Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Four Answers About The New DC

Two and a half weeks ago, I asked some questions concerning DC, mostly related to books being canceled and new ones being given the green light. Didn't take long to get some answers, so let's check in.

1) When will DC announce the next round of cancellations? This week, apparently. I thought it would be September (with the final issues shipping in December), so I gave DC credit for too much patience. I wasn't sure at first about canceling them the month they do zero issues, but I guess if the creative teams can show how things started in a way that wraps up remaining mysteries it might not be bad. I am surprised they're starting the new titles the same month. Doesn't that mean it'll be 56 books in September for the New 52? Why not wait until October, especially since those titles are just starting, why do they need a zero issue already?

2) How many books will get canceled? I said 6, the correct answer was "4". I don't know if that's significant. I could take it to mean they didn't have as many new pitches coming in that they liked. Or it could just mean the execs are happy with how most of the books are doing. Or else they made a recent creative team switch, and are willing to give it more time to see what happens.

3) Will any of the Second Wave be included in the cancellations? No, but given that some of them haven't even reached issue 2 yet, that makes sense. It would have been more of a possibility if DC had waited longer before pulling the trigger, but that isn't how it went. The question now is whether any of the Second Wave will be at first by the time DC gets ready to introduce the Fourth Wave.

4) How long until I should stop calling it the new DC, or whatever? I don't believe DC has made any comment with regard to that, but it occurred to me that I could probably stop whenever DC stops putting "The New 52!" at the top of each book's cover.

2 comments:

SallyP said...

I think that the whole thing is getting a little ridiculous. They are holding themselves to this artificially imposed level, of ONLY having 52 books...so if they want to introduce something new, something old has to go.

That's a little...silly.

CalvinPitt said...

sallyp: I guess if the books that go REALLY aren't selling, it might make sense to just swap, but does that mean they keep lousy books going because they don't have enough solid replacements?

At some point, they're gonna have to ditch the 52 limit, one way or the other.