DAN DIDIO ON DAN DIDIO, PART 1

[MattBrady]

<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/dcnew/dclogoblue8jf.gif" align="right">Sunday at Heroes Con in Charlotte, North Carolina, a relatively rare event occurred. Dan Didio sat in a ballroom with an audience.

Okay, now <i>that’s</i> not such a rare event, but Didio’s topic of conversation was. Rather than “DC Nation” <b>52</b>, One Year Later, or any other number of DC Universe issues, Didio’s subject was Dan Didio. Hosted by Newsarama’s Matt Brady, Didio took all questions, both from Brady, and the audience about his background, how he uses his television history to “program” DC’s comics, his first job at DC writing <b>Superboy</b>, and more.

We clicked “record” as things started, and only turned the tape recorder off when it was all said and done.

<b>Newsarama</b>: I’d like to thank everyone for coming out this morning, and without further ado, I’d like to introduce the man responsible for…

<b>Dan Didio</b>: All your pain [laughs].

<B>NRAMA</B>: All your pain as well as where the DCU is today, coming out of <b>Infinite Crisis</b>, moving into <b>52</b>, One Year Later, and everything else that is going on with the heroes of the DC Universe, Executive Editor, Dan Didio.

I thought it would interesting to start with a look back. There really hasn’t been a big profile of you since you’ve been at DC, so let’s go back to your years before DC, and work our way up through how you got into DC. First off, you make no secret of it that you were in television in animation prior to comics…

<B>DD</B>: Right. My background is all television. I did all television before this, and you can see some of that play into how we build our comics and how we tell our stories. I started with CBS, was there for about five years, worked special events; worked for ABC – in publicity for three or four years with their soap operas. Ran the day-to-day operations for ABC Saturday morning for a couple of years. From there, I did freelance writing on a show called <i>Reboot</i>, the first computer animated television show, and then from there, I worked for a company called Mainframe Entertainment, which produced computer animated shows, such as <i>Beast Wars</i>, <i>Beast Machines</i>, and all of those guys.

Click <a href=http://www.newsarama.com/dcnew/Didio/DidioPart1.html>here</a> for the full interview...

[havokX24]

for dc's top creative officer he talks a lot about marvel

wow first post

[jlawesome]

for dc's top creative officer he talks a lot about marvel

wow first post

Don't go there.

[SDM]

His candidness is appreciated.

[SpyGuy]

<b>Newsarama</b>: I’d like to thank everyone for coming out this morning, and without further ado, I’d like to introduce the man responsible for…

<b>Dan Didio</b>: All your pain [laughs]


At last, a statement from DiDio I can agree with completely.

[Vazquez]

At last, a statement from DiDio I can agree with completely.

My wallet agrees with it as well.

Dang nabbit, all there is now....and WorldStorm is coming as well.

Maybe I shouldn't be leaving my current job.

[Avilos]

Clark Kent had already revealed his identity to Lois is the comics before the show "Lois & Clark" ever existed. They also had become engaged to be married before the show even existed! I am so sick of "Lois & Clark" being blamed for the marriage in the comics!:mad: Didio does not know what he is talking about.

[samnoir]

It does sound like Didio's experience writing Superboy was very important to how he handles creative decisions in the DCU. It's great when you do have people with creative experience at the top... such as Joe Q over at Marvel and the fact that Levitz came up as a writer as well.

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[Panguar]

Clark Kent had already revealed his identity to Lois is the comics before the show "Lois & Clark" ever existed. They also had become engaged to be married before the show even existed! I am so sick of "Lois & Clark" being blamed for the marriage in the comics!:mad: Didio does not know what he is talking about.

Well at the time they were not engaged. Lois was off traveling the world as an international reporter, I think trying to decide if she still wanted to marry Clark. The show was gonna marry Lois and Clark, and DC didn't want the show to do it first, so they married them in the comics. So who knows if or when they would have ever gotten married in the books if it wasn't for the show.

