In the wake of all the layoffs and recent changes at DC Comics, it’s again claimed by Ethan Van Sciver the publishing division will close its doors and also that Jim Lee will be leaving the company.
Van Sciver, a twenty-seven year veteran of the comic book industry known for working on DC’s Green Lantern, first predicted AT&T would be closing DC Comics back in February, with a number of his other prediction related to DC and the comic book business also having come true in recent months.
Update: Van Sciver goes over the state of DC as told to him by creators and editors that offer things at the company are in complete chaos.
Original article continues:
DC Comics closing claims Ethan Van Sciver
“In case you haven’t figured it out yet. DC Comics is closing down their publishing division. Now don’t worry everyone. That doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be Batman, Superman, maybe Wonder Woman and stuff,” said Van Sciver in his latest video posted to his ComicArtistPro Secrets YouTube channel. “What I think is happening going forward is DC Comics is going to pair down in the immediate future to a handful of comic books, maybe 12 comic books per month, maybe 12, maybe fewer than that, and these comics are going to be Justice League, Superman, and Batman, and that’s it. There might be back up stories in these books. Maybe there will be a Justice League super-sized book and you will be able to get a Green Lantern short story or a Flash or a Hawkman.”
Van Sciver continues: “But they are not taking any more chances. Publishing is being paired down. Only the best creative teams are going to be allowed to work on them, but they are going to be working for subsistence-level pay.”
Jim Lee not in charge of DC Comics
Ethan Van Sciver goes over some of the recent changes among the executives at DC Comics and points out that newly appointed sole EIC Marie Javins will report directly to the new DC Comics General Manager, Daniel Cherry III, – an outside hire – instead of DC Comics Co-Publisher and Chief Creative Officer Jim Lee.
“A lot of AT&T’s actions were to bring in people from outside corporations to come in and basically to close down DC Comics,” says Van Sciver. “Shrink it down. It’s insolvent at this point. Shrink it down and then get it to a point where it’s manageable and the slowly, yeah, they are going to divest themselves of DC. And basically, what I think they are going to do, these guys are going to license the characters out to other publishers.”
DC also recently fired Dan DiDio where Van Sciver says Jim Lee didn’t want to take on all of DiDio’s responsibilities.
“Jim Lee was co-president with Dan DiDio, but it was completely an honorary title. Jim Lee didn’t belong there. He didn’t do very much there,” explains Van Sciver. “It was just that he had become so powerful and was such a valuable piece of horseflesh. Obviously, a guy that can draw that well, you want to keep him on board. Jim Lee was uncomfortable in his position when Dan DiDio was fired. A lot of people were thinking that this meant he was going to be performing the role that Dan DiDio has performed all these years. Jim Lee doesn’t want to do that. He’s not capable of doing that. That’s not what he wants to do. That’s not his role.”
Van Sciver adds: “Marie Javins is now reporting directly to Daniel Cherry. Not to the publisher? Not to the president of DC? He is the publisher and the chief creative officer, that’s Jim Lee. Normally Javins would report to him, but she’s not, she is reporting to [the] General Manager. What is General Manager? What is this? This is managing the decline. She is going to be asking permission from this guy, ‘Can I do this book while closing down the company?’ And she is going to skip over [Jim Lee] who is the chief creative officer.”
Jim Lee leaving DC Comics
Regarding Jim Lee leaving DC Comics, Van Sciver says maybe Lee will start his own comic book publishing company or even retire.
“Jim Lee’s job right now is to finish the style guides for all of the [intellectual properties] that AT&T now owns,” says Van Sciver. “So Jim Lee is sitting there going, ‘So this is what Firestorm looks like.’ And he is drawing all the different Firestorms. He’s getting a bible together of all of the properties that AT&T now owns, and then Jim Lee is going to hit the highway. Jim Lee is going to be out of there. He is going to have an enormous golden parachute. I mean millions and millions of dollars in cash will be dumped on Jim Lee as he leaves comics. Maybe he leaves comics for good, I don’t really know. Will he retire at that point or will he move on creatively to create his own company? It might be time for Jim Lee to retire and enjoy his life. It’s pretty clear that Jim Lee is finishing a task given by AT&T and he is leaving.”
DC Comics abandoning comic book shops and conventions
Bleeding Cool seems to back up claims DC Comics could be done for as we know it as the site claims DC is abandoning comic book shops as well as appearances at comic book conventions.
Similar to what Ethan Van Sciver has said, Bleeding Cool says that on the publishing side, DC Comics “will be pulled back to characters and storylines that have a big multi-media presence” such as “Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, Harley Quinn, and Suicide Squad.”
It’s claimed that DC Comics will “switch away from month print comic books” to focus on “digital comic book serialization of stories” and then to trade paper pack-sized volumes or larger anthology-sized books aimed at a general mass market such as bookstore market or Amazon.
So following the move to digital, trades and Amazon, eventually, DC Comics would make its way to comic book stores and the direct market which would be “almost as an afterthought.”
SJWs destroyed comics
Ethan Van Sciver explains why the comic book market – including Marvel Comics – has been failing, which is something I, myself, said years ago would happen due to this reason when Marvel Comics first replaced Quasar back in 2006 and when they replaced Nova in 2012.
“Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing, doesn’t mean I’m happy about it, but on the other hand, comic books have been converged by SJWs. They are now 100% gate-kept by radical leftists and they aren’t producing work that really anybody wants and maybe it’s time for a great big housecleaning,” says Van Sciver. “They say that sometimes you have to set fire to forests in order to encourage new growth. And I think that’s maybe what we need to do. We need to burn down some of the deadwood and we’ll see, plant a little seed. Marie Javins is going to be producing very few DC comics and they’re supposed to be good and the people that are doing them are going to be working extra hard because they are going to be working for minimal paychecks, and will that lead to creativity?”
