Single Celled Organism New Head of DC Comics -His Brother Takes Over Marvel!

On the old CBO blog I was outspoken about Didio and that Marvel schmuck and how they were ruining comics because they were lower than single celled organisms when it came to brains and comics.

Prove my point? Okay...


Above: A single celled organism

Below: Dan Didio of DC Comics and Joe Quesada of Marvel Comics

Notice how the single celled organism out-sparkles both men who are, admittedly, in these photos looking on top form.

And to prove the point further Didio, remembering to breath---well, I'll re-post what the Out Housers wrote. Laugh -I actually felt a little bit of pee sneak out.

http://www.theouthousers.com/index.php/news/123464-dc-comics-told-paul-pope-they-only-publish-comics-for-45-year-olds.html

Reportedly, the head of DC Comics told Pope that if he wanted to comics for kids, he can do Scooby Doo.

Source: Robot 6

Looks like the man upstairs is a big fan of HasDCDoneSomethingStupidToday.com, because just as the counter was approaching double digits and, with the 24 hour comics news cycle relatively quiet, no obvious looming PR disasters on DC's horizons, we were beginning to feel we might not be able to partake in the glorious bounty of DC stupidity this week. But lo, when the counter doth approach 9 days, he hath provided us with the succor we so desperately crave.

And of course, by the man upstairs, we mean Dan Didio (probably - see below), and by succor, we mean an extremely stupid statement.

This news comes, surprisingly, via CBR, from their coverage of the Gene Yang and Paul Pope in Conversation panel from San Diego Comic Con. Pope (Batman: Year 100,Wednesday Comics) was asked by Yang if he had tried to do an all ages book at DC with a franchise character. His reply?

"Batman did pretty well, so I sat down with the head of DC Comics. I really wanted to do 'Kamandi [The Last Boy on Earth]', this Jack Kirby character. I had this great pitch… and he said 'You think this is gonna be for kids? Stop, stop. We don't publish comics for kids. We publish comics for 45-year olds. If you want to do comics for kids, you can do 'Scooby-Doo.' And I thought, 'I guess we just broke up.'"

Wow. Of course, we understand that the majority of the comics audience nowadays tends to be older, sometimes much older, but where the fuck does DC think that those older readers came from? Most of them started reading comics when they were kids. If the comic book industry wants to reach new readers, it has to market at least SOME comics to kids. This is common fucking sense.

Of course, DC isn't the only company to neglect young readers. The comics industry as a whole tends to produce a product that is overwhelmingly aimed at adult males. Most sensible people view this as, to use a favorite phrase of Didio's, a myopic marketing strategy. Apparently Didio (or maybe Harras? Who knows who Pope is referring to when he says "head of DC?" We're just going to go with Didio and you can replace him with your favorite Dilbertesque DC executive if you prefer) likes things just the way they are, enough to pejoratively tell Pope, winner of the 2007 Eisner for Best Writer/Artist, to go do a Scooby Doo comic if he doesn't like it.

Didio must be dipping pretty heavily into the Scooby snacks if he thinks that only making comics for 45 year olds is a good strategy. You know what kids will be into if they get hooked on Scooby Doo comics? Scooby fucking Doo. Maybe that's Didio's strategy. Maybe he's got a sweet golden parachute deal for when he and his cronies finally drive DC into the ground that involves a shitload of Scooby Doo stock options.

And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids at… CBR?! Wow, when a site that normally acts a cheerleader for everything you do is calling you out like that, you know you've got problems.

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My spleen needs a little venting.

Comics for 45 year olds?  Okay, a lot of older men AND women read comics but what about the masses of younger geeks who lap up the arse water published by DC and Marvel? (I love the art but a comic is NOT just about art) So, Didio is looking at them, grinning like a lobotomised something-or-other and saying "feck you!"

Why are the mainstream Marvel and DC companies going to die out so there'll be nothing but over-exploited films based on whatever characters they can sell?

Because the companies are NOT attracting the younger readers--who were getting into, unbelievably, Archie Comics. Stan Lee and his peers knew you HAD to cater for the young, middle aged and old fans without talking down to any of them. And so a new generation of comic readers hopped on.

Let's forget the corporate asses who just scream "Money! More money!" while ejaculating over their accounts books. They don't care about comics just money. They are businessmen. But Didio and Quesada are two people who are supposedly in charge (but both, as we hear, are just "Yes Men"). Their names will, eventually go down in comics history as the men that dunnit.

I get a feeling I'll never work for Marvel or DC.

To be fair I think Quesada is a very good artist