started a family. The fans loved it.

Then one day Stan woke up to find that, instead of heading a small business that was dwarfed by the industry giants, he was actually the market leader with a line of multi-million dollar properties to maintain. In this situation he realized the last thing he wanted was to alter a formula that had become so popular and as a result he issued a famous edict that from now on Marvel would maintain an 'illusion of change' while always ensuring that everything returned to the status quo at the end. And, predictably, all those fans (myself included) hated it! In due course, finding that once you've let the genie out of the bottle you can't put it back again, Stan was forced to back down - and not long after DC themselves followed suit, setting out on a road that led them inevitably from one Crisis to another, each more earth-shattering than the last!

In some ways I guess we've only got ourselves to blame!

- Phil Rushton

[paw broon]

"If you mean less serious stories like 1960s Batman, they disappeared due to the more serious Marvel upstarts selling out their runs and eclipsing these stories with their 'what if superheroes were real' schtick. The Brit comics characters like Billy Bunter were also very dated at the end of their run and now are nowhere to be seen." - chrissmillie

I enjoyed some of the early Marvel titles and they were a different way of telling superhero stories but I gave up on Spiderman not long after Ditko left (those early numbers were sheer class) and the F.F did begin to get a bit boring, only my opinion. Whereas, Green Lantern, Flash, MGA (Doom Patrol) and others were great entertainment, month after month. But not Batman after they went to the spotlight on the Bat symbol - poor stuff. My preference in Worlds Finest were those daft stories with lovely art by, especially, Dick Sprang & Charles Paris.
Bunter was an example and there were other reasons why he died away, but Blake shifted a bit to reflect the times and did quite well and I really believe that strips of the quality of The Spider, Kelly's Eye, Steel Claw (which are all doing rather well all over Europe in translated hardbacks) could be popular again with new stories, sensitively done, not just edgy and violent. But you need a bit of class writing and drawing. I'm not getting anywhere with this proposition, am I? Oh, well, I tried.