Inside the Box: Breaking Down the Three Biggest Issues with DC’s Reorganization

DC's surprising restructuring of its line is analyzed

By David Harper

June 25, 2019

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This past Friday, DC Comics decided to finally shoot the shot that Rich Johnston called a while back. Vertigo will be concluding its run in January 2020. What our guy Rich did not let us know at a previous time, however, was that this would be part of a larger transformation at DC. It’s not just Vertigo going through a substantial change but the entire company. That’s right. It’s a complete reorganization.

That is a much, much bigger deal. But what exactly does it mean from a practical standpoint? It’s simple. The publishing side is now three lines built around specific age bands. They are:

DC Kids: 8 to 12 year olds
DC: 13 years old and up
DC Black Label: 17 years and and older

As part of this move, DC’s most public-facing executives have been out there assuring everyone all is well while walking us through why this was the move to make. CCO and co-publisher Jim Lee said this about the age bands and the larger restructuring: “What we’ve done here is apply an ages and stages organizing philosophy 19 that will strengthen what we’re already doing well, whether that is our move into the young adult and middle grade audience or our long track record of success with creator-driven pop-up lines.”

Meanwhile, Lee’s co-publisher Dan DiDio had this to say: “That
kind of material is now mainstream across all genres, so we thought it was the right time to bring greater clarity to the DC brand and reinforce our commitment to storytelling for all of our fans in every age group. This new system will replace the age ratings we currently use on our material.”

To further reassure everyone, Lee took to Twitter with what I have to imagine was a highly vetted tweet about the company’s plans: “Our decision to rebrand all content under the singular DC imprint is just that. Amazing bks that comprise the Sandman Univ e.g. will continue. Big plans for yr 2! YA, pop-ups & creator-owned comics will continue to be a big part of DC. No books are being cancelled or going away.”

That’s a lot. I wouldn’t typically drop that many quotes in a row, but I wanted to emphasize the company line: all is well! This is smart! Nothing to see here! The pop ups will survive. Creator-owned will still be a thing. Everything is being simplified to make the whole publishing line easier to understand. That all sounds good. So this DC reorganization is a good thing…right?

I’m not entirely sure about that.

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More on this later.↩
Fun fact: I once wrote Pia Guerra a letter telling her she and BKV owed me something like $10,000 because Y was so good it made me start buying comics again. It was very tongue in cheek and deeply thankful to them. She wrote me back a very kind note, so thanks Pia!↩
Speaking of, Christopher Cantwell and Martin Morazzo’s She Could Fly is worth a read. So is Ann Nocenti and David Aja’s The Seeds.↩
Shouts to Tini Howard and Nick Robles’ Euthanauts.↩
Although I would recommend buying everything Emily does anyways.↩
Or maybe it is!↩
This especially would have made sense given that they did what I’m suggesting by turning DC Zoom into DC Kids. They clearly have no issue moving on from names that seem to be struggling. More on this in a minute, though.↩
Update: apparently giving someone their own imprint is one way to do it!↩
Particularly for creators with organizational skills. Image is clearly the best deal if you don’t mind a whole lot of project management.↩
If that statement is confusing, check out the titles currently being published by that imprint and the ones on the horizon. Hope you like The Joker and Harley Quinn, because Gotham is where DC has clearly decided the money lies!↩
I have to imagine DC’s assorted Looney Tunes type comics will live here as well.↩
For more on that subject, I highly recommend Gina Gagliano and Alison Wilgus’ chat with Tucker Stone on the Graphic Novel TK podcast. It’s about marketing from that perspective and it’s a very illuminating chat.↩
This is the only simple one, even if I’m annoyed by it.↩
Who knows if Milestone even exists in this new world order.↩
Outside of DC Kids, which again has its own problems.↩
Even if it is just to one random person pulling their hair out because they have a single Transmetropolitan trade labeled as Helix, five as Vertigo and four as Black Label.↩
Yes, I know the imprints still exist. But if you think they’re going to lead the way in DC’s external messaging as they were before, well…I fear you have a surprise coming your way.↩
Speaking of: would Dogwelder be a DC character or a Black Label character now? This is an important question.↩
More on this later.↩

Notable Replies

ryan says:

June 25, 2019

Excellent article well done and this is why subscribed! I concur that this is simply confusing. DC comics feels completely hollow to me right now. I had a similar experience of dropping comics completely at the end of high school and beginning of college. For me this came after years of following each crisis and culminating in Grant Morrison Batman and final crisis. There was no deliberate decision to drop reading but I moved onto other things for sometime.

I am not recommending they go back to their old ways, but large and meaningful events, the opposite of heroes in crisis, had a number of books and cross overs and a lot of weekly offerings. Like I said DC comics right now feels completely hollow.

I am only compelled to purchase doomsday clock, Green Lantern by Grant Morrison, and I am very much enjoying Leviathan, action comics and Wonder Comics imprint, but not at all Superman and Batman. I do not have the energy for the Snyder JLA, very over the top and for all intensive purposes I am ignoring the DC universe at large as a reader. The year of the villain does not feel exciting.

DC Black label is very confusing, in any case I would love to see the lines beefed up with weekly offerings that could offer sophisticated non superhero stories.
Prince3PO says:

June 25, 2019

So, my main take is in there (aaaaaaaah!) but the other thing is Black Label was already kind of confusing! Like, it was this new, out of continuity place for creators to do what they wanted in a prestige format and most (all?) of it was “adult.”
But also, old evergreen titles were also Black Label, even if they weren’t “adult.”
Oh and also it has barely launched anything other than the reprints.
Granted, t isn’t terribly confusing, especially if you don’t have to explain it or think about it.
But now it’s so. Much. Worse.
I mean, now it’ll have Vertigo stuff, which, whyyyyy, but also anything 17+? Ugh.
chrisburton says:

June 25, 2019

David is quite correct; when I hear Black Label I always think of Whiskey first. This is not ideal. If this is the moniker they chose to go with, I can’t imagine what the rejected options were.

By labeling this age band as DC Kids, DC may ironically be telling kids that this isn’t what they are looking for, effectively .

This statement is so on point, and I agree it could end up being a major misstep. I think back to when I was a kid in the 8-12 range, I would have been only interested in the “real” DC books. Kids that age are seeing movies like Aquaman and Wonder Woman anyway, why would they be interested in more “basic” versions of those characters?

So G. Willow Wilson’s Wonder Woman series and Laurie Halse Anderson and Leila del Duca’s Wonder Woman: Tempest Tossed are going to be classed the same, meaning for buyers in bookstores and librarians and comic shops, there will be zero delineation between these titles outside of title specific write-ups. That’s despite the two existing in different continuities and native formats as well as one ostensibly being for a narrow audience – young adults – while the other is built for a broad one.

This is another really excellent point and perfectly illustrates the potential for unnecessary confusion. Down the road when the “Tempest Tossed” book comes out, I would love to hear from some retailers as to whether many of their subscribers to the Wonder Woman ongoing also wanted “Tempest Tossed” and vice versa.
ryan says:

June 25, 2019

Will Lois Lane be Black Label and Jimmy Olsen kids?
Prince3PO says:

June 25, 2019

Oh my god I hate all of this