Keys to the City...Kinda

[Ajax]

Been meaning to do this for a while since I've been wondering what everyone would say. You are given complete control of one of the big two (DC/Marvel) and I mean complete control. What would you do? How would you run things?

[GhostMachine]

Either company, I'd do two things:

1. I'd call a meeting, be in person or through conference call, with all the writers and notify them that if they're ashamed to be a comic writer or there because they have Hollywood aspirations, they might as well hand in their resignations.

2. Notify all writers and artists that if they cannot produce a book on a monthly basis, they can be replaced with people who can.

There's no much I'd do with DC that I can think of, aside from ending the Wonder Woman reboot and putting the kibosh on the whole Batman, Inc thing and getting Bruce back to being the only Batman and Dick back to being Nightwing.

With Marvel, I don't even know where to begin, aside from ending One More Day and tossing out the entire Sins Past crap from Spider-Man. I'd definitely try to get John Byrne to come back and continue X-Men: The Hidden Years, which Joe Q never should have canned.

[Ajax]

I guess Frank Miller is out of comics forever lol. And the collective comic community goes 'huh he was still doing comics?'

My one major change would to slowly get rid of the direct market aka comic book shops. Doing this by basically eliminating all monthly titles in favor of a format used over in Japan. Essentially launch one book that contains 6-7 22-24 page series. The book will be released on either a monthly or bi-monthly rate and will be distributed to book stores (Borders/B&N), grocery stores, and news stands where applicable. So in one book you'll have say FF, then Spider-Man, then the Avengers etc etc etc. To keep things fresh each series is done on a per-storyline basis. So instead of runs that extend into infinity, a writer will come and go 'i want to do a story about x y and z with the avengers' if it gets approved it gets put in a spot in the rotation as soon as another series is finished it takes said spot. Also to keep quality up every issue will be rated by fans either yes or no for a continuation. After a specific number of no's in a row is reached (3-5) a series is dropped and replaced. My ideal vision would be to have several of these books out that each serve a different demo. So you have one that is aimed at boys, then one aimed at male young adult, then one girls, girls young adult, and finally one book that showcases more artistically inclined series.

As for what I would do editorially to Marvel or DC. Well, with DC I would abandon the whole multi-colored ring thing with Green Lantern. Only the Star Sapphires, Green Lanterns, and Yellow Lanterns remain. The rest all get destroyed somehow. Hal Jordans ring suddenly runs out of power while flying over a volcano, a magical cursed volcano that not only burns him alive but destroys his soul so that he no longer exists on any plane of existence and can never be brought back to DC ever again in any shape or form. Not even as Specter.

Spider-Man I wouldn't undo One More Day and all that crap but I would find a way to get him married to MJ again and have the priest marrying them be named Joe Quesda. Just for the lulz.

[daglob]

Actually, Ajax, I was thinking something like the same thing as to eliminating comic shops. Probably couldn't really eliminate them, but what I think I would bring back is spin racks.

Used to, there were spin racks in every drug store, convience store, nearly every grocrey store, and many department stores. Comics were widely available and children of all ages bought them. Max titles, Vertigo, and many (if not all) independents would still use the comic shops as an outlet. New titles would have to be created to fill in the space, with characters from cartoons (Warner, MGM, Paramount, Disney), perhaps even TV shows. Maybe revitalize Gladstone and Harvey, and give Archie a new/old home.

This isn't all nostalgia, it was a buisness model that worked. Maybe it won't work now, but it might.

[Talavar]

1.  Less ultra-violence at both companies, at least in their mainstream superhero titles (MAX and Vertigo imprints excluded).  That means fewer graphic deaths, sexual assaults, brutalized characters to make way for their replacements, brutalized replacements to make way for Silver Age holdovers, and much less girlfriend-in-the-refrigerator syndrome.  I'm not saying no one can be killed, but we don't really need graphic dismemberment, decapitations and head-squishings in most of Marvel or DC's books.

2.  A moratorium on big events with their own books, tie-in books, and crossovers in a bunch of regular books.  They're so over done and have become so meaningless that the super-big event that will change everything for ever has become the new status quo.  Once the publishers have managed to go a few years without any, we can re-evaluate.

3.  Less continuity.  Fans love it when its done well, but both Marvel and DC are pretty bad about actually following it anyway, and it's the industry's biggest albatross around its neck when it comes to keeping out new readers.  Have limited-run series and new content graphic novels come out that are just that particular creative team's take on whoever, and the setting or back story can change as needed for that particular story to tell.  Because, let's face it: a lot of the best stuff at DC and Marvel is out of, or nearly out of continuity anyway.

