DC Comics lays off many

[MoonSong]

@LuisCarlos17f Crunchy Roll has lost a lot of value and cred in North America over the past few years. Losing the Funimation catalog, news of them altering, not just translating, the dialogues in the subs, news of them censoring content, and them giving money to western animators -to make original content for an anime focused service- at a time when many felt that they had to invest in more infrastructure have been pretty damning. There is no point for AT&T keeping a brand like that when it is already redundant. They want everybody to have an HBO Max account -which also includes anime-. If they are going to retire a redundant brand, they might as well make some money out of it.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

When Viacom bought Parmount Communications back in the day (I was reading up a bit on Sumner Redstone), they immediately sold off a bunch of assets like Madison Square Gardens (including the Knicks and Rangers), Cablevision, and Simon and Shuster's education publishing biz.

I think that's a pretty common practice.

 

[ccs]

Notice the pandemic?

It's just amazing how so many don't. Or at least not in connection to other aspects of life.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

It's just amazing how so many don't. Or at least not in connection to other aspects of life.

DC sure tried to ignore it as much as they could. When their printer shut down in Quebec, they switched to one in Alabama (IIRC) and when Diamond shut down, they immediately went to Midtown and asked them to distribute. Somehow WAITING IT OUT never once occurred to them.

There are still many, many people who blame Diamond for it. As if they shut down for no reason at all.

 

[Parmandur]

To think not that long ago, when DC launched "The New 52", they reduced the number of titles down to their top 52 sellers.

It is like deja vu all over again, only this time the executioner's going to be doing alot more axing this time around.

The New 52 was quite a while ago now: there are people playing 5E now who weren't born yet when these was published.

 

[Legatus Legionis]

.

 

[MoonSong]

The New 52 ended in July 2016 ... four year s ago.

The main titles lasting 52 issues (+ issues 0 if you want to be technical).

As one who was there when Superman died, when Batman had his back broken, when we had Crisis On Infinite Earths, etc.... the new 52 was a moment ago.

That's a very cool story. The death of superman is the direct trigger that created the anime/manga collector industry in my country. The big news coverage the event had unveiled the existence of comic collectors to each other. They began to gather and created an infrastructure of shops, conventions and alternative markets that was later easily taken over by we weebs.

 

[Ryujin]

In many ways "The Death of Superman" was the beginning of the death of American comics.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

In many ways "The Death of Superman" was the beginning of the death of American comics.

Hot take.
Having been involved in the comics industry in the retail segment since 1989 through 2006, and as a fan thereafter, I agree Superman 75 (Nov 1992) was an inflection point. But it was only one strong data point in a sea of many from that era.

I might say X-Force #1 (Aug 1991) wrapped in plastic with hundreds of thousands of copies sold and unread was an early sign of comics sold as collectibles, instead of reading material.
Or maybe the publication of Wizard (July 1991) that focused on the value of comics as objects of investment in addition to (or instead of) creative efforts to be enjoyed.
Or maybe the creation of Valiant Comics (Magnus Robot Fighter #1 May 1991) in direct competition to DC and Marvel paved the way for Image Comics and their way of doing business.

Definitely the early 90's marked the beginning of superhero comic books as collectibles qua collectible. It also marked beginning of the end of a work for hire publication system that benefited from the work of creatives but kept the profits for the corporations themselves.
So yeah, maybe it was "the beginning of the death of [one conception of] American comics". Probably a good thing overall.

If you look at graphic novels and non work for hire publishers (Dark Horse, Image, Fantagraphics, Drawn and Quarterly, etc), and the quality and breadth of genre of that work, I'd say comics are doing better than ever.
If you admire as I do the creativity still coming out in graphic fiction form, I'd say comics are doing better than ever.
If you see all the properties in the 2000's and beyond that are being made from comics, with the financial benefits accruing to those creators, I'd say comics are doing better than ever.

 

[Ryujin]

Apart from what "The Death of Superman" meant from the creative, financial, and collectible angles, it also represented the loss of any real consequence to the stories. Death was no longer death and the industry was willing to profit off such "events" in what could be called unfair ways, by the buying public.

Not that Superman hadn't died before. I remember one of the "100 Page Super Special" volumes in which Superman was killed in Kandor, because he was just as vulnerable as any other Kryptonian there. When his body was removed from the bottled city he just sprung back to life because he was invulnerable again. Complete hand-wave and not the only one from the Silver or Golden Age, however, these weren't massively advertised "events" that had people dumping major cash on something that would be similarly hand-waved. Though I've bought a few graphic novels since that time, my days of buying comics runs were over then.