by Matt Brady

While the publisher’s Countdown issue may have been the kickoff to a sweeping change in DC Comics’ editorial vision, “Countdown” also seems to have implications inside DC as well, as, from recent events, it grows increasingly apparent that DC Comics is entering a period of change unlike it has seen in decades. What will the “new DC” look like at the end of the “countdown,” and will it be the same publisher and company its long-time fans recognize?

Industry observers have noted many sweeping changes within the company in recent months, ranging from the abrupt restructuring of its sales and marketing departments to the dismissal and buy out of certain long-tenured executives working behind the scenes. The recent unveiling of a new logo for the company is yet another sweeping change that signals a significant restructuring and corporate strategy adjustment that will be felt for years to come.

Established industry lore holds that DC's corporate survival strategy under the leadership of Jeanette Kahn and Paul Levitz was to remain profitable and below the radar. So it was a significant sea change to read Kevin Tsujihara, the Warner Bros. Executive Vice President for Corporate Business Development and Strategy tell The New York Times, "We're talking about a multibillion-dollar brand. There was a level of concern that we weren't fully utilizing the power of DC." This is the first time that the comics press has read a Warner executive above Levitz comment on the company, and suggests that DC is no longer flying under the radar, and is in fact expected to attain significant growth.

The press release accompanying the announcement of the new logo was the most definitive statement of the company's scope, structure, and revenue channels released in memory, as well as the impetus for this analysis. As a subsidiary of a publicly held corporation, DC is not required to reveal its revenue, nor the channels through which that revenue is derived, unlike its publicly held competitor Marvel (and as such, brief analyses of Marvel can be, and are made by Newsarama with every quarterly release). So, DC has traditionally kept mum, with Levitz declining to answer any questions about DC’s revenue when asked. Yet the announcement accompanying the news of the new logo showed a completely different attitude. That announcement revealed that DC is seen by its corporate parent as "a strategic asset and vital tool in our approach to creating and developing films, television, merchandising and games." It was reaffirmed that DC earns revenue through channels that include: theatrical releases, television programs, home video, video games, comic books, graphic novels, manga, DC Direct, and global brand alliances. The order of those revenue channels is taken verbatim from the announcement, and may be a telling indicator of which channels are most important to the company's bottom line.

Observers outside the company have noted that the logo and the language of the announcement suggests that DC is now a company with a more corporate bent than seen previously. That assessment is certainly correct, and it would be naive to assume otherwise. DC survived through the tumult of the 1990s industry collapse while aggressively growing new sorts of content and formats through the revenues derived from media development of concepts that originated at the comic book level. What's surprising to many is not that DC is now looking and acting like a large corporate entertainment company, but that it took this long to assume that posture.

Some have suggested that Marvel's success through wiry and aggressive branding contributed to this new posture from DC. It's a simple and logical inference to make, and was even suggested by DC President Paul Levitz’s own comments in a recent interview with Newsarama when he suggested that Marvel’s success in film played a role in the change. Levitz said: “I think if you look at a period of time and go a number of years without making films of the characters, and your competitors are showing that there’s a taste for that in film, it says there’s an opportunity there that the company is not addressing.”

Levitz’s sentiments were echoed by DC’s Senior Vice President - Creative Director Richard Bruning, who also attributed Marvel’s successful branding as a fire under DC’s chair. Bruning said: “Two years ago, we had the added impetus of knowing that the Batman film was starting production. We had a lot of faith that it was going to be a big film from our conversations with Christopher Nolan and such. Meanwhile, our friendly competitors at Marvel had their logo displayed prominently in front of all of their films; it was inevitable that the decision was made that we should display our logo very prominently in front of our films.”

Marvel clawed its way up from bankruptcy to become the well-known, profitable, and respected entertainment brand behind a number of blockbuster franchises, most notably the wildly successful Spider-Man and X-Men. With the Marvel logo appearing on every related television commercial, the start of each film, and all manner of ancillary products from playsets to pasta, someone at Time Warner must have noted that they have the potential to do that and more, and since they control the manufacture and distribution of intellectual property "from soup to nuts," can achieve multiples of Marvel's success under the right circumstances. Certainly this move demonstrates that DC, as an entertainment company, is finally ready to duke it out with Marvel in that context, much the same as it is going head to head for market share in the direct market economy. But beyond being the waking Goliath to stand up to Marvel's David, this restructuring of DC also can possibly be interpreted as an aggressive sign for other intellectual property monoliths like Disney to stand up and take notice. In the macro view, and in light of moves by both companies, "Marvel vs. DC" is clearly far too small a scale by which to be viewing the playing field.