[BWPS]

If I ran DC, I would create a huge event story in which most of the dead DC characters come back as ZOMBIES. But get this: the ZOMBIES have power rings and form the BLACK Lantern Corps. Also, they are really mean to their former friends. Luckily, I'll create a new group called the Indigo Lanterns who will get together with all the other ______ Lanterns to fight them.... haha, no, I'm just kidding, even if I were the head of the company and I hired a good writer who understood the characters, many of the hundreds of people who work for DC Comics would be able to stop me from making something that stupid.

[AncientSpirit]

Great question.   

I would transform both companies from "for-profit corporations" into nonprofit organizations with corporate sponsors, so I could charge kids 10 cents a comic, so they could buy 20 comics with a $2 allowance.   Then, folliowing the model of Washington, DC, I would have young writers and graphic artists FIGHT over the chance to work in the industry they want to be in as an INTERN for free.   

Then, since I believe that old maxim that the pros all say but never live by - "every comic is someone's first" -- I would mandate that most stories fit in one good-sized book.   Occassionally, I would allow 2- and 3-part stories, but only if they were excellent, and the art treatment made sense, meaning no one full page images unless the impact of the story was dramatically lessened by its removal.   (If I can shrink down a page to a panel, and it makes no difference to the story telling, than it should be one panel.)     I might also do away with tradebook versions of comics ... but might not, as long as it followed all the previously stated rules.

Lastly, I would make artists draw characters consistently, so that people recognize them.   Lois Lane and Sue Richards, for example, can change their clothes and hair styles as often as they like, but they shold always have the same face.    Ben Grimm wouldn't ever again look like a lump of rocks one day and a bodybuilder the next day -- unless I see it the transformation happen to him in the comic by one of his enemies or his friends.

Oh, and lastly, since I only want 20 comics ... the list has to grow narrow and stay narrow ... so that kids can grow up with their heroes.   On the DC side, the only characters/books allowed to appear as main titles would be Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, The JLA, the Teen Titans, The Legion, and perhaps a Team Up.   All other characters can appear as often as is compelling as guest stars.    On the Marvel side we would have The Fantastic Four (not the Future Foundation), The Avengers, The X-Men, Spider-Man, Thor, Hulk, Daredevil, Captain America, Iron Man, and one team up book.  Again, any other character could appear as often as is compelling as guest stars of villians in these books.

The tone of comics from my companty would return to similar basics.  They would be written so that everyone from grade school to college and beyond could enjoy them.

Unfortuantely, they still wouldn't be available from the local candy store or pharmacy, since those have long disappeared (too).

[Mr. Hamrick]

Great question.  

I would transform both companies from "for-profit corporations" into nonprofit organizations with corporate sponsors, so I could charge kids 10 cents a comic, so they could buy 20 comics with a $2 allowance.   Then, folliowing the model of Washington, DC, I would have young writers and graphic artists FIGHT over the chance to work in the industry they want to be in as an INTERN for free.    

Then, since I believe that old maxim that the pros all say but never live by - "every comic is someone's first" -- I would mandate that most stories fit in one good-sized book.   Occassionally, I would allow 2- and 3-part stories, but only if they were excellent, and the art treatment made sense, meaning no one full page images unless the impact of the story was dramatically lessened by its removal.   (If I can shrink down a page to a panel, and it makes no difference to the story telling, than it should be one panel.)     I might also do away with tradebook versions of comics ... but might not, as long as it followed all the previously stated rules.

Lastly, I would make artists draw characters consistently, so that people recognize them.   Lois Lane and Sue Richards, for example, can change their clothes and hair styles as often as they like, but they shold always have the same face.    Ben Grimm wouldn't ever again look like a lump of rocks one day and a bodybuilder the next day -- unless I see it the transformation happen to him in the comic by one of his enemies or his friends.

Oh, and lastly, since I only want 20 comics ... the list has to grow narrow and stay narrow ... so that kids can grow up with their heroes.   On the DC side, the only characters/books allowed to appear as main titles would be Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, The JLA, the Teen Titans, The Legion, and perhaps a Team Up.   All other characters can appear as often as is compelling as guest stars.    On the Marvel side we would have The Fantastic Four (not the Future Foundation), The Avengers, The X-Men, Spider-Man, Thor, Hulk, Daredevil, Captain America, Iron Man, and one team up book.  Again, any other character could appear as often as is compelling as guest stars of villians in these books.

The tone of comics from my companty would return to similar basics.  They would be written so that everyone from grade school to college and beyond could enjoy them.

