Ns: DC announces new Interim Editors in Chief and in a nice surprise, both are women

[icon_uk]

Having let Bob Harras go as part of the restructuring that happened alst week, DC have announced that replacing him be Marie Javins and Michele Wells!

In an interview with Hollywood Reporter, Jim Lee revealed the names and the focus of the new DC and discussed their leaving Diamond.

“We are still in the business of publishing comics,” Lee adds, saying that there is no work being halted.

Yes, there will be more Batman — John Ridley, who won an Oscar for penning 12 Years a Slave, is writing a Batman mini-series (“It will have a huge impact on the rest of the line,” Lee says) — and there will also be the return of Milestone, a label that features under-represented heroes and creators.

Is DC still publishing comics?

Absolutely. One hundred percent. It is still the cornerstone of everything that we do. The need for storytelling, updating the mythology, is vital to what we do. The organization leans on us to share and establish the meaningful elements of the content that they need to use and incorporate for all their adaptations. When we think about reaching global audiences, and we see comics as helping drive that awareness and that international brand, it’s very much part of our future.

That said, we will be reducing the size of the slate. But 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. 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.

You now have two interim editors-in-chiefs, Marie Javins, who headed digital strategy, and Michele Wells, who headed the YA imprint. How is that going to work?

We thought it would be a great pairing to bring them together to help draft and organize the content we’re doing along these lines. Across digital, across global, we want to make sure we have diversity and inclusivity, and making it in a way that we have authenticity to the storytelling that we’re doing.

It’s really about consolidating all of our efforts and having every editors involved in all these directives and also organizing, broadly speaking, in content that is for kids 6 to 11 and then 12 to 45. It’s about consolidating format and oversight to a smaller, more concentrated editorial group.

DC in the spring broke away from Diamond as its distributor and signed with two new companies. Some people said at the time it would be a mistake. How has it fared?

Not only has it exceeded our initial expectations, but the size and strength of the business is that same level or higher than pre-COVID. There was a lot of fear mongering out there about another Heroes World type of debacle that occurred decades ago; there is nothing further from the truth. Things have transitioned very smoothly — that’s not to say there aren't kinks that need to be worked out. UCS and Lunar, they’ve done an amazing job transitioning all the content we produce and putting it into new pipelines and getting it to retailers.

What is going to happen to DC Universe?

The original content that is on DCU is migrating 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. We feel that is the place for that.

In regards to the community and experience that DCU created, and all the backlist content, something like 20.000 to 25,000 different titles, and the way it connected with fans 24-7, there is always going to be a need for that. So we’re excited to transform it and we’ll have more news on what that will look like. It’s definitely not going away.

The full interview is in the link. It's a bit of a puff piece, but interesting nevertheless.

Comments

[shakalooloo]

Those YA graphic novels must be doing pretty well if they're maintaining an editor for the line. Good for them!

[kurenai_tenka]

I was yay at the title, but then immediately groaning at more Batman. Bonus groan for the oft-repeated promise that it will CHANGE THINGS 4EVA!!!

Glad that the DCU shows are safe.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, I mean, John Ridley is an impressive author to have got to write for them, but I'd much rather they told the cool story they want to tell without it being a major event.

[kurenai_tenka]

Yeah, if anything, doing it this way is more restrictive.

[agent8]

"we will be reducing the size of the slate ...looking at the bottom 20 percent, 25 percent of the line that wasn’t breaking even or was losing money. "

Anyone know which titles this might translate to?

[owlbrigade1]

Pretty much anything that is not Batfamily, I suspect.

[beyondthefringe]

Just look at what's already been cancelled as of this month's solicitations, and work from there... though I guarantee you we'll see a new Suicide Squad title sooner rather than later, most definitely to coincide with the next movie.

[agent8]

Well Shazam has already been cancelled. The only other DC books I take regularly are Young Justice and Legion of Superheros.

Frankly I'm not holding out much hope for ether of those two.