[EMeadow]

Clark Kent had already revealed his identity to Lois is the comics before the show "Lois & Clark" ever existed. They also had become engaged to be married before the show even existed! I am so sick of "Lois & Clark" being blamed for the marriage in the comics!:mad: Didio does not know what he is talking about.

The marriage was bum rushed because of Lois and Clark. Does not mean it would never happen.

But it sure as hell got fast tracked. The solicits at that time for all the books were all over the place cause they had to get the wedding and honeymoon issues out at the right time.

But its worked out ever since. No doubt about it. It just got speeded up.

What Didio should not be doing is making it sound like he doesn't like the idea that they're married or else we've got Peter/MJ problems on both major companies and making it sound like you can't ever grow up.

[Rodrigo Baeza]

The idea to cancel a book that was making a profit at a time when two thirds of the line was not making a profit…that was a big decision,

This is the first time I've seen a DC exec admit that such a large quantity of their titles does not make any profit. Sure, he's describing a situation from three years ago, but things probably haven't changed much since then.

Rodrigo
http://rodrigobaeza.blog-city.com

[AdamYJ]

I understand his thinking behind Young Justice, though I don't really agree with all of it. He thought of them as "icons" related to Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Flash. That's exactly what they became when they got put in the Teen Titans. They got tied in a lot closer to their mentors' spheres of influence and some of the unique aspects they had.

Plus, a little more comedy was taken out of the DC Universe.

But hey, it worked out for DC. I suppose that's what matters. Those of us who are fans of "cult favorite" books always encounter stuff like this. So, a lot of people probably agree he made a good decision. I don't have to, though.

[spiderrob8]

Well at the time they were not engaged. Lois was off traveling the world as an international reporter, I think trying to decide if she still wanted to marry Clark. The show was gonna marry Lois and Clark, and DC didn't want the show to do it first, so they married them in the comics. So who knows if or when they would have ever gotten married in the books if it wasn't for the show.

They were getting married before LOIS AND CLARK ever existed. In fact, when Lois and Clark came, it stopped them from getting married as the next big DC event, as they didn;t want them to be married off when the buzz on the show was a sexy romantic triangle.

So instead of marrying them, they killed Superman as the big event.

THEN when L&C wound up marrying them, they hastily got it ready in the comics, when they weren't prepared.

But L&C stopped it from originally happening

[Hokeyboy]

for dc's top creative officer he talks a lot about marvel

wow first post
The word Marvel was mentioned entirely four times, one of them when Dan talked about buying Amazing Spider-Man as a kid, and another to talk about Jimmy writing Deadpool. Check your eyes or learn to read.

[Lukecash]

I'm more concerned about what we're doing. I can't follow what they're doing, because the last time we did that with Superman, we got Superman married, and now we still have that. The marriage of our Lois and Clark was tied to the television show Lois and Clark, and while that show is long gone, we've still got it. Heck, another Superman television show has come up, and there's been a movie since then, and we're still locked into a continuity from an old television show.

First of all....

Clark and Lois were engaged a YEAR Before the Doomsday storyline.

Second of all- DC comics was ASKED to delay the marriage by the TV show producer...who decided to base the new series on the current Lois and Clark marriage.

Thus Doomsday storyline was put in place of the wedding and made Comic History.

DC sturggled with what to do with Superman AFTER the Death/Return of Superman...

DC decided to do a Year Long storyline with Lois and Clark seperated...at the time the TV show was having trouble in the ratings...so in despiration the TV decided to Marry Lois and Clark off. Mike Carlin was furious because they had to scrap the year long story in order to do the wedding, (it was a bad story anyways, Carlin should be so lucky.


Second of all While Jim Lee will sell books... Jeph Loeb was the reason Hush and Batman/Superman sold so well.

