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Say! Remember a few months back, pre-COVID, when there was a rumor going around that AT&T was uninterested in publishing comic books, and was toying with the idea of farming out their characters to other publishers and ending DC Comics as we know it if their summer/fall Big Story Event didn't turn sales around?

Yeah....I'm starting to believe that crazy theory....

https://www.comicsbeat.com/dc-layoffs-reportedly-a-bloodbath/

Wow!!!

Well, that is certainly not good.

Maybe Marvel will start buying DC properties? We can finally have an Avengers Vs the Justice League movie!

Or maybe Disney will start grabbing them up. Didn't they just get Aliens and Predator? Superman & Batman VS Aliens and Predators movie!!!

DC Collectibles getting axed possibly is head scratching. I thought that would still be lucrative.

Trying to put a positive spin on this but it's not looking good. Maybe a rich private buyer (Todd McFarlane?) can put together a group of investors and make a bid for the company.

The only problem is that the new comic book market is slumping harder than ever right now, and all the companies are struggling. Who would be willing to pay DC's asking price in the current climate?

Well, if AT&T is as desperate to unload DC as they appear to be it might be a Buyer's Market.

All of a sudden I'm having horrible flashbacks to the AOL/Time Warner merger in 2000. WCW was suddenly viewed as being uncouth to executives and every effort was made to sabotage the wrestling company. It was eventually sold for pennies to its only major competitor where is was mocked and despaired until it was finally put out of its misery.

I really hope that this situation isn't going to be like that.

Another thing that I can't help, but wonder if this is a customer support situation. Companies love making customer support the first place that they'll cut the budget of because they don't bring any new money into the company... oblivious to the fact that customer retains current customers thus keeping money in the company. And customer support is the actually better because it's cheaper to keep existing customers than it is to get new customers.

It just makes me wonder if AT&T views the movies and streaming as how the real money is made, so who needs comic books? Forgetting that the movie and streaming content wouldn't exist without the comic books as the source material.

Either way, I don't think this is going anywhere good for the comic industry... the freaking sucks.

I think this puts on full display AT&T ineptitude and/or total disregard for the comics division (and I guess others that had cuts) that a press release wasn't made available.

I actually get cutting DC Collectibles and just licensing that out. Probably an insane amount of overhead. Hell, maybe AT&T stumbled over the warehouse of old WB Store stuff and said, "never again!"

The comics line... Wasn't Harras under a good bit of scrutiny the last couple years for protecting creators with harassment allegations against them? If I'm thinking of the right person, this one shouldn't be a surprise. Jim Lee never made sense to me in his elevated business positions unless it was strictly to rein in Didio. Now that he's gone, bring Lee back down to Earth. The rest of these folks I dont know cause I haven't read DC books since New 52 began.

Big picture... AT&T probably thinks there's enough IP to plunder for years of (banned)ty movies. They probably aren't wrong either. There's probably a bunch more minute things, but Captain Marvel aside is there really anything in the MCU from the last 10 years of comics? Guardians and Winter Soldier are in the 10-20 year range now. So, maybe the business decision is that modern comics aren't source material for movies. Or at least not enough to justify the ongoing cost.

Maybe Dark Horse can get the license. Those folks need something other than Hellboy.

That's a thought that has been rattling around in my head since I first heard about this. (BTW - Thanks for posting this Corey!)

What if it turns into a Free-For-All and other companies all jump in and start buying characters?

Image gets Superman! Dark Horse gets Batman! Dynamite gets Wonder Woman! Valiant gets Green Lantern! Broadsword gets Zatanna! Charlton rises from the dead and gets back Blue Beetle and The Question and Captain Atom! Archie Comics gets the Teen Titans!

Just like on Oprah - You get a superhero! and you get a superhero! and...

Kinda joking, but kinda not.

AT&T/WB/DC isn't selling any of their characters. More likely scenario is licensing the characters out. Disney/Marvel won't touch them, because it would be pointless if they can't exploit the IP elsewhere. (And Disney/Marvel got Aliens and Predator by virtue of buying an entire movie studio.)

You're right, it wouldn't make sense to give creative control of their top film and tv properties to another company.

Just saw this analysis video. A little long, but worth the watch. If what she says comes to pass, then all I can say is I'm glad I never put all my eggs in one basket by opening up a comic shop (like many of my friends have done in the last ten years). Scary if other publishers follow suit:

https://youtu.be/Ivlfvz-tukc

I knew her name as soon as I saw it. So, she's been through the industry as a writer, so a decent perspective.

