Disney Buys Dc Comics
The hottest gossip in comics is that DC is on the verge of being scooped up by the Disney empire. With the New York Times reporting that very scenario nearly happened five years ago, it bolsters speculation that a deal is imminent. So the big question: are the rumors true?
disney buys dc comics
In the long run, it would be bad for fans, and I would imagine the federal government would view that as a monopoly. Outside of Marvel and DC, there are no major publishers in the game. As much as I love Image Comics, Todd McFarlane and company are a distant third and closer to an independent publisher compared to the big two. In the event of a Disney takeover, that would probably lead to DC being shut down and folded into Marvel Comics. That would leave just one option for mainstream comics, and that is not good for anyone, especially fans.
A lack of competition would eventually lead to a boring slate of comics that would slowly kill the industry. Sure, combining the DC Universe with the Marvel Universe could make for some legendary storylines and generate huge interest in comics, possibly even drawing in those elusive new readers. However, years down the road, once the novelty wears off, the absence of DC Comics would create a black hole in the industry that cannot be repaired.
Penguin Random House Publisher Services distributes DC Comics' books to the bookstore market,[10] while Diamond Comic Distributors supplied the comics shop direct market[9][11] until June 2020, when Lunar Distribution and UCS Comic Distributors, who already dominated direct market distribution on account of the disruption to Diamond that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic, replaced Diamond to distribute to that market.[2]
Entrepreneur Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson founded National Allied Publications in Autumn 1934 intended as an American comic book publishing company.[1][16][17] The first publishing of the company debuted with the tabloid-sized New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine #1 (the first of a comic series later called More Fun Comics) with a cover date of February 1935. It was an anthology title essentially for original stories not reprinted from newspaper strips, unlike many comic book series before it.[15][18] While superhero comics are what DC Comics is known for throughout modern times, the genres in the first anthology titles consisted of funnies, Western comics and adventure-related stories. The character Doctor Occult, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in December 1935 with issue No. 6 of New Fun Comics, is considered the earliest recurring superhero created by DC who is still used.[19][20] The company created a second recurring title called New Comics No. 1, released in December 1935, which was the start of the long-running Adventure Comics series featuring many anthology titles as well.[21]
Meanwhile, Max Gaines formed the sister company All-American Publications around 1938.[23] Detective Comics, Inc. soon launched a new anthology title, entitled Action Comics. Issue#1, cover dated June 1938, first featured characters such as Superman by Siegel and Shuster, Zatara by Fred Guardineer and Tex Thompson by Ken Finch and Bernard Baily. It is considered to be the first comic book to feature the new character archetype, soon known as "superheroes", and was a sales hit bringing to life a new age of comic books, with the credit going to the first appearance of Superman both being featured on the cover and within the issue. It is now one of the most expensive and valuable comic book issues of all time.[24] The issue's first featured tale which starred Superman was the first to feature an origin story of superheroes with the reveal of an unnamed planet, later known as Krypton, that he is said to be from. The issue also contained the first essential supporting character and one of the earliest essential female characters in comics with Lois Lane as Superman's first depicted romantic interest.[25] The Green Hornet-inspired character known as the Crimson Avenger by Jim Chamber was featured in Detective Comics No. 20 (October 1938). The character makes a distinction of being the first masked vigilante published by DC.[26][27] An unnamed "office boy" retconned as Jimmy Olsen's first appearance was revealed in Action Comics #6's (November 1938) Superman story by Siegel and Shuster.[28][29]
When the popularity of superheroes faded in the late 1940s, the company focused on such genres as science fiction, Westerns, humor, and romance. DC also published crime and horror titles, but relatively tame ones, and thus avoided the mid-1950s backlash against such comics. A handful of the most popular superhero-titles, including Action Comics and Detective Comics, the medium's two longest-running titles, continued publication.
