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Superman remade for contemporary audiences amid massive comics relaunch

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I am constantly fascinated by how the publishing industry is changing so this caught my attention. DC Comics, or DC Entertainment as they are now called, are relaunching every comic book title (52 in all) they own, starting August 31, 2011. The relaunch, all the comics restart at no. 1,  features both print and digital versions. Among other titles, DC Entertainment owns Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Justice League.

Heidi MacDonald in her September 2, 2011 article for Salon.com interviews Jim Lee, DC’s co-publisher and an artist on Justice League,

The reason for the relaunch has been stated as keeping current readers and getting back lapsed readers. I know it’s only been two days, but how’s it going?

Someone commented, “Where are the reviews by the new readers?” And my counter is, well, [laughs] I think a new reader isn’t going to read it and then run to the computer and write an online review! They are reading it for entertainment and they don’t know you’re supposed to put them in bags and boards.

To me, there’s a definite silent majority that doesn’t check out websites or tweet about it. It’s a tough group to measure. That said, based on recent numbers, certainly Justice League No. 1 has surpassed the recent highs in comics sales. The second printing is already sold out, we’re doing a third. And Action No. 1 and Batgirl No. 1 have also sold out [from the distributor]. I’ve heard anecdotally from retailers, from texts and tweets, about first-time comics readers. It looks very positive.

It’s also setting records digitally. I can’t give numbers, but on the first day it set a record for us.

Once you compared the volume of DC’s digital comics sales to dental floss. Is it up to dental tape now?

It’s too early to say. The goal isn’t to increase one pipeline vs. the other. [emphasis mine] Everything is designed to increase the overall size of the pie.

How do you see print and digital evolving together either in the short term or long term?

Obviously there are going to be some people who convert from print to digital. They may already have done that or are doing that. When Justice League came out [in digital form], there was already a pirated digital version that had been out for six hours. For me it’s all about giving people who want digital comics a legal alternative. And I think that’s an important decision for the health of our business. At the same time I don’t think you can go digital and say you’re trying to reach new readers without going out to promote this as we have. The TV commercials we’re doing have a pretty extensive buy list of mainstream cable shows. There are a lot of good things happening. We’ve brought a lot of good creators to the books, we’ve promoted the hell out of it and made it as easy to buy the comics as possible, and I think that strategy is paying off.

This relaunch comes at a time when the comic book industry is faltering. From Rob Salkowitz’s August 30, 2011 article for Fast Company,

Why is a media entity as large as DC and an industry as widespread as comics publishing still wrestling with the problems of digital distribution in 2011?

The short answer is that the retail distribution system for comic books is tied up in a fist-sized knot and has been for the last two decades. Starting in the 1980s, most comic publishers discontinued newsstand sales, where unsold issues could be returned for a refund, in favor of a “direct market” system that shipped exclusively to specialized comic book stores on a non-returnable basis.

But it turns out there is a problem distributing your product exclusively through independently owned retail stores run by and for your products’ biggest fans. Despite the efforts of some active and visionary retailers, the odor of overgrown adolescent male hangs heavy over many comic shops, creating a forbidding environment for women, kids, and casual fans who might have an interest in the material but don’t want to put up with old-school comic book culture.

(It seems the characters in The Big Bang Theory [US television programme] are not quite as outrageous as one might think.) At any rate, Salkowitz regards this attempt to include a digital version of an issue as part of a strategy to migrate from print to digital,

So here we are in 2011 and the industry is just beginning to seriously discuss real, commercial models for digital comics. It’s a critical moment. If Hollywood money and the bookstore channel dry up before publishers have successfully migrated their audience (and their revenue stream) to digital, they will be stuck with the same dysfunctional retail system and an acutely shrinking, aging audience.

Will DC’s move signal the beginning of the next era for the comics industry, or the beginning of the end? In classic comic cliffhanger style, we’ll have to wait for the next issue to find out.

This contrasts with Lee’s assertion (in the interview with Heidi MacDonald) that one format is not intended to displace the other.

This relaunch also affects the stories. Susan Karlin interviewed Grant Morrison, author of Superman No. 1, 2011, for her August 29, 2011 article for Fast Company,

On Sept. 7, DC Comics will launch the revamped Action Comics, written by veteran comics auteur Grant Morrison–hot off his lauded new book, Supergods. Morrison has the superhuman task of reinventing one of the comic world’s–and popular culture’s–biggest characters for the 21st century, and, in the process, trying to write a new chapter for the struggling comic book publishing industry.