[beyondthefringe]

Young Justice got the axe as well, sorry to say.
And I can't say I'd miss Bendis' take on the Legion if it was cancelled... it never caught fire for me.

[silverhammerman]

So many conflicting thoughts about this interview.

It seems deeply grim to see Jim Lee, former superstar artist and industry pioneer of the Image exodus, talking about comics as grist for the mill of adaptation. Certainly that's been the case for a long time, but it's always been nice to think that's not all superhero comic books are. As a genuine fan of the medium its sad to see Jim Lee of all people come out and essentially say that comics are just R&D.

If that's really the attitude going forward, who's to say what that will mean for the comics. Best case scenario might be that money gets poured into DC with the expectation that even if a book operates a loss it could still attract big name talent and generate new ideas for use elsewhere (though I don't know if a boldfaced admission that DC's business model is about taking people's ideas for adaptation with little compensation is a super attractive proposition for creators). Worst case we'll get a publishing slate that's nothing but pitches for the next DC movie or TV show.

But then in the same answer Lee talks about making sure every book has a reason for being published and that's so refreshing. So many of DC's bottom-tier books feel like busywork or favors to the boss' old buddies rather than coming out for the purposes of being a good book that people might want to read. That thought is also tempered by the idea that with such a heavy focus on adaptation we might not see truly weird books. Will DC end up nixing more off-beat titles because they figure they've got that covered with something like Doom Patrol, and instead have their whole line dominated by ideas of marketability?

Glad to see that Javins and Wells are sticking around and getting a bigger role, that seems like a positive indication that at the very least DC isn't going to contract their line back to the most dependable, least ambitious books. I hope this doesn't mean the YA imprint is done for, but bringing a bit of its energy to the mainline would be far from a bad thing. The YA imprint, by it's very nature, wasn't for me, but I must admit that there were some good ideas and I wouldn't mind seeing them applied to the main universe. I might not have cared for that Batman high school book that was basically just a CW soap opera, but applying that same energy to, say Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown, might make those characters feel like they have a purpose again.

[sdinma]

"It seems deeply grim to see Jim Lee, former superstar artist and industry pioneer of the Image exodus, talking about comics as grist for the mill of adaptation."

Wasn't the entire reason for the Image exodus so that the artists could own their own IP and get all the money for cartoons, movies, etc. based on their creations?

[silverhammerman]

Ha, very true, especially if you look at the trajectory of a guy like Todd McFarlane. Still, they could do that because they were artistic giants and I look on their goals a lot more charitably than the work-for-hire business model of sucking creatives dry for the sake of billion-dollar franchises for little compensation.

[mazway_75]

I see the reaction among certain segments of comic book fans is as one would expect...

"Human sacrifice, cats and dogs, living together, MASS HYSTERIA!"

[jgeils]

Saying this is not anything like "Heroes World" feels like an American President saying "This will not be another Vietnam".

[thanekos]

" [Our editorial setup's] really about consolidating all of our efforts and having every editors involved in all these directives and also organizing, broadly speaking, in content that is for kids 6 to 11 and then 12 to 45. "

Less advertising/comic tonal clashes like that recent Immortal Hulk one, then.

[michaelsaint]

(Just a heads up: you misspelled Jim Lee's name after the link. )

I like this editorial change because they are building on talent they have on their team and investing in people who will hopefully bring a new direction to their management.

[icon_uk]

Did I? Oops, thanks!

[bruinsfan]

I'm not familiar with the new editors. Is the general consensus that their work and vision for the medium are good and this will serve the line well?

[thatnickguy]

What I'm most disappointed about this is the severe gutting of the collected editions department. Then again, DC (and Marvel's) track record for keeping up on collected editions isn't that great. They'll start on a promising series of trades of classic stuff (Peter David's Aquaman, Kyle Rayner Green Lantern), get one or two, MAYBE three books, then stop. It was infuriating.