Observers have also suggested to Newsarama that the press release from Time Warner and DC served as a means to point out to Wall Street that perhaps, as an asset of Time Warner, DC is undervalued. Looking at the release through that lens, it could be argued that the message was that with many of the larger media projects based on DC properties, the revenue remains within the Time Warner family, and thereby, DC itself should be taken very seriously as a very valuable piece of Time Warner.

The rebranding of DC will be much more significant than a new logo appearing on the comics and graphic novels. The company has already indicated that the new logo will be used across the board on any product derived from a DC idea. An animated form of the new logo has already appeared on a recent Smallville episode as well as on the press screener of Batman Begins while the static logo will appear on DVD packages, video games, board games, toys and, yes, on any number of ancillary products from playsets to pasta. The aggressive push for the DC brand will certainly allow the company the ability to further its reach through any number of strategic licensing partnerships. The net effect will be that what was once Harry Donnenfeld's pulp publishing company will now be one of the most ubiquitous brands in pop culture.

It's too soon to weigh whether the effects of this rethinking of the DC brand will yield positive or negative results, but it is clear that the rethinking has created much opportunity. Talking to Newsarama earlier, Levitz noted, "Comic fans of my generation grew up with a feeling of what we loved had a stigma, that if you told someone that it came from comics, that was a great reason not to buy it. ... I think we're living in a time now where the world's caught on to the fact that what we do is magic, and that it's a very special style and flavor, and that comic book writers and artists have something interesting to say. And that characters who come from comics make compelling entertainment in other media – which they always did, but sometimes without admitting where they came from. That presents a business opportunity for the corporation, because it makes it a good time to use our branding power and extend it. It also makes it a good time for the creative community and the readers, because they get connected to this wider world – the branding makes that happen a little more smoothly."

Levitz is right. The stigma that was attached to comics even a decade ago has now gone, and the field is seen as an idea factory that resonates across the popular culture. While this has yet to translate to historically high sales of published comics or growth of the direct sales market, it has translated into a world that reads about comic books in the same fashion that they would an upcoming movie, TV show, or novel. This (along with moves by other, more literary publishers that have adopted their own graphic novel programs) signals long-term stability for the comics medium to hold a permanent place in popular culture.

Which is not to say we've entered the era of milk and honey. All major changes come at a cost, and the sea change that led Warner to notice DC as a jewel in its crown rather than a spot on its tie may very well lead to an era of heightened expectations and performance thresholds. The introduction of high-level personnel that come from outside the comics world into running DC can possibly be seen as an early step in the company's transformation from comics publisher that creates its own unique content and helps generate content for Warner Bros. other divisions to its long-term management as an entertainment company unto itself. It's an open question as to whether these "real-world" executives and corporate hands will understand; much less continue to cater to the historically idiosyncratic, low-earning, and extraordinarily specialized business of the direct market and direct market fandom. That fact may have long-time employees at DC who have lived in and contributed to building that reality very worried at the moment.

In 2001, Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada said in an interview that comic book publishers need to start thinking like real entertainment companies, and many observers note that events that occurred in late 2001 and early 2002, such as the launch (and success) of Smallville, the opening of From Hell (and the media’s attention to the original Alan Moore/Eddie Campbell graphic novel), the attention garnered by Frank Miller’s Dark Knight II, as well as Marvel’s media friendly projects were responsible for getting the ball rolling that the industry is still on today. At that time, perhaps more so than any other time in the medium’s history, comics were seen by the world as neutral – comic books (and by extension, graphic novels) had lost their stigma, as Levitz noted, and the world had caught on.

After three and a half years, Quesada’s statement is an observable fact. Comics publishers are thinking like real entertainment companies, and the reality of that is that the fortunes of the industry will begin to take shape like the fortunes of the entertainment business. Comics aren't just for kids anymore and the business is no longer kid stuff either. The predictable balance of risk and reward that allowed the industry to thrive when the direct market was the dominant revenue stream is a thing of the past. The industry is now trafficking in serious risks for larger rewards. This has already led to new thinking about content and branding which will be more measured in its approach to risk. While the fans will always play a part in what the companies produce, they are now just one part of the picture.

Which is probably as it should be. In as volatile a business as the publishing of intellectual property has become, consolidation is an observable reality. The big survive, the weak perish. By rebranding itself to appear as the giant it is, DC has made a great stride towards becoming not merely the comic book monolith, but an entertainment force to be reckoned with.