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Neodegenerate on 30 July 2015
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Augen said:
Neodegenerate said:

I am right there with ya.  With this new approach they have taken, the "DCYOU" thing, I was excited because it appears as though they have loosened up on the singular direction and now are letting the creative teams do what they want.  I have picked up a number of titles I never thought I would, and for the most part I am enjoying them.  The only issue though is because they are so lax on continuity it is mind boggling to try and figure out how things make sense.  

In Justice League Superman is still in his old costume, not known to the world, and fully powered.  In all of his own titles he is outed, de-powered, and wearing a t-shirt with the new logo.  Batman, same concept.  Bat-books are all contiguous with each other, completely separate from JL.  If you want to give freedom to do things that is all well and good.  But when you say that your core line (Batman, Superman, JL, etc) is going to stay in the "New 52" line of formatting while the other books skirt the outsides you need to actually make that distinction apparent.

Then of course there was the Action Comics 41 with references to Superman 41 (not out for a few weeks after AC41) and even Superman 42 (a full month and a half later) in order to understand what certain characters were doing there.  

At this point I feel like they should just give me a universe symbol/number on the bottom corner of the book and let it go from there.


If I ran a comic book company (no one would want me to, but here goes).

Characters and teams would have "runs" with a creative team of 6-24 issues with a story in mind.  Then they could take a breather for a bit, maybe a few months or a few years and have another run.  Too often the monthly grind, often of multiple books, has writers scrambling with boring or poor ideas and recycling ideas.  Batman can take a break, maybe just be a Justice League member for six months, and then have something to do on his own. I love these characters, but I am not really interested in seeing them fight the same villain for the hundredth time.  Let the Joker sit in Arkham for a decade in the mainline so when he comes back it feel more like an event.

Keep in mind, I'm a fan, not in the business so can see why my strategy of low volume, high quality would be financial suicide.

That's the largest problem right there, the financial  part.  Too often these days companies in all situations want to ride that hot hand.  Hell, look at all the shared universe movie bullshit that is going on (Transformers, Ghostbusters, 21 Jump Street and Men in Black???) simply because Marvel did it and found a profit in it.

One of my favorite books out right now is Saga, largely in part because of their release schedule.  6 issues in 6 months, 3 months off, repeat.  Gives the writer and artist time to refocus, evaluate, and put out a damn fine product.  

When Marvel initially did the whole Marvel Now thing I expected it would be something similar to what you put together there, short runs of good stories and opportunities for little used characters to shine through.  And sure, there was some of that, but after 3 or 4 issues of "this isn't selling like Avengers" they scrap it and move on to the 13th Avengers title of the month.  And DC is just as bad.  When DC launched the New 52 one of my favorite books was OMAC.  But because it wasn't a top 50 book it got scrapped in 8 issues.  I am sure with the money they make off Batman and the like they can keep a few of their lower tier books around a bit longer than 8 damn issues.