Unfortuantely, they still wouldn't be available from the local candy store or pharmacy, since those have long disappeared (too).

The "Washington DC model" has caused created a mess in this country.  Not going to get into due to the "no politics" rules here but employing a similar "model" to comic book industry would spell disaster.   I'd love to sit here and point out all the flaws in the proposed idea but I'd be here for the next thirty minutes before I even got to my answer to the question.  It's okay from an idealistic standpoint but it's still very naive and would require much more societal restructuring not to mention the altering and control of the minds of children from the point of entering school till their senior citizen years.   In short, it may not kill the comic industry but it'd definitely set the comic book industry back over 50 years, which may be your intention.

Now as to what I would change.  And since the original post said pick one of the companies, I'll pick DC.  They have a lot of different problems than Marvel on a lot of levels but some of the same problems as well.

The first thing would be fire whoever is heading the marketing department and the liaison between DC and the "parent office" over at Warner Brothers.  In their place, I would find someone who actually can do a good job at marketing the properties owned by DC and someone who will not let the properties become deluded when Warner Brothers goes to create a movie or a TV show based around them.

The second thing I would do is to look at the big three.  Batman and Superman would only get two primary titles plus an "All-Star" that would be more of the classic style story.  Of those two primary titles, Action Comics and Detective Comics might not even feature them all the time.  There would be frequent team-ups in those titles that would highlight other characters in the effort to increase their visibility.  Keeping the Batman and Superman titles as the main title with the main source of continuity for readers.  A writer would be found for Wonder Woman who not only got the character but understood how to incorporate various points about the character's history (including some of the flaws) into the present day incarnation.  After that, I would go down the list of principal characters in DC, take the characters that have a fan base, and make sure those characters have writers and artists behind the titles that are competent.  Just as important, I would have people in marketing working on ways to create as strong a brand around characters like The Flash, Green Lantern, Black Canary, Zatana, and a few others.  Aquaman would be killed off permanently as no one really likes him.  (Just Joking!)  There would be new titles but it'd be titles with characters who have an established fan base.  That fan base would most likely come from characters being established in Action Comics, Detective Comics or other titles.  However, there would not be a 10 title limit.

I agree partially with the intern idea that Ancient Spirit had but with a few alterations.  I would create a quarterly anthology type title (maybe two) that was geared toward new artists and writers.  In order to get into this as an artist you'd have to prove proficiency in drawing the character at least with the proper face and other features.  As a writer, you'd have to prove you are able to meet certain criteria in understanding the character.

As far as tone of the comics.  There would have to be some sort of "rating system" implemented.  Expecting a 5 year old and a 35 year old to enjoy the same stuff is pretty naive.  For that matter, expecting a 15 year old to enjoy the same stuff as a 30 year old is kinda out there too unless it's for reasons that would be inappropriate to a 6 year old.  The Vertigo line would be streamlined back to its roots with proper marketing put behind it.  There would also be an age minimum for someone to get a Vertigo title.  (Probably something like 17+ ala Manga titles.)

As far as group titles.  JLA would only have the "big three" as supporting characters for a while.  It'd give an outlet to build support for the other characters and their respective titles but would not remove the "big 3" from the title.  Birds of Prey would remain an all girls team and a title geared toward females.  The Batman affiliation would be there but wouldn't be a big deal.  The Legion... could care less about them.  They'd remain around if there was a fan base.  (which I guess they have).

The biggest thing is I would work toward properly building the characters as "brands" which DC, and more importantly Warner Brothers, has failed to do successfully.

[Talavar]

Great question.   

I would transform both companies from "for-profit corporations" into nonprofit organizations with corporate sponsors, so I could charge kids 10 cents a comic, so they could buy 20 comics with a $2 allowance.   Then, folliowing the model of Washington, DC, I would have young writers and graphic artists FIGHT over the chance to work in the industry they want to be in as an INTERN for free.   

Then, since I believe that old maxim that the pros all say but never live by - "every comic is someone's first" -- I would mandate that most stories fit in one good-sized book. 

22 page long stories paid for by corporate sponsorship?  Yikes.  Nothing writes good comics like corporate think tanks trying to sell things to children.  Watch as the Flash drinks Red Bull to gain the boost he needs for his super-speed!  Marvel at Spider-man's new outfit, emblazoned with logos like a NASCAR racer! 

They'd make the Mattel and Mars Bar Quick Energy Chocobot Hour look like tasteful children's programming.

[daglob]

Funny, but a lot of this boils down to "write good stories" and "draw good art", with a little "understand and respect the characters" tossed in.