I do have some major problems with some of her assumptions. She's assuming everything that has come out as rumor is fact. She weirdly asserts comic shops welcomed the shut down of Diamond. Empyre didn't come out of nowhere and I find it to be the most enjoyable Marvel event in a long, long time.

Most wacky to me is how she is convinced Marvel is going to follow suit within months and Feige take over the comics division. It's not impossible, but seems highly improbable. No one has ever looked over at AT&T, Warner Bros, or DC and thought, "yeah, they are the trailblazers with the good ideas."

She makes the comparison to the music industry, but here we are 20 years into digital music and physical has had a massive resurgence, mostly due to vinyl, but really all. The idea that everything needs to be digital at all times is a stupidly bad, short term bottom line corporate mindset. It will backfire. Not that many/most people won't move to some in between space, but it can't be 100%.

Some of her criticisms of the industry are legit. I just think her view of a) Marvel and b) digital appeal is way off.

But if the day comes that new comics go all digital, I doubt I'll follow. I have no interest of a screen in the bedroom or bathroom to facilitate this. So, it'll be all back issues for me.

Ugh. Stumbled over a video where rhe dude quoted "EVS" within the first minute.

EVS?

Ethan Van Sciver?

The professional face of Comicsgate and biggest DC naysayer of the last 5-10 years. Its the equivalent of using Breitbart as a news source.

What, you don't like the Breitbart?

Sat DC nixes print comics, what do you think the result would be?

I would say maybe a run on the older stuff or maybe all comics in general if people think they will no longer be printed?

It would definitely be a blow if DC stopped publishing weeklies. The bigger domino to watch would be if Disney/Marvel follows suit. I think that's when things would really start to happen. I suspect the bottom might fall out of Diamond. With the majority of their product disappearing between Marvel and DC, I think the only way for them to survive would be to lessen the discounts given to shops, which in turn would hurt the comic shops' bottom line. Or, if Diamond goes away, the remaining publishers may have to resort to selling directly to buyers via the internet. Whatever the scenario, it doesn't bode well for comic stores. I think the only shops that could survive are ones that have a strong online presence.

As for back issue sales.....

April, May, and June this year have been some of my best sales months EVER. This happened at the same time new releases were largely stopped. It's obvious that a lot of buyers of new books shifted their focus to get their comic fix on back issues. I think that's a trend that could continue if weekly new books went away permanently. Something else to consider is where new buyers are coming from, though. The new comic movies and tv shows have helped get some people back into comics, particularly those that once collected when they were younger, back in the nineties. These people go into comic shops for the first time in years, buy some new issues, and quickly realize that new comics ain't what they are when they were a kid. I see a lot of these new buyers quickly move to acquiring back issues. The problem here is that this well will dry up if comic stores start closing. Where will interested parties go to start down the path of buying back issues? Are they savvy enough to just jump online and start buying, bypassing the first step of going to a comic store? It's hard to say.

I started buying comics in 1984. In the nineties, I started hearing how comic book were in danger of going the way of pulp magazines and baseball cards. Later I realized that they've been saying the sky is falling since at least the '70's. I've always kept it in the back of my mind, and taken it with a grain of salt. With the combination of COVID and all the restrictions on shops, Diamond halting production, DC laying off so many personnel, and Disney and AT&T in general looking to save money and only interested in comic properties and not comics themselves, this is the first time in my life where I think new comics going away may actually happen.

Is anyone else getting worried?

More DC Layoffs. This most recently: DC Comics Bloodbath Part II – More Senior DC Staffers Laid Off

My friends at Velocity Comics (and myself) are very concerned that DC might severely scale back or even completely stop publishing hard copies of comics and go strictly digital. Seems insane but could it be happening?

Then there's this: DC Comics Will Close Down In June Says Rumor WARNING! Contains information disseminated by EVS!

I honestly don't see Marvel following DC if they stopped publishing physical copies. I'm more afraid of them doubling down on product! I do believe even the DC only collectors would still head to the shops (at least at first) to try and find something new to latch on to.

As far as Diamond, DC already left and they seem to still be thriving. So as long as Marvel sticks around, they should be good.

Obviously DC won't sell off it's properties. They still need ownership for the movie/tv side of things. But I have noticed a lot of indies schilling their wares on Kickstarter. They could keep their writer and artist staff at a minimum and still create new content. It isn't ideal, but feasible.