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DC Reboots Universe
An anonymous reader writes "Bob Wayne, Senior Vice President of Sales at DC Comics, has written to comic book retailers saying: 'Many of you have heard rumors that DC Comics has been working on a big publishing initiative for later this year. This is indeed an historic time for us as, come this September, we are relaunching the entire DC Universe line of comic books with all new first issues. 52 of them to be exact.' In addition, some characters are going to be younger, some may be missing, relationships are being changed, and Grant Morrison will pen a new Superman title."
Everyone is looking at this and missing the real story. Yesterday's article had the following statement, which will have much greater impact on the industry.
"The publication of JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 will also launch digital day-and-date for all ongoing superhero comic book titles - an industry first."
Digital download, available the same day as the paper copies. Why buy a hard copy when you can read it on your PC /.phone/ tablet / whatever?
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=32563
Another part of this announcement, which is probably more significant than the reboot itself, is that DC will be releasing these new comics simultaneously, both at bricks-and-longbox retailers, but also on apps for the iPad, Android, etc. That is where DC is hoping to gain new readers for this rebooted universe, by finally reaching the younger crowd where they live (rather than expecting them to find the local equivalent of the Android's Dungeon), and maybe bringing back some of the many older geeks who've drifted away but find the idea of a new-and-different DCU interesting enough to take a look.
I don't know if this will work for DC (unlike the Comic Book Guy types out there, I'm not going to prejudge the books before they've been published), and trying to survive in this Brave New World of digital publishing while competing with cooler-looking video games and movies is going to be an up-hill battle. But I think it's a smart move to make, because the alternative was the eventual heat-death of the DC Universe as aging fans of dead-tree pamphlets about characters with decades of continuity dragging along behind them, slowly faded away.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Like Alan Moore says, there's a difference between a "graphic novel" as in a novel that is presented in a graphical form and a monthly comic book. DC's mainline stuff (and Marvel's, for that matter) does not have an ending, does not really have a beginning, and generally doesn't really have any lasting development in the middle; any time anything actually happens it generally gets rolled back later. That isn't a "novel". I'm not sure what it is. But this sort of thing is why people don't take comics seriously.