IT’S GETTING WORSE: DC Comics Cancels Five Major Titles as Jim Lee Hints at Shift to Digital Comics
In a new interview, Publisher Jim Lee insists that DC Comics is “still in the business of publishing comics.” You just won’t see as many as them as before. And they may not all be on paper.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Lee insists that “There is no pencils down notice” at DC, even as he admits that their roster of titles will be cut by 20% to 25%.
“It’s about looking at everything and looking at the bottom 20 percent, 25 percent of the line that wasn’t breaking even or was losing money,” Lee said. “It’s about more punch for the pound, so to speak, and increasing the margins of the books that we are doing. It was about aligning the books to the franchise brand content we’ve developed and making sure that every book we put out, we put out for a reason.”
GamesRadar reported that DC’s November solicitations include the first round of cancellations, and they include some key titles. Teen Titans, Young Justice, Suicide Squad, Hawkman, and John Constantine: Hellblazer are all listed with the tag “Final Issue.” Aquaman #65 is listed as a “finale,” and it is the final issue for writer Kelly Sue DeConnick. However, it does not appear that the title is canceled. Yet.
With rumors swirling that AT&T, the parent company of DC Comics, is moving away from printed comics, Lee engaged in a bit of corporate-speak. He committed to comic books in general, but wouldn’t commit to print specifically. However, he seemed enthusiastic about digital comics, and hinted that some comics would be digital-first, with printed versions only if they are successful.
“I don’t think they want to stop us from publishing comics,” Lee said. “Comics serve a lot of different purposes and one of them is it’s a great way to incubate ideas and creating the next great franchises. We want to continue that. We’ll take the most successful (digital) books and repackage it as physical books. I think there’s greater upside in digital because we can go to a more global audiences and the barrier to entry, especially in this pandemic, is lower. It’s a lot easier to get digital content into the hands of consumers that want to read stories.”
Lee also addressed the failure of the DC Universe streaming service. He confirmed that original content on the service is moving to HBO Max.
“Truthfully, that’s the best platform for that content. The amount of content you get, not just DC , but generally from WarnerMedia, is huge and it’s the best value proposition, if I’m allowed to use that marketing term.”
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