Latest DC Executives Interview At ICv2.com Only Partly Enraging

Milton Griepp at the hobby business news and analysis site ICv2.com interviewed two of the three heads that is the creative-side boss at DC Comics these days: Dan DiDio and Jim Lee. It's in three parts: here, here and here. Joke headline above aside, I thought it was a pretty good performance for the pair, and that's not been a sure thing with executives from that company over the last 12 months. I didn't groan once.

The good starts with the fact that the pair sound like confident market leaders instead of the guys that run the company that is waiting for Marvel to do something so they can do something like it, which was frequently the default mode for DC Comics for years and years and years. I think DiDio and Lee stay pretty strongly on point in terms of projecting the monthly series as the company's core concern; there's a super-deft answer from Dan DiDio on the company's attempts to keep everything on time and suggesting this was a reason for strong January sales that would get a high-five from any PR director. There are also some nice rhetorical flourishes in there: a call-out to Diane Nelson, the funny and brash move of basically taking credit for other companies' big, recent successes. They admirably don't back away or dissemble on diversity issues, although that question is put to them in the nicest, most flattering way possible.

There's still some bad, at least for me. Dan DiDio starts down the road of "you don't see the projects we back that don't do well," which even in these debased times most people tend not to see as justification for potentially screwing with people or having crappy policy in place as much as the day-in, day-out cost of doing business when you're a publisher. I don't buy their formulation of Barnes And Noble Vs. Amazon.com as replacing Barnes And Noble Vs. Borders, because it's not like Amazon.com showed up when Borders closed and the question put to them by Milton Griepp was about total outlets, not the orientation of the marketplace. I don't trust anyone from DC on numbers, because they fundamentally refuse to divulge them and I think that means they shouldn't be allowed to cherry pick or characterize their numbers for positive spin without at least being jumped on for precise information. I think the notion that the numbers are settling back into old patterns after a once-in-a-generation relaunch maneuver should have been addressed directly. Finally, Lee's assertion that DC must be doing okay with creators rights because people still continue to do awesome comics for DC really needed some unpacking. One, I'd argue that given the disparity in both financial reward and market force companies like DC vastly underperform in terms of their percentage of quality work in the marketplace. Two, this is a weird thing to assert right now given their treatment of what may be the company's all-time best comic and clear evidence their moves with that property are driving people away from DC in both direct and indirect ways.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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