Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Paper Comic DeathWatch: DC Comics and 2000 AD

I'm behind on my PCDW items, so today I'm going to play catchup...

1) 2000 AD for iPhones and iPods
The first is the interesting article from Newsarama on ClickWheel and their move to make 2000 AD available for downloadable for iPods and iPhones.

REBELLION, CLICKWHEEL POST 2007 2000AD ARCHIVE ONLINE

PCDW points: 2000 :D

2) DC's Current Sales Slump
next check out some of the suggestions from Newsarama posters on how to fix DC's current sales slump...

TShock suggests iTunes for comics
Vbartilucci suggests DC post their comics in cbr format
Lemurion suggests the same thing

Now, before you just dismiss these posts as the simple ravings of Newsarama fanboys (of which I'm proud to say I am one...) let me say this - I've been keeping up with the ebb and flo of this Digital Comics Revolution for about 5 years, and in the past such suggestions would have been met with a rampant village of paper loving peasants wielding pitchforks and torches on the lone visionary who dare suggest a thing.

Now, the idea of digital versions of comics are not only accepted, but are encouraged by other posters on Newsarama. That is what the suits call a Paradigm Shift...

PCDW Points: 1000

3) DC to hold artists nose to the grindstone
Originally reported by Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters but now being cross reported by blog at Newsarama and Heidi MacDonald's The Beat we have rumor(?) that DC has implemented a new policy regarding late artwork...


DC Comics has a new in house policy for pencillers. Aside from very specific
contracted creators (such as Jim Lee), any penciller contracted to work on a
monthly book must deliver complete turnaround of 22 pages of work in four weeks.
Not a month, four weeks. If that schedule isn’t maintained, they’ll pull pages
and assign them to other creators. And you may run short of future work. A
reduction in quality is more acceptable than a reduction in quantity.

I know what you are thinking - Jim, how does that add to PCDW?

Well, here's my thinking - I've gotta figure that this policy is the direct result of some of the higher ups at Time Warner looking at the DC books and going, "Hey, when we miss a month on say, JLA, we miss out on a lot of money! We gotta stop that no matter what the consequences..."

Such pennywise, pound foolish thinking is almost a hallmark of corporate TW really.

It's no secret that Wall Street has Time Warner's balls in a vice and are expecting it to perform. (Which it still has failed to do despite the much ballyhooed Bewkes/Parsons switchup)

It's also no secret that Time Warner has been laying off workers in it's magazine divisions

You put all that together, and what you have is corporate making a policy that runs counter to what a more successful rival is doing, jeopardizes reader loyality AND is probably going hurt them when it comes time to recruit namebrand artists.

Overall, not a good thing for DC.
And where DC/Marvel go, so go paper comics...

PCDW Points: 1000

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