[detourne_me]

That's true,  I think the general quality of art and writing is pretty high.  The main issues lie in complicated continuity, overpriced issues and undesirable distribution channels.

I really think monthly anthologies would be a great way to go, Ajax's idea is great.
Same day digital releases would be great too (I'm only reading stories that are months old from marvel and dc, while I'm up to date with the walking dead)

[Kenn]

1) I'd talk to the accountants, and find out if the money is in the pamphlet comics, or in the trade collections.  If it is the latter, as I suspect, then any of the so-so and can't be in this story because he/she is doing __________ in his/her own book would be stopped.  Trade collections aren't periodicals.  They sit on the shelf until sold.  There's no "these are happening at the same time" when you see three different Superman trades on the shelf.

2) As long as it's both companies, get the trademark on "Captain Marvel" set up to be a shared trademark (like "Super Heroes") so both companies can use it as a Magazine title.

3) Anthology books.  I'd revieve titles like "Adventure Comics", "Sensation Comics", "Journey into Mystery" and "Tales to Astonish", and have them be oversized books.   Make certain other existing titles oversized books as well.  I'd have studies and polls done to see which characters would fans support together in one book, and where tastes overlap.  I'd use these as a guide to figure out which characters to have share titles.  For instance, could a "Adveture Comics" featuring solo stories of Aquaman, Green Arrow, Hawkman, and the Atom sell?  Let Sentation Comics have a Wonder Woman story, a Birds of Prey, a Power Girl story and a Wildcat story in each issue.  "Tales to Astonish" could have a Hawkeye story, a Henry Pym story, and a Hercules story.   Use these to get some of the characters that don't quite have enough fans to carry a book, but maybe a lot of them together in a single title might be able to make it.

4) If a creator can't handle 22 pages a month, find out what they can handle.  Put them on one of these anthology features where they draw 10-13 pages a month instead.

5) The trade volumes would not be anthologies.  They'd collect particular features.

6) No more "writing for the trades".  Even with the acknowledgement that trade collections are probably where the money is, that doesn't mean we need a lot of padded out stories.  Done in 1 is best.  Maybe some 2 or 3 part stories.  But no more than 4.  The shorter features in the anthology books would have more leeway.  Features that tend to flow towards the epic, like the Justice League or the Avengers might end up with oversized books, but still be the one feature.

7) Change the traditional title of "Editor" to "Production Coordinator" as what a lot of what they do is juggle the artists and writers, etc.  Make sure each production coordinator hires an editor/proofreader who actually has the task of proofreading and editing and art checking.  Things like, someone referring to the Moon as having a 81 billion billion tons not getting changed to 81 billion becuase a grammar checker assumed the double wording was a mistake.

8) Cover images designed to advertise/entice the purchase of the particular issue of a particular title.  Fewer symbolic covers.  More covers where the scene shown on the cover is in the book.

9) Style guides.

[Tawodi Osdi]

I like the anthology idea really well.  I remember the dollar sized books back when a regular books were fifty cents.  As I recall, there was Batman Family, Superman Family, Worlds Finest, and I think one more.  They were usually carried by an A-list character but allowed well-like but less commercially viable characters to get a chance in the sun.

[daglob]

Just about all comics were originally anthology books, with an A list character and a lot of second stringers. The steady decrease in page count eliminated all but a very few (maybe two?). It would be nice to have some other genres, also, like maybe have some detectives in Detective.

Did the market for science fiction, war, and western comics just vanish? Or were they just squeezed out?

Man, I could stand some Joe Kubert or Russ Heath war stories...

[Mr. Hamrick]

Just about all comics were originally anthology books, with an A list character and a lot of second stringers. The steady decrease in page count eliminated all but a very few (maybe two?). It would be nice to have some other genres, also, like maybe have some detectives in Detective.

Did the market for science fiction, war, and western comics just vanish? Or were they just squeezed out?

Man, I could stand some Joe Kubert or Russ Heath war stories...

I think the western market largely just faded out, the same way that it has largely done so for film.  I think "war comics" are too touchy of a subject for DC or Marvel to want to go near in a traditional sense.  It's been mostly squeezed out for the most part by outside influences who are not to be mentioned on these forums.  As for sci-fi, I think most of the superhero genre is lumped under sci-fi and fantasy so the old "sci-fi" genre has largely been forgotten or cast aside.

[Talavar]

Did the market for science fiction, war, and western comics just vanish? Or were they just squeezed out?

Man, I could stand some Joe Kubert or Russ Heath war stories...

They were largely squeezed out of the mainstream, and migrated to Vertigo and Indie comics where you'll still occasionally find examples of all sorts of non-superhero genres.

