Goodbye to Dan Didio....And DC?

I haven’t done a post on comic books in awhile and it seems now would be a good time to do one.

 

For one thing, I want to address the recent firing of Dan Didio from DC.

 

On one hand, I have never doubted Dan’s love and enthusiasm for comic books in general and for DC specifically.

 

On the other hand, a lot of what has driven me away from my nearly lifelong love of DC comics occurred under Didio’s leadership. On over emphasis on events and character deaths, a constant shifting of the foundations of DC’s continuity, a drive to always shake things up before we’ve had a chance to assess the situation from the last shake up.

 

It may be unfair to unload all of this at Dan Didio’s feet. All that stuff I griped about above also fits the current state of Marvel Comics as well.  And there is the idea that a lot of what Dan Didio instigated In his time as Publisher at DC was at the beck and call of corporate masters who were attuned to  bolstering the bottom line through whatever short term hair brained idea that could be workshopped over a conference call. 

 

It seems Dan was shown the door in a rather inglorious fashion. He showed up for work Friday morning at the DC offices in Burbank with plans for some big events for the weekend to roll out some new DC projects. A couple of hours later, Dan Didio was escorted by security out the door.

 

In the aftermath, a lot of people went on Twitter to speak very well of Dan, writers and artists who spoke of their respect and affection for this man. Even with the caveat of their being some disagreements with Dan, the consensus was that Dan Didio was a good guy and deserved a better wrap up to his story at DC. 

 

Of course, the end of Dan Didio’s time at DC does not necessarily mean the end of Dan Didio. Any of these writers and artists might need to make nice with Dan Didio, Executive Editor of Image, Dark Horse, IDW or even Marvel.  

 

Rob Liefeld was virtually the lone exception to this outpouring of good will with a veritable “ding dong, the wicked witch is dead” proclamation of joy.

 

It would be funny if Dan did wind up at Marvel and wound up running DC anyway? Which brings us to the recent rampant rumors of a potential acquisition of DC by Marvel Comics.

 

The idea of Marvel taking over DC is not a new one. Back about four decades ago, there was a potential pitch for Marvel to take over DC that was serious enough for Marvel Editor in Chief Jim Shooter to actually solicit some pitches from Marvel’s best and brightest to write and draw DC’s characters.  

 

The idea then was that Warners would not relinquish ownership of the DC characters but license them to Marvel to make comic books.  The logic for Warners was that Superman made more money for them being on TV, in movies and on peanut butter, lunch boxes and underwear than they were seeing off of the comic books.

 

Apparently, this is the logic of AT&T, DC’s current corporate masters. Why not turn the production of DC comic books into a pure profit center? Why not have Marvel/Disney pay AT&T money for the privilege of making DC comic books and AT&T doesn’t have to pay for one damn editor, writer or artist?  

 

But why would Marvel want to pay AT&T to publish Superman when they can make as much money or more on Spider-Man which they don’t have to pay anyone for the privilege since they own Spider-Man? 

 

Hell, there have been rumors of Disney wanting to do the same thing with Marvel: make money off the characters in movies and TV shows and license off the comics to somebody else. 

 

Of course, AT&T looking to cut itself loose from making comic books is just a rumor. But comic books is an ever shrinking slice of the pie for any media company to make money off of an Intellectual Property (IP).  Right now, the comic book industry is doing well enough to stay in business and for writers and artists to make a living and for comic shops to keep their doors  open. But the sad reality is that the momentum of the comic book industry is not heading towards bigger and greater things.  And with corporate overlords watching the bottom line ever more closely, the future of comic books is probably more short than it is long. 

The question now is how I can blame this on Dan Didio?