DC's introduction of the reimagined superheroes did not go unnoticed by other comics companies. In 1961, with DC's JLA as the specific spur,[b] Marvel Comics writer-editor Stan Lee and a robust creator Jack Kirby ushered in the sub-Silver Age "Marvel Age" of comics with the debut issue of The Fantastic Four.[52] Reportedly, DC ignored the initial success of Marvel with this editorial change until its consistently strengthening sales, albeit also benefiting Independent News' business as their distributor as well, made that impossible. That commercial situation especially applied with Marvel's superior sell-through percentage numbers which were typically 70% to DC's roughly 50%, which meant DC's publications were barely making a profit in comparison after returns from the distributors were calculated while Marvel was making an excellent profit by comparison.[53]
In 1967, Batman artist Infantino (who had designed popular Silver Age characters Batgirl and the Phantom Stranger) rose from art director to become DC's editorial director. With the growing popularity of upstart rival Marvel Comics threatening to topple DC from its longtime number-one position in the comics industry, he attempted to infuse the company with more focus towards marketing new and existing titles and characters with more adult sensibilities towards an emerging older age group of superhero comic book fans that grew out of Marvel's efforts to market their superhero line to college-aged adults. He also recruited major talents such as ex-Marvel artist and Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko and promising newcomers Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil and replaced some existing DC editors with artist-editors, including Joe Kubert and Dick Giordano, to give DC's output a more artistic critical eye.
Following the science-fiction innovations of the Silver Age, the comics of the 1970s and 1980s became known as the Bronze Age, as fantasy gave way to more naturalistic and sometimes darker themes. Illegal drug use, banned by the Comics Code Authority, explicitly appeared in comics for the first time in Marvel Comics' story "Green Goblin Reborn!" in The Amazing Spider-Man No. 96 (May 1971), and after the Code's updating in response, DC offered a drug-fueled storyline in writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams' Green Lantern, beginning with the story "Snowbirds Don't Fly" in the retitled Green Lantern / Green Arrow No. 85 (September 1971), which depicted Speedy, the teen sidekick of superhero archer Green Arrow, as having become a heroin addict.
Two DC limited series, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Watchmen by Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, drew attention in the mainstream press for their dark psychological complexity and promotion of the antihero.[76] These titles helped pave the way for comics to be more widely accepted in literary-criticism circles and to make inroads into the book industry, with collected editions of these series as commercially successful trade paperbacks.[77]
The mid-1980s also saw the end of many long-running DC war comics, including series that had been in print since the 1960s. These titles, all with over 100 issues, included Sgt. Rock, G.I. Combat, The Unknown Soldier, and Weird War Tales.
In March 1989, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc., making DC Comics a subsidiary of Time Warner. In June, the first Tim Burton-directed Batman movie was released, and DC began publishing its hardcover series of DC Archive Editions, collections of many of their early, key comics series, featuring rare and expensive stories unseen by many modern fans. Restoration for many of the Archive Editions was handled by Rick Keene with colour restoration by DC's long-time resident colourist, Bob LeRose. These collections attempted to retroactively credit many of the writers and artists who had worked without much recognition for DC during the early period of comics when individual credits were few and far between.
The comics industry experienced a brief boom in the early 1990s, thanks to a combination of speculative purchasing (mass purchase of the books as collectible items, with intent to resell at a higher value as the rising value of older issues, was thought to imply that all comics would rise dramatically in price) and several storylines which gained attention from the mainstream media. DC's extended storylines in which Superman was killed, Batman was crippled and superhero Green Lantern turned into the supervillain Parallax resulted in dramatically increased sales, but the increases were as temporary as the hero's replacements. Sales dropped off as the industry went into a major slump, while manufactured "collectables" numbering in the millions replaced quality with quantity until fans and speculators alike deserted the medium in droves.
DC's Piranha Press and other imprints (including the mature readers line Vertigo, and Helix, a short-lived science fiction imprint) were introduced to facilitate compartmentalized diversification and allow for specialized marketing of individual product lines. They increased the use of non-traditional contractual arrangements, including the dramatic rise of creator-owned projects, leading to a significant increase in critically lauded work (much of it for Vertigo) and the licensing of material from other companies. DC also increased publication of book-store friendly formats, including trade paperback collections of individual serial comics, as well as original graphic novels. 041b061a72