UPDATED WITH SCORECARD: No Really, DC Still Doesn’t Think You Care About Creative Teams
I’ve said it before! Are they trying to make each book seem soulless and artistically uninspired at this point?
This weekend DC announced ten new titles, exactly one of which (Keith Giffen’s new Doom Patrol) was announced with a creative mind in tow.
In total, they announced an astonishing five new Bat-titles (Batman & Robin, Red Robin, Gotham City Sirens, Batman: Streets of Gotham and Batgirl) as well as four Final Crisis Aftermath titles (Run!, Escape, Ink and Dance). Run! has previously had Matthew Sturges & Freddie E. Williams II mentioned as a creative team, but they weren’t mentioned this weekend, so none of these books - none of them - are attached to an artist or a writer.
So I have to ask: what the hell is the point of announcing them like this? Do they not have creators attached, or are they waiting to announce them later? If it’s later, they don’t have much time - The Final Crisis Aftermath books will be in next Monday’s May solicitations (they’re going to announce them in the intervening week? They can’t do it now? Really?) And the Batman solicitations will have to follow a month after. And if they’re not announcing the creators until later, then who cares about the titles?
We live in a market where, if you have two brain cells in your head, you’re buying comics largely based on the creative minds involved. And especially when you’re dealing with the fallout of a Grant Morrison event comic, whether or not people are going to be interested in a Super Young Team miniseries (Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance) depends largely on who’s going to be working on it since anybody invested in the Super Young Team is probably a Morrison fan, and not many people seem cpable of giving his concepts a satisfying follow-up.
These announcements are ridiculous because - who cares? Oh, there’s gonna be a Red Robin book, big fucking deal. Since they can’t tell us who Red Robin is, or what the book’s about, the only signifier of potential quality anybody possibly has to go by is the creative team, and that wasn’t announced either. So why bother? What discussion does it even really raise? Am I supposed to look forward to the fact that there are going to continue to be ongoing Batman titles featuring members of a Batman family? Is this supposed to surprise me?
I mean, take a look at the other side - people are talking about Marvel’s announcements since, even though we have no idea exactly where Fantastic Four will be going, people can figure out whether or not they’re interested in it pretty easily just by thinking about the new creative team of Jonathan Hickman and Dale Eaglesham. Millar and Carlos Pacheco on Ultimate Avengers, Lafuente joining Bendis on the Ultimate Spider-Man relaunch, Way, Liu and Camuncoli on Dark Wolverine - it’s as much about the creative teams as it is the characters involved when it comes to selling these books, and that’s why people actually give a shit about their convention announcements. These are concrete announcements and pieces of information that can influence my buying patterns. But DC? When you announce a bunch of titles without creative teams, all that does is suggest that those creative teams suck so you don’t want to mention them triumphantly. And judging by your record with choosing creative teams for projects like these recently, I’m not entirely unconvinced that isn’t the case.
UPDATE: Here’s the scorecard for the new titles announced this week and where the creative teams were discovered! Keep posting, commenters; I’ll update it as more information comes in.
Title
Writer
Artist
Source
Doom Patrol
Keith Giffen
Matthew Clark
FC Aftermath: Run!
Matthew Sturges
Freddie E. Williams II
FC Aftermath: Escape
FC Aftermath: Ink
FC Aftermath: Dance
Joe Casey
ChrisCross
Batman
Tony Daniel
Comments (Mike, Pedro)
Batman & Robin
Grant Morrison
Frank Quitely
Comments (Skeletor)
Batgirl
Gotham City Sirens
Batman: Streets of Gotham
Red Robin
Judd Winick?
Let’s see how it all works out, guys!