If you look in the “category” drop down in our footer, you’ll see one called 10 Days That Shook The World. This refers to the week in 2009 when, within a a few days, Disney bought Marvel, and DC announced the departure of Paul Levitz as publisher. The formation of DC Entertainment would be announced a few months later, signaling a greater participation by Warner Bros. in the affairs of DC Comics, a development Levitz had long sought to avoid, but the success of the Nolan Batman movies probably made inevitable.

In the days, weeks and months that followed every person who had skin in the BIg Two game speculated what this would all mean and how things would play out. Now I’m not going to say that the situation outlined by writer Paul Jenkins in this interview is exactly what I envisioned, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least. In a piece that is one long pull quote, this is the one that stands out for me:

The culprit, in my opinion, is the culture of the comic industry over the two and a half decades I have worked in it. When things are going poorly, the creators are most valuable. They are needed, so that they can pull the publishers arses out of the fire when creative bankruptcy sets in. When the business is doing well (and let’s face it, the Avengers just made 1.4 billion dollars) then the creators are disposable. Frankly, why on Earth would Disney have a care about a small industry like comics when their core product is the film and merchandising? They would naturally be most concerned with character maintenance



“Character maintenance” is definitely the direction that I envisioned Disney and WB taking their superheroes; I’ve since refined this into the “coloring book theory” which I laid out in my interview with Tom Spurgeon:

My metaphor for corporate comics throughout the year goes back to my days working at Disney in the '90s. I remember some of my friends working on a lot of branded books for Aladdin or Pocahontas or Mickey or whatever like kids picture books and audio books and coloring books… the gigs usually paid very well, but it wasn't like they went in to the editors' office and said "I have an idea for a Mickey Mouse Audio Book that's going to change Mickey's world forever." They just got a call from an editor and went in and pitched "Mickey Mouse is trying to mow the lawn" and a book got written. There was no ego involved. It's pretty clear that corporate comics are going in that direction. You get the call to write Firestorm or Firestar and the cheat sheet with the event of the quarter and that's it.



I would suggest that my mistake in the above is that in the current Big Two editorial climate, the freelancer doesn’t come up with the lawn mowing scenario, but rather the editors come up with a bunch of scenarios for Mickey. Kind of like this:



[via Kate Willaert]

Although I foresaw the corporate mandate of character maintenance becoming the #1 priority at the Big Two, I didn’t foresee quite how it would play out at DC. Graeme McMillan labeled the Jenkins interview “brutal” and here’s why it’s the Red Wedding of interviews:

DC is in the toilet right now. It reminds me of the way Marvel was just before we did Marvel Knights. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about the similarities and connections. Suffice it to say they have created a culture of dishonesty that affects too many creators. And the worst part of all is that they bully their creators. They tried to bully me, and I told them to go to Hell. The horror stories are many and varied. I have a few of my own, and I have heard way too many of them from various creators who are being beaten into submission with the threat of losing their jobs if they do not play ball. DC seem to have developed a culture where they think “professionalism” is screwing a creator in some fashion, and then pretending to be friendly at a convention. Professionalism is about handing in quality work on time, or about being friendly to fans at conventions, or about working towards a mutually beneficial goal. Professionalism is about dedication to your craft, not about running around the offices like a demented gerbil telling everyone how busy you are – so busy, in fact, that you forget to do any actual work. Here’s what pisses me off about this situation: it does not take a rocket scientist to see that there are a lot of very unhappy creators at DC lately. Well, can you imagine how many more are unhappy that we don’t know about because they feel if they speak out they will be blacklisted? Can you imagine the miserable conditions some of these creators are subjected to? (Disclaimer: not all creators, I am sure. Some are perfectly happy. Just not me.) The point is that DC has begun to act like a bully, to subject people to shitty working conditions as if it is doing them a favor. If I have seen good comics come from the creator/publisher collaboration, why the hell would I allow myself to be subjected to that nonsense at this stage of my career? I have numerous other interests, including film and video game work and my first novel.



While you can suggest that Jenkins is an out-of-favor has been creator—and I’m sure many are doing that today—you can also remember that this is a guy who wrote a pretty good Hellblazer and some of Marvel’s best selling limited series and graphic novels in the Aughts. So he’s been there and back, and knows about the varying levels of professional treatment you get in comics. I remember interviewing Jenkins for The Pulse many years ago (an interview no longer on line alas so I’m paraphrasing from my notes) and he summed up how it isn’t the magnitude of the stakes but the magnitude of what the stakes mean to a character that makes a great story:

I remember the time I took over Spider-man. I remember it very very clearly. There’s nothing you can do with Spider-Man; you can’t possibly write a Spider-Man story that hasn’t been written. If you looked at the context of the times, his wife had been blown up by a plane. I remember explaining to someone that if Stan Lee had written a story in the 60s in which Spider-Man was trying to get home with a pie for Aunt May, and he has a fight and has to balance the pie, you would care about him getting home with the pie. Nt now, who do you care more about, the pie or his wife?



Even if you think Jenkins isn’t in the mix, JH Williams, one of the best artists working in the biz today, was also irked this week over not having his villain story for Batwoman used:

@seancctiu Had the option of still doing one, but told we could not pursue what we had been building for last 2 years. Ever. So we said no. — J.H. Williams III (@JHWilliamsIII) June 5, 2013

@seancctiu They have the right to decide that, they own the characters, but can’t agree with it. Certainly makes one feel “whats the point?” — J.H. Williams III (@JHWilliamsIII) June 5, 2013

@seancctiu Yes, disappointing. Spending a large amount of time planning something grand, only for someone else to scuttle it is tiring. — J.H. Williams III (@JHWilliamsIII) June 5, 2013

@seancctiu For the most part things are fine, but then hit a giant pothole every now and then. — J.H. Williams III (@JHWilliamsIII) June 5, 2013



Of course there will always be potholes in any creative relationship, but a little team spirit can add to the whole on any project. Jenkins pegs Marvel’s atmosphere as less chaotic but still not for him:

I have had a long relationship with them but I rather think we are simply growing apart. I think they have a certain publishing plan that suits them well for this moment in time, and who am I to argue against it? They are having a lot of success, and more power to them. I am not particularly a crossover guy, and I am not fully versed in what is happening in each issue of the various series. I have a particular style that I feel works for me, and it probably doesn’t fit Marvel right now.



As others have pointed out, there are times when Big Two comics are artist driven and others when they are writer driven. Right now they are editor-driven, and I don’t suspect that will change any time in the future. It’s here to stay.

It’s a model and it can work. But both Marvel and DC are in a bind because of that “standard attrition” and their need to stay profitable or (in Marvel’s case) show growth. As we know, every month retailers order less of even the most successful comics titles. In order to keep the bottom line even or rising, the Big Two must constantly reboot and relaunch. Marvel has a longer creative leash but a shorter fiscal one: cutting staff and boosting output has been their model for raising profits for a while now.

With Villain Month, DC is flirting with double shipping by boosting the number of titles coming out in each family. I don’t mean to belittle the yeoman service of the professional writer, but some of the people doing villain month have written actual kids chapter books, and these folks are probably way happier at DC than were the more colorful recent departures. I suspect that in the future, feeling that writing superheroes is just another gig and not a means of personal creative expression will be the rule rather than the exception, and everyone will be happier.