[Lukecash]

I'm more concerned about what we're doing. I can't follow what they're doing, because the last time we did that with Superman, we got Superman married, and now we still have that. The marriage of our Lois and Clark was tied to the television show Lois and Clark, and while that show is long gone, we've still got it. Heck, another Superman television show has come up, and there's been a movie since then, and we're still locked into a continuity from an old television show.

First of all....

Clark and Lois were engaged a YEAR Before the Doomsday storyline. (In fact, all of the Armageddon 2000 alternate histories had Superman getting married in a year.)

Second of all- DC comics was ASKED to delay the marriage by the TV show producers...who decided to base the new series on the romantic Lois and Clark relationship that was going on in the comics.

Thus Doomsday storyline was put in place of the wedding and made Comic History.

DC sturggled with what to do with Superman AFTER the Death/Return of Superman...

DC decided to do a Year Long storyline with Lois and Clark seperated...at the time the TV show was having trouble in the ratings...so in despiration the TV decided to Marry Lois and Clark off. Mike Carlin was furious because they had to scrap the year long story in order to do the wedding, (it was a bad story anyways, Carlin should be so lucky.


Second of all While Jim Lee will sell books... Jeph Loeb was the reason Hush and Batman/Superman sold so well.

[Jeremy Williams]

Well he says that Superman is not as flexible as X-Men and Spider-Man in term of having mutlitple titles that will sell well. But if you look at recent surge with All Star Superman, Superman with Busiek, Johns/Kubert with Action Comics and the upcoming Superman Confidential with big names, there could be the potential of 6 Superman title(if you include JLA and Superman/Batman) that are a big success. For the first time in more than a decade the Superman titles would have the chance to sell better and be of a better quality than the Spider-Man titles.

That`s not only because there`s a push of Superman from DC but also I feel that Marvel have slumping lately with their Spider-Man titles. They could be a whole lot better, and Marvel have been lazy in handling that line because some places it hasn`t been as success-driven by limiting the star creators and other places because the books are not as well defined as it should be to make them different. If you look at it it`s been almost a fiasco. Without the Civil War tie-ins in fact, it would be quite embarassing. Whatever you can say about Sins Past and the Mike Deodato run, it hit the ball at the home plate, make noise and Deodato is one Hell of an artist. Losing him is slowly but surely starting to show. Look Friendly Neighborhood: it was supposed to be this uper spectacular book written by Mark Waid and it was going to be an anything goes title where Spidey meets everybody in the Marvel Universe. Now it`s..what? Just a solid Spidey book..? The current Sensational Spider-Man with the new writer it was going to be the crime, more intense Spider-Man book. Now it`s what? Not that different from the other two books. As far Ultimate Spider-Man it has lost a lot of steam, and Bendis doesn`t seem to know what to do anymore other than trying to make noise with the clone saga to generate sales.

So again we`re here in 2006 with the Spider-Man line in the same shape it was when Joe Quesada took over, in desaray, no point, and the titles looking pretty much all the same. And it`s a damn shame.

[Hokeyboy]

Second of all While Jim Lee will sell books... Jeph Loeb was the reason Hush and Batman/Superman sold so well.
LMAO :D :D :D


oh wait you were serious?? :confused:

[Mundungus]

I really enjoyed this. Made me laugh during the Superboy segments. Poor guys. Glad it's all worked out. I'm really liking the direction and right now All-Star Superman, Superman, Batman, Detective Comics, Checkmate, and Green Lantern Corps are some of my top titles, thanks to IC and One Year Later and I'm usually a Marvel zombie!

[A.Vandelay]

Didio earns cool points for writing for Reboot.

[Kolimar]

LMAO :D :D :D


oh wait you were serious?? :confused:

Heheheh :D

[Kolimar]

for dc's top creative officer he talks a lot about marvel

wow first post

:rolleyes: About as much as Joe Q talks about DC. :p :D

[mrorangesoda]

I think he was really candid about the Superboy stuff. i think experiences like that are good for the boss to have so he thinks long and hard about subjecting someone else to that.

