[Comics] Before Watchmen

[Krug]

Exclusive: DC Comics Releases New “Before Watchmen” Details

Sigh seriously.. why?

 

[Hand of Evil]

I have to ask myself the same and figure it is because DC sucks with getting a following for heroes in today's market.

 

[Starman]

Recycling old ideas is easier than creating new ones, at least if you're the person with the purse strings.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Exclusive: DC Comics Releases New “Before Watchmen” Details

Sigh seriously.. why?

Because money.

It's part of a publicly held company. The surprise isn't that they're doing something new with a super-popular franchise; it's that their corporate masters didn't make them do so a decade or more ago.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have to ask myself the same and figure it is because DC sucks with getting a following for heroes in today's market.

You really should look at the sales charts for the last few months. DC has been killing it since they relaunched their books in August.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Recycling old ideas is easier than creating new ones, at least if you're the person with the purse strings.

Remember this the next time people get excited about comic book movies. When the movie studios (who now own both Marvel and DC) go flipping through the catalog of characters, not only are they looking for ones to use for cartoons and movies, they also pause and say "why aren't we doing more with Captain Bigbucks? He was huge in the early 1990s."

Given that investors expect not just profits, but steadily increasing profits -- which, logic tells us, is unsustainable -- executives either find more ways to squeeze out more dollars out of the inventory or they're replaced by someone who will.

 

[jonesy]

I'm actually starting to get pretty excited about this. I've been trying to think of ways they could screw it up, and I'm not seeing it. I'm especially looking forward to seeing Nite Owl with Straczynski writing.

 

[Felon]

Comic book fandom is now less about characters than they are about a cult-of-personality that revolves around the creative team that, to the minds of their fans, can do no wrong. So don't get worked up about the Watchmen characters being reutilized. Instead, get hyped about what writer will be writing them.

You really should look at the sales charts for the last few months. DC has been killing it since they relaunched their books in August.

How much of the 90% of the audience that was lost over the last decade or so have they reclaimed? Is 10,000 copies still a champagne-opening event?

 

[Umbran]

..or maybe because the universe seen in Watchmen is compelling, and there might actually be some good storytelling to be done there yet?

Nah. Couldn't be.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

How much of the 90% of the audience that was lost over the last decade or so have they reclaimed? Is 10,000 copies still a champagne-opening event?

They would have closed their doors if they'd lost 90 percent of their sales.

Justice League #1 sold 361,138 copies, Batman #1 sold 262,379 and Action Comics #1 sold 250,898 copies.

Marvel's best-selling 2011 comic was Ultimate Spider-Man #160 (the death of Peter Parker), which sold 159,355 copies.

And there are lots of comics, from all publishers, selling more than 10,000 copies a month, months after the "New 52" DC relaunch happened: Comic Book Sales Figures for February 2012