What Consumers Should Know from the DC Retailer Roadshow

By Max Beckman

Yesterday DC Entertainment invited retailers to the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California,  for the first of five stops on their DC Comics Retailer Roadshow.  The purpose of this tour is to present all of their plans for the upcoming September relaunch, dubbed "The New 52", and take any and all questions and feedback we had on the initiative.

In attendance on DC's side were Co-Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee, SVP of Sales Bob Wayne, Hank Kanalz (an executive in the digital branch), and John Rood (EVP of Sales, Marketing and Business Development).  President DC Entertainment Diane Nelson was also in attendance but did not take part in the presentation or Q&A herself (she's a pretty busy woman with Green Lantern opening that day and the final Harry Potter film right around the corner).  There were approximately 20 different stores in attendance—mostly from California, but there were also some long distance travelers (from Portland, Las Vegas, the Bay Area, and Arizona).

DC Co-Publisher DiDio promised books will
be published on time for the forseeable future.

Before digging into the meat of the presentation, I have to mention that much of the meeting was "under a cone of silence" and I will be respecting that fully.  I'm also not going to get into the nitty gritty of the behind-the-scenes stuff that only retailers care about; this is about what you, the consumer and reader of this fine blog, will care about knowing the most.

The first major point that Dan DiDio emphasized is his "guarantee" that these books will be coming out on time for the foreseeable future (and yes this includes Batman: The Dark Knight!).  They are absolutely committed to getting these books out in a timely and consistent basis.

DiDio was also very excited about the new "dynamic" nature of the art.  The company's presentation took us through each of "The New 52" to run down the creative teams and signify which were changing the most, changing the least, etc. and throughout the slides he and Jim Lee made a point of saying that they really wanted to change the way comics had developed in the last few years from smaller, "talky" stories to big, exciting, action-packed adventures with art that "jumps off the page."

The presenters also assured us that the current stories still matter.  On August 31st, the only two DC books being published will be Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1 and you WILL want to read Flashpoint #5 first.  There is a definite link between the end of Flashpoint and the beginning of “The New 52.”  Additionally, the company's most successful books currently, most notably the Batman and Green Lantern family of titles, will be continuing directly from their current storylines with little to no interruption.  Another book they mentioned changing very little was Green Arrow.  While some of the characters in these books may be in slightly different situations and/or costumes and be slightly younger or more inexperienced than they were in August, the storylines will remain intact. 

DC may begin publishing Omnibi with a
"more Omnibussy" page count.

For those of you, like me, who are hardcover and graphic novel collectors or strictly trade collectors, I also got some good information on the future of their book publishing plans.  Nothing is finalized yet so I'll have to speak generally but they are looking at the possibility of publishing book collections more quickly than they do presently.  They are also taking a close look at how many issues should be included in each volume.  With their reduced page count of 20 pages per 2.99 book (four of the September books will actually be 3.99 for 30 pages), they may be including as many as eight issues per volume.  For you omnibus collectors like me, they are also re-evaluating their omnibus line and will be making these editions "more omnibusy" in terms of page count which is a wonderful development.

Overall, as a reader and retailer I am now very excited for the new direction DC is taking.  They seem incredibly sincere about this initiative and what it will hopefully mean for not only their own company but the health of the industry in general, and I see this as a very good thing.

Max Beckman is a manager at  Pulp Fiction in Long Beach, CA and CheapGraphicNovels.com.  You can follow him on Twitter @CheapGNsdotcom and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pulpfictioncomics.  Pulp Fiction can be found on the web at www.pulpfictiononline.com and at 1742 Clark Ave. Long Beach, CA 90815.