Also, I can't fault his reasoning for the Young Justice decision. It's a shame, but they were proven right over time.

[Kolimar]

DD: [laughs] Okay - how Jimmy Palmiotti and I got the Superboy job:

My experience on six issues of Superboy taught me so much about how not to make comics. Seriously. It was a comedy of errors form start to finish. Jimmy and I lived in the same co-op building back in Brooklyn, and he wanted to write stuff, and we were writing together, and pitched a Guardian miniseries years before to DC. We got through a couple of hoops, and it was ultimately rejected.

Then, Jimmy's writing Deadpool for Marvel, and DC calls up and asks if he has anything, to which Jimmy answers, "As a matter of fact, I've got a Guardian miniseries." They wanted to see it, so Jimmy calls me and tells me to type it up and send it in. I did, and sent it in to DC.

DC tells us, "This is great, but you know what? We think we need other characters to appear in it. Can you put Superboy into it?"

"Great idea! I love it! Boy, you guys are smart!" I typed it all up, with Superboy in it, and sent it in.

DC called back: "Wow, this is great, but we're not going to do it as a miniseries anymore. We need a block of story inside Superboy. So, can you beef up the Superboy role, take down Guardian a little bit, and push it that way?"

"You know what? That's even better! Thanks guys, I love this idea!" So I got back to typing, took Guardian down, and sent it back in. Then the next phone call:

"Listen - we love everything you're doing with Superboy, but you know what? The Guardian stuff isn't working for us. Can you take Guardian out, and just make it a Superboy story?"

Dead silence from me.

I got on the phone with Jimmy, and said, "Are we writing Superboy as the regular team?"

"Shhhh! Just write it and send it in!" [laughs]

That's how we got to be the Superboy writers. Not a career path anyone is every going to have at DC.

So - we're writing Superboy, and we're talking about crossovers. Everybody loves to talk about crossovers. Back to Young Justice again - Young Justice and Impulse. So - we're writing Superboy, building towards issue #100 - the big conclusion of our arc. We have issue #99 written already, and we're getting ready to write #100. Then the phone call comes in:

"Hey guys, listen - Impulse is in trouble of being cancelled. We've got this great idea of crossover to help boost Impulse sales."

"Okay. What's that got to do withy us?"

"Well, it's going to be a story that goes from Impulse to Robin to Young Justice, through Superboy and back to Impulse again, to really get people excited about Impulse again."

"Okay - what do we have to do?"

"Here's the outline of what we want to put into issue #99."

"But we already wrote #99."

"Yeah, it's the set up for #100, but we really want to help Impulse. Can you be a team player and put this in the book?"

"Okay - let's see what you've got." And we got the outline. I call the editor back.

"Hey - I've got a little bit of a problem. Superboy's not in the outline."

"You know what? Every once in a while, it's okay for the hero not to appear in his own book."

[laughter]

"Is it?"

And then - the fun started. I started interviewing for the job. So, we're trying to work the outline, and not only is Superboy not in the book, but it's an alternate reality story. Now you know where I am. Now, I had to build to issue #100. Issue #99 was written, but then, I had to pull the whole thing out, and put in this alternate reality story. How were we going to get any momentum building for issue #100?

So we took the script that we wrote for #99, pushed half of it into #98, and the other half into #100. Then, we were looking at issue #100 and asked if we could get at least a couple of pages in #99 set int eh current reality, just so we could set things up for #100 a little.

"Sure - you can have four."

"Four? Thank you."

We start to break the story down, and are working it out, and all of a sudden, I get the scripts from the other guys who are leading into our issue of this crossover. I get the first script - nothing to do with the outline I was given. Then I get the second script…so I call the editor:

"Hey - I've got a problem. This takes place all in the current continuity of the story, and he only goes into the alternate reality for four pages. It's opposite of what we had."

"You know what? He's a new writer, and its' important tto him, so we decided to let him flip it that way."