[BentonGrey]

I see a lot of interesting ideas here, and, as Daglob said, a lot of variations of "tell good stories."  That is, of course, easier said than done, but the quality of many of the mainstream offerings these days does occasionally make one wonder what their editors are doing with their time.  In much the same way as the "If you could change a superhero" thread, I have spent the last several years answering these kinds of questions in the DCUG.  However, let me mention one idea I've thought a good deal about:  

First, I'd work on building new markets rather than attempting to keep a splintered and shrinking demographic.  Let's face it, folks like most of us, older fans who, for the most part, were hooked on comics when we were younger, make a horrible focus for the efforts of the big two.  First off, we are terribly divided in terms of what we want from comics.  You've got folks like Murs who often likes the "mature" content of many modern books, and you've got folks like Daglob who wants more light-hearted fare.  There are fans all along that continum and beyond, and you can't possibly please the whole spectrum of fans with anything you do.  Every time you shift your main line in one direction or the other, you lose readers, and no matter how you look at it, your pitching to a shrinking market.  Fans get bored, get disgusted, or just get busy, and no matter what the reason, the industry is hemoraging readers while bringing in relatively little new blood.

Even those of us who like the tone of modern comics admit that, for the most part, they don't write books for kids anymore.  There are, of course, some notable and impressive exceptions (like the Marvel Adventures line), but for the most part there is no mechanism for recruiting new readers.  If I were to take over, I'd use the Vertigo and similar lines for what they call "adult" content, cut the main line of books to the bone, and start just about everything over with a blank slate.  I'd preface this with an organized push across several mediums aimed at bringing a young audience into the fold, basically schedule the change over to the coincide with the beginning of a media blitz.  Every movie, tv show, toy, and video game would fit into the same universe, and they'd all funnel fans into the line of books at the heart of the brand.  After I'd started the ball rolling with the essential characters and books, I'd begin expanding the number of titles we published.  I love the idea of anthology books, and I would definitely take advantage of the format to give traditionally lower selling characters like Hawkman, Aquaman, the Atom, Thor, etc., a home in an ongoing book.  

This would, of course, tie in to my old idea of having a single over-arching set of stories that would guide the entire universe.  I'd make sure we knew where we were going, and I'd impose tight editorial control to ensure we got there.  The types of stories I'd tell would be slowly building a world, and while they would draw on the best ideas of previous stories, they wouldn't be hide-bound by what came before.  Most of all, they would be the types of adventures that kids could read, but they would never, NEVER be dumbed down in an attempt to pitch to the lowest common denominator.  

In the long run, we're all fans of a dying medium.  American comics can't last forever if they keep going the direction they're going.  The industry has to either evolve or wither away.

[John Jr.]

I'm brazilian, and we have a different comics market here, so maybe could be interesting if I pointed how comics are faring here.
We have very few comic shops, most of guys buy their comics in newstands.
We have a lot of books aimed to kids, a lot of them are brazilian (specially the "Turma da Monica"/"Monica's Gang" franchise) and mangas.
Kids don't care about comic book super-heroes anymore, they love Ben 10 and manga characters. The only popular comic book heroes are the guys who are appearing in tv and movies.
Almost all super-hero books are anthologies, even character named books (if you buy "Superman", you get Wonder Woman as backup and so on).
So, at least here, comic books made for teens and kids work, but almost all are mangas. Our most popular franchise, "Monica's gang", have now a manga version with teen versions of the characters and it's a big seller. In a interview the character's owner said how he wanted to write something specifically to the pre-teens , who didn't liked the original kids series anymore. So they looked what teens liked (manga, romance, adventure, etc) and made a series centered in this topics. Point is, they don't write comics for themselves, they write for a specific public. Quite the opposite of what DC and Marvel are doing nowadays.

[Tawodi Osdi]

It's already been said that ending a the slavish devotion to continuity would allow writers to be fresh without ruining it for everyone else.  Along those lines, I think it would be interesting if Marvel and DC practiced character sharing.  It might be interesting to see how DC might do Captain America or how Marvel might do Wonder Woman.  What would the team rosters of the Avengers and the JLA would look like if they inhabited the same planet?

I think comics returning to the roots would help, and by that I mean, producing books in an affordable and accessible manner.  Maybe, doing more e-books would allow them to expand markets to readers that otherwise wouldn't waste their time.  Comic book fans are already a niche market, and it has niches within niches.  I think the e-reader strategy would allow comics to reach those niches and expand overall sales.  Besides, warehousing and shipping issues would pretty much disappear with e-formats.