I’m writing this shortly after putting the turkey in the oven, because the show must go on, even on Thanksgiving. Let’s get to ten things I liked or didn’t like from the week of comics, led by new dawns for certain publishers.

1. The Dawn of DC, Approaching

There was a lot of frustration over the lack of ongoings over at DC of late, with that number dwindling especially during the current event Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths. My suspicion, because I’ve seen this play out time and time again, was that the event would lead into new titles aplenty. It turns out my suspicion was correct, as DC announced “Dawn of DC,” a new initiative that begins in January and will introduce “over 20 exciting new titles.” Those include a lot of the usual suspects, like Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and more. It also includes the first new Doom Patrol series in a while that’s in-continuity, as well as a solo Penguin book? Sure!

The standouts include: that aforementioned Doom Patrol book, with Dennis Culver writing and Chris Burnham on art; Mariko Tamaki writing a Hal Jordan series (with no artist currently attached); an anthology series called Batman: The Brave and the Bold with a rotating creator list including Tom King and Mitch Gerads, Dan Mora, Gabriel Hardman, and more; Mark Waid and Dan Mora on Shazam!; and King and Stefano Gaudiano on that aforementioned Penguin series.

It’s an interesting start, with lots more to come it seems. The main frustration with it is the fact that multiple titles come without an artist announced, meaning that a new dawn will come for DC the Universe but maybe not DC the publishing entity, as the TBD approach to art isn’t new for them or Marvel for that matter. Announcing comics without an artist involved feels like taking your turkey out when it’s not quite finished cooking. That’s a thing you could do, but I don’t advise it.

We’ll see what is still to come. The art teams on those Green Lantern books in particular are necessary to know before we can really determine the deserved level of excitement. But it’s a promising start after a rather fallow period for DC’s line.

2. More Lunar Moves, Coming

This will just be a quick one, as these moves have been coming with some regularity these days. But it turns out yet another publisher have started a polyamorous relationship with single issue distributors, as Mad Cave Studios revealed that it will start being distributed by Lunar Distribution immediately while sticking with Diamond Comic Distributors as well in a non-exclusive agreement. That makes for the eighth non-exclusive distribution deal in the past year or two, with seven being Lunar-Diamond and the other being DC who is with Lunar and Universal. That’s excluding other similar (but different!) options, like the fact you can still order Marvel comics through Diamond, they just have to do it wholesale via Penguin Random House.

As I’ve said before, all this makes sense to me. It lets retailers pick which distributor they want to work with. Some would prefer to stick with Diamond. Some might not. This gives shops choice, and allows them to align themselves in whatever way they want. It might make a little more sense if everyone was non-exclusive across all distributors, because then it would really be dealer’s choice and it wouldn’t require a chart like Heidi MacDonald delivered in the piece I linked to. But hey, baby steps, right? I’ll take baby steps.