You had to be kidding me. And it kept getting worse. And to top it off, I'm with Jimmy, and he's about ready to explode, and I'm telling him to calm down because I'm interviewing for this other job.

So we go through the whole thing, we do the whole crossover, finish the script, and turn it in. Then I get a phone call:

"You know what? We love the script. Love what you did with it, but you know what? We just cancelled Impulse."

So everything that we did, everything that was done was done for no reason. Everything. We changed our story, we broke our flow, changed everything about it, and I I got the job. I said to myself at that point - we're not dong any more crossovers until we figure out how to do them right. That's ultimately what got us to Countdown. If you look at the DCU from that failed crossover on - and with the exception of War Games and a couple of things that were in the works in the Bat-office, there was never a company crossover in the DCU. At that point, they were just doing them for the sake of doing them. [/URL]

This reminded me of a Hawkman thread a while ago with people criticizing Jimmy P's Superboy and of course Didio's ability to run a creative company like DC was questioned based on Superboy. My memory would embarrass a senile old man but this explains a LOT of what happened back then. Amazing.

[farwell3d]

Well, Jim Lee certainly didn't sell Superman/Batman. In fact, I'm still at a loss as to what did.

Loeb and Lee as a team sold me on Hush, and I can't remember ever being more disappointed by a story than that one. I refuse to believe this is the same Jeph Loeb that wrote Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Superman For All Seasons, Daredevil Yellow and Spider-Man Blue. It just flat out can't be the same guy.

[AdamYJ]

Also, I can't fault his reasoning for the Young Justice decision. It's a shame, but they were proven right over time.

Yeah. Like I think I said earlier (I rambled a bit): just because something's a good business decision doesn't mean that everyone's going to like it.

[Avilos]

Loeb and Lee as a team sold me on Hush, and I can't remember ever being more disappointed by a story than that one. I refuse to believe this is the same Jeph Loeb that wrote Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Superman For All Seasons, Daredevil Yellow and Spider-Man Blue. It just flat out can't be the same guy. I think that Tim Sale is such a fantastic artist and visual storyteller that it made up for and distracted from Loeb's simplitic stories. Almost everything Loeb has written is some mystery or twist that is stretched out for a long time. But with no satisfying resolution.
Then you look back over the "story" and realize that none of the clues add up.

[eboogyman]

If noone addresses the death of Conner and the aging Bart and making him the flash in 2 weeks, Id say these questions are screened.

[irishj81]

If noone addresses the death of Conner and the aging Bart and making him the flash in 2 weeks, Id say these questions are screened.

I don't think it's so much that the questions are screened as it is that the entire forum is about DiDio himself and his history. Not a Q&A about present books and/or characters.

[supes0]

Well at the time they were not engaged.

Yes they were. They were engaged in Superman 50, cover date Dec 1990. He reveals his identity in ACTION #662 a couple months later (Feb 1991 cover date). The TV show ran from 1993-1997

The comic books were going to marry them in Superman 75 (instead of killing him) but delayed it for the TV show. MHO, it made a mess of what should have been a special turning point (in order to delay the wedding, they turned Lois' character in to a shrew to justify breaking them up, bringing back Lori as competition, etc) . The relationship is only just recovering (mho) with Up, Up, and Away and Superman 654.

For more info on what happened:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811842312/sr=8-3/qid=1153408251/ref=pd_bbs_3/103-3389883-5005437?ie=UTF8

[Drcharles]

[ Quote ] What we need to do now, and what we're trying to do is we need to take a lot of risks. But the idea now is to see what takes hold - to see what works and what doesn't work. We find things that are the strongest and we build on that, rather than on the weakest [ Quote ]

Just read PT 1

Wanted to say that judging by the sales of Aquaman# 43 this mth ( 29.44 ), I hope Didio will not renege on his word, and under line this bk for the chop ! ( Gulp )

After reading this it sounds like this chap talks sense about getting these dreadful crossovers to work and make sense......