“I felt the weight of history with this one,” says Morrison in his soft-spoken Glaswegian lilt. “I wanted to do something that was as much a part of these times as when (Action Comics) first came out. Superman has always been the champion of the oppressed. I wanted to move away from the standard superhero tales and in the direction of folk tales in the vein of a Paul Bunyan.”

In the revised version, featuring art by Rags Morales (penciling), Rick Bryant (inking), Brad Anderson (color) and Patrick Brosseau (lettering), Morrison pares down the convoluted narrative that began overshadowing the Superman myth. “It had become a pro-wrestling contest between characters– who was stronger, faster, bigger,” he says. “I wanted to evoke a more universal human Superman, who was less of a costumed figure representing patriotic authority, and more about struggles on the street.”

… Superman’s fighting crime, of course, but the authorities are suspicious of his powers. He’s misunderstood. He’s different

It seems this focus about ‘fear and suspicion’ of the superheroes is to be found in all of the ‘new’ comics. From the MacDonald article,

When you first see these heroes, because of their powers and wearing masks, and not using their real names, the public is anxious and fearful about them.

I wonder if Morrison, Lee and the others involved in this relaunch recognize that these feelings of fear, suspicion, and anxiety might also describe the comic book industry as it grapples with the changes in publishing and distribution.

Storytelling for scientists only; self-erasing paper/ink; library news

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I checked out the (Canada) National Science and Technology Week (October 16-25, 2009) website yesterday and found more events (in BC) than the last time I checked in late July/early August. Oddly, one of the events, Storytelling for scientists, is not open to the public. I’m quite disappointed that I’m not allowed to attend as I think it’s a very promising sign of what I hope will be better outreach. ( I got my refusal from someone at the Geological Survey of Canada, which is quite a coincidence since the Survey was recently mentioned here by Preston Manning while discussing his recent speech about science and innovation  in Canada.)

After scanning the science (nanotechnology) news for the last three years, it seems to me that Canadian scientists have been lamentably slow to find ways and means to discuss their work in ways that are engaging and meaningful to people who don’t have a vested interest in the sciences. Yes, there are events for children but I haven’t seen anything much for adults.

Michael Berger over at Nanowerk has written up a very good description of a new technique for creating self-erasing pictures. It caught me eye because of the pop culture reference to Mission Impossible and then there was this,

“While writing with light can be both rapid and accurate, photochromic ‘inks’ are not necessarily optimal for transforming light-intensity patterns into color variations, because they have relatively low extinction coefficients, are prone to photobleaching, and usually offer only two colors corresponding to the two states of photoisomerizing molecules,” explains Bartosz A. Grzybowski, a Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and W. Burgess Chair in Physical Chemistry and Systems Engineering at Northwestern University.

I love the idea of ‘writing with light’ and, even better, the explanation of the technology has great clarity. (couldn’t resist the word play)

I have a longstanding interest and fascination with libraries and in light of the recent cuts to the library system here in BC (Canada) and my recent experiences at ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Art), this item on the Shifted Librarian blog about the mobile devices, libraries, and policy session at the American Library Association (annual meeting?) caught my attention,

Question for Eli: when we talk about mobile devices, we mean digital content. is it a given we’re moving towards this licensing model for digital content, when libraries have traditionally purchased “things” and lending them under first sale doctrine? how do libraries maintain their rights under these threats of DMCA, etc.

Eli: this is really THE question for libraries in the 21st century; holding something of a copy that exists in 10,000 places in the world is worthless – that’s not the value; you have the whole world in your pocket
the rest of the world has skipped the 20th century and gone straight to the 21st; we no longer provide value by providing a copy of something that exists elsewhere
it’s what doesn’t exist anywhere else, which means creating it, which is usually letting your patrons create that
no longer bringing the world to your community, but bringing your community to the world and making it accessible
you’re (the library) the only one that cares about that content being out there
possible future where DRM triumphs & RIAA, etc. get everything they ever wanted and there’s no room for libraries
but could have an uprising against copyright and everything being free to everyone, although this is equally dangerous to libraries
will come down to digital ownership of rights
important not to forget that a major role of the library is to aggregate the buying power of the community and provide access
best thing we can do is produce and assist in the creation of new knowledge
don’t want to get involved in the DRM nightmare and find a value proposition that is meaningful to users in the networked 21st century

If you’re not familiar with the acronyms (I don’t know all of them either), DRM is Digital Rights Management, RIAA is Recording Industry Association of America, and (US) DMCA is Digital Millennium Copyright Act (I had to look up the last two).

This discussion provides an interesting contrast with the item about the cuts to the BC library system on the Think City website. Both are concerned with purchasing power and community access but one from the perspective of our mobile device future and one from the perspective of a 90-year old system that needs to be maintained.