DC to Pull Out of Comic Shops?

This one is going to have to be brief, I’m off to DC for the MAGA March as soon as this posts.  

A new article has just been posted by Bleeding Cool, more or less confirming what I had posited in my Red Honeymoon piece. 

That DC is Getting out of the monthly pamphlet business. And that means abandoning the comic shops. 

“That the Warner Bros firings of yet more DC Comics senior staffers, and the subsequent fallout across the company is part of a series of measures that will include a switch away from month print comic books towards digital comic book serialization of stories, then collected in trade paperback sized volumes, or larger, thicker, anthologies aimed at a general mass market, a bookstore market, the bookfair market, the likes of Amazon – and then comic book stores and the direct market almost as an afterthought.

That the content being published and publicized will be pulled back to characters and storylines that have a big multi-media presence, so we’re basically talking Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, Harley Quinn, and Suicide Squad.”

…

It is notable that the naming of the departure of the likes of Adam Philips, Director, Marketing Services and Stuart Schreck, Sales Manager with 47 years at DC Comics between them were the principal figures who dealt with the direct market of comic book retailers, which led to much lamenting from comic shop owners as a result.”

…

I remember back in March when the owners of the comic shops we’re putting out long and flowery demands to be subsidized by Warner Media and Disney during the Covid crisis. It’s both funny and sad that they thought for a second that either of these corporations was remotely capable of caring about them. 

…

“The rumor (is that) DC Comics have made the decision to no longer have a strong comic book presence at comic book conventions in the fashion they have before, any appearance will now be subsumed into Warner Bros presence. We have seen a move in that direction at New York Comic Con, but San Diego Comic-Con still had DC Comics doing the full month. Not anymore, and the departure of Fletcher Chu-Fong as DC Events Director after 18 years is seen as further proof of that. Not that there are any conventions to appear at right now, but this is a decision made going forward.”

…

So apparently, DC Comics is no longer allowed to go to Comicons.  Comic book conventions are now to be exclusively used only to promote movies, and not comic books, so far as Warner Media. 

Frankly, this is why Comicons were dying in the first place.  The owners of the Big Two had no interest in the foundational material of the movies. 

And even less respect for them.  

That’s it for tonight.  I have a long way to go and a short time to get there.  See you Monday, provided I’m not dead or in jail.