[beyondthefringe]

I wish they'd bring back the Showcase and Essential collections. I loved getting those big ol' black and white phonebooks.

[magicrubbish]

Sounds to me like more Batfamily comics . Isn't that the gist ? :))))

[filthysize]

I posted this comment last week in the previous thread about the layoffs:

"Something really interesting is happening related to Jim Lee that may hint at the future of DC. Lee had a dual role as CCO and Publisher, but he's been removed as Publisher and according to Variety, in staying as CCO apparently he's also going to help oversee the creative side of the DC heroes at all of Warners. Meanwhile, Editorial is now going to be run by Michelle Wells, who was the head of the kids/YA line. With these two moves and everyone at Black Label fired, my speculation is that the idea is to have TV and Movies absorb the mature audiences and have the actual DC Comics refocus to all-ages and YA stuff for digital and bookstores. It really doesn't bode well for direct market, imo."

It really seems like Lee's answers in the interview aligns with some of those speculations. He's still hyping the new distributor, but I dunno, it makes way more sense to me that it's an interim solution while they're, in his words, lean into more global markets by going more digital.

[silverhammerman]

I must have overlooked this comment when you made it last week, because this is an interesting line of speculation, though I don't agree with your conclusions.

I think Black Label has its problems, chief among them a style which is very "Direct Market", but it's built on solid ideas. Giving creators a freer hand with self-contained stories geared towards being packaged as graphic novels is the kind of thing which people have been pointing to for years now as a possible future for comics. If DC is going to move further in that direction with its increased focus on the YA line and digital/bookstores, I don't think it would make sense for them to simultaneously abandon similar attempts with adult-oriented books.

Plus, DC has long craved legitimacy and respectability, chasing the evergreen sales and "serious art" reputations of stories like TDKR, Watchmen, and The Killing Joke for decades now. Even with a massive change in management I can't believe that DC would abandon that, given that such stories provide both consistent sales and add respectability to adaptations. Splitting it so that mature audiences get the adaptations and the source material focuses on kids seems like leaving money on the table and potentially confusing the brand.

My baseless conjecture is that we're going to see Black Label (or its successor) co-existing with the YA line while ongoing interconnected DCU books shrink substantially.

[filthysize]

That's also a good guess. My conclusion was primarily based on the fact that DC hasn't really tried to pursue a bigger adult audience seriously. Black Label was what you said, its output was primarily stuff aimed at the same fanboys. Maybe they'll still continue to try to figure out what kind comics would grab adults in bookstores, but clearly they've had more success finding those audiences on TV. Meanwhile, their YA stuff has been a huge success and were massively expanding with more and more books announced even before this restructuring.

[silverhammerman]

I can't help thinking that Young Animal, now all but dead in the water, was the example to follow as far as that goes. I suppose the imprint was always tied to Gerard Way, a guy who doesn't have much reason to do consistent work for DC, so it's longevity might have been doomed, but the haven't tried to follow up on or succeed it. Black Label is kind of doing something similar but without the unusual approaches and talent that Young Animal emphasized.

[penguinzero]

I basically dropped all of DC some years back when I became aware of the Eddie Berganza scandal -- and the great lengths people in management had gone to in order to protect him. Even when he was eventually fired, we never learned who'd been covering for him, much less gotten any admission of responsibility on their part, so I didn't come back.

Now, with this huge shake-up, it's plausible that whoever it was is gone -- but I can't know for sure. I've been vaguely aware of Javins's work since way back when she was editing Groo, but like most good editors she kept to the background, so I don't really have a big sense of what she's like. Still, it's a good step that might draw me back to the company... Except that with trimming the line that severely, I expect there aren't going to be nearly as many titles that interest me. (I tend to be drawn to the weirder, more innovative books at the fringes of the big mainstream comic universes, not the big ones like the Super-family, Bat-family, etc. Exactly the sort of thing that a company trimming their low earners isn't going to take a risk on.)

So I don't know if this will get me back to DC. But I'll be watching with interest.