Sun Wukong
Kicker's, Inc. Superfan
Offline
First, let me preface this by saying I'm not buying into the DC doomsaying just yet. It's all based around an article that originated from Forbes that basically uses the fact that DC has a small SDCC presence and that the CEO of AT*T didnt mention them in a profile piece. The rest of it is just hypotheticals and numbers analysis. There's not much meat on the bone. But let's entertain the possibility for a moment...
Whatever Marvel's recent failings as a publisher (and they have been substantial), Disney will keep them alive as an IP farm for the foreseeable future. They can afford to run them at a loss for decades and not even notice it. There may be cuts and downsizing, but the big brands will survive.
DC's position is, in theory, more precarious. Like he says in the video, Warner has never really known what to do with DC. It has always been the redheaded stepchild of their catalog of companies and brands, and there is big time corporate upheaval over there since the AT&T acquisition. The corporate person currently in charge of DC has them as part of a portfolio including theme parks and other assorted odds and ends. It's not a premiere focus for them. I could absolutely see them selling or spinning off DC in some way in the foreseeable future. Not saying it will happen, just that I think it's somewhere in the realm of possibility.
(Hell, wouldn't it be something if Disney ended up owning DC too?)
But at the end of the day, any comics fan that is being honest with themselves realizes that the industry, or at least the biggest and most corporate part of it, has been on a slow march towards oblivion since the market crash of the 90's. That event was like a loved one having a stroke or something. They survived, but they were never the same, and even though there are good days and bad days, the longer time goes on the more bad days there are than good.
I mean, even Dan DiDio just today or yesterday spoke out on the fact that things like variant covers and marketing gimmicks designed to appeal to the speculator market are creating the illusion of a comic book industry that is healthier than it actually is. And he's not wrong on that. He also pointed out at SDCC that in some cases the facsimile edition reprints of old issues they do are outselling the current books. There are more people buying reprints of old comics than new ones, which he said was a failure on the part of DC to engage the audience. He's been pretty candid about a lot of industry things recently.
Not trying to be a downer about it. And I do think, whatever the mid term future holds, there will still be Marvel and DC books to buy. But things are at a crossroads for the industry in many different ways. Right now both Marvel and DC's greatest assets are the IPs and the value to their parent companies, not as publishers. And I think too often that's showing up in the quality of the books.
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