DC Comics: Just To Keep Copyrights Fresh?

[James Harvey]

Check out this quote from Canuck Todd McFarlane during an interview:

MDT: Your comments about DC have never been good or bad. Mostly neutral. What kind of difference was there in the way you were handled at DC as opposed to Marvel?

TM: The difference is, it doesn't matter what DC Comics does or doesn't do. …Marvel's good or bad decision making has a more immediate impact than DC …DC [is] owned by [what] is now AOL TimeWarner. So whether anyone at DC Comics wants to admit it or not, this is my opinion, DC Comics -- to the big boys at AOL TimeWarner -- is a licensing division that happens to publish comic books. They hold copyrights to a lot of characters that they license out. They make Popsicles and toothpaste and pajamas and puzzles and posters and knickknacks. Every once in a while, they turn it into a movie or a cartoon.

[T]hey're just a holder of trademarks. If you lose $8 million in publishing comic books, but they make $12 million in licensing those characters out, they made $4 million bucks. One of the reasons they're getting those licenses is that their putting out the books and creating a brand name. Making the brand name accessible every day in the world in places where we're used to seeing it. I don't think DC has the same worries at hand that Marvel does….

Opinions on this? Is that all DC is?

[The Mad Hatter]

What the?! McFarlane's one to talk about licensing. He's been exploiting Spawn for everything he can get since day one. There's been the constant stream of toys, T-shirts, and the like, the way he whored his vision out for the teen-friendly Spawn movie, the way he dedicates more and more pages on the back of his comics to sell his crap and show off Mark McGuire's baseball, and the fact that he doesn't really write or draw his comics anymore, he just sits back and lets the money roll in.

I don't have a lot of respect for the man...

[James Harvey]

I agree with you there. I hope that SPAWN 2 (which won't be called SPAWN 2) will at least keep to his so called vision. He whore dout his creation to just about everything. but it's coming back to bite him. His comic is losing sales fast. Issue #1 sold over 1 million copies. The latest issues sells barely 50, 000. While he has made some cool action figures, he has done whatever he could to get a penny out of his character. The movie was not-so-good, which the animated series actually wasn't all that bad. I may pick up those DVDs, actually.

[Calhoun07]

I think this leads to a deeper question: Can comic book companies survive without licensing? I don't think so. And McFarlane is right that Marvel suffers more money problems than DC. How often has DC been close to bankruptcy?

I could go on and on about what I think is hurting the comic book industry, but I don't think I will get into that tangent right now. But it strikes me that the comic book industry has to be more of a toy industry just to get by.

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by DickGrayson
So whether anyone at DC Comics wants to admit it or not, this is my opinion, DC Comics -- to the big boys at AOL TimeWarner -- is a licensing division that happens to publish comic books.

Opinions on this? Is that all DC is?

DC would not only cheerfully admit it, they have. In its annual reports during the mid- to late-nineties, Time Warner's chairman explicitly boasted that the company's strategy was to create, acquire and exploit copyrights -- not "content," which is what most entertainment executives say (meaning the actual films or music), but "copyrights." One report even had a flow chart demonstrating how Batman was licensed and exploited through the company's multiple platforms.

That they do and intend to act as McFarlane suggests is irrefutable. As calhoun07 implies, the deeper question is whether this is a good thing or not.

[The Mad Hatter]

Now this brings up something interesting I once read. Marvel, in the mid 90s, were marketing all their toys, trading cards, etc. to try to revive interest in their comics. And all the marketing worked to an extent, as surveys showed kids had increased interest in the characters. But here's the rub: they still didn't buy the comics. DC may have realized this, and are focusing more on expanding interest in the characters rather than the actual comics.

Not that I agree with this mind-set, but it certainly seems to be the way things are going nowadays. Sales of comics are far below what they were 15 years ago, and are quickly becoming a niche thing rather than something any old kid can pick up at the corner grocery store. It depresses me...

[EarthX]

Originally posted by DickGrayson
Opinions on this? Is that all DC is?

To an extent, but histoically, they've done a good job grabbing up indi talent to support ther "copyrights" (Ostrander, Schultz, all the British guys), so they do have some idea that the comics have to actually be good in order to support their brands ("good" being a subjective term, I know).

On a side note, I recently read that DC doesn't actually own Wonder Woman, but has a perpetual exclusive deal with Moulson's estate as long as they "continually publish" a WW comic. That may explain the "Legend of Wonder Woman" miniseries coming out when it did (between the two series) at a time when DC was shying away from "out of contunity" tales with their characters.

[Calhoun07]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
Now this brings up something interesting I once read. Marvel, in the mid 90s, were marketing all their toys, trading cards, etc. to try to revive interest in their comics. And all the marketing worked to an extent, as surveys showed kids had increased interest in the characters. But here's the rub: they still didn't buy the comics. DC may have realized this, and are focusing more on expanding interest in the characters rather than the actual comics.

Not that I agree with this mind-set, but it certainly seems to be the way things are going nowadays. Sales of comics are far below what they were 15 years ago, and are quickly becoming a niche thing rather than something any old kid can pick up at the corner grocery store. It depresses me...

Well, that's one reason Marvel had money problems, much like why Amazon.com had money problems when they started selling kitchen sinks on their website. They had their fingers in too many pies, and it didn't pay off.

As far as the slumping sales, that's part one of my tangent in a nutshell. I go the grocery stores in my area and NOT ONE OF THEM carry comic books any more. And the one comic book store that was open in the area (which sold more Pokemon cards than comics) is now closed. And what comic book stores do exist out there tend to be pretty negative towards new customers and cater to established customers and make their store feel more like an exclusive club than where new comers can come in and find a good atmosphere to start a new hobby. I know not all of them are like that, but too many of them are.

If it wasn't for Westfield Comics, I don't know where I would buy my comic books.