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05-07-2007, 05:44 PM
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THE 52 EXIT INTERVIEWS: DAN DIDIO
 You might think that, now that DC’s 52 has concluded, that DCU Executive Editor Dan Didio is sitting back, somewhat shellshocked, unable to believe or accept that the 52 part weekly series is all over, and without one missed week. You’d be wrong, if you thought that. Thing is, from the very start, Didio didn’t waver in his confidence that the team that had been assembled for 52 could pull it off – could tell a weekly story in real time while attracting, engaging, and keeping a sizable audience. Not a waver. Continuing with our series of conversations with the key players of 52, we sat down with Didio to talk about the project. Newsarama: Going back to the start – you’ve pretty much established how 52 came to be – the presentation for Paul [Levitz], his response and suggestion, and the rapid re-tooling…once the boots hit the ground, was there ever a moment of doubt for you? A moment of, “Holy crap…what have we done?” Dan Didio: You’re not going to believe this, but, no – it was more exhilaration than it was ever doubt. It was the idea that we were trying something brand new was exciting as hell to me, and I had complete faith with everybody involved in the process. As I like to say, my greatest contribution to 52 was staying out of the way for the most part. I got involved in a couple of places, but mostly, I stayed out of the process as these guys were rolling. I went to their summits, but left once I could see they were rolling, and just had a lot of faith in the guys. I always knew it was going to happen. For me, it was always a win/win – if we wrapped it up and did it right without missing a week, it was a major accomplishment. Even if we didn’t get it to work – no big loss, because nobody thought we could do it anyway [laughs]. NRAMA: There is that… DD: Right – so it was a win/win – either way, we were going to come out okay. [laughs]. For me though, and seriously, 52 took full advantage of our medium. We’re a weekly distribution system, and to create product that works in conjunction with our distribution system was the right way to go. It’s a smart move, and an exciting one at that. It brought a feeling of spontaneity back to comics that was lacking here in a world where the pace of virtually all other episodic media has sped up to something faster than monthly. NRAMA: We’ve talked about that before – where we now see the “geeks” in the positions of power – the Paul Dinis, the Joss Whedons, Damon Lindeloffs, JJ Abrams – these guys who were, in some part, weaned on the episodic nature of comics have now turned around to put that element – along with fully fleshed out worlds - into their projects now…you could argue that comics had to catch back up… DD: I think so too. The episodic nature of comics is what hooked me and made me a fan. If you think about comics that you might have read – myself in the ‘70s, the really gripping stories were coming from Marvel at the time, and flowed from issue to issue across comics. I always listed that one scene in Avengers where Captain America appears as Nomad as one that was key to me. They’re in the middle of China or something, and Steve Rogers appears as Nomad, says, “Hi, I’m Nomad now, I’m not Captain America anymore, I’m Nomad.” And they’re off to the races. That had nothing to do with the story, but it reinforced the fact that there was a change in the Captain America book, and even though it had so little to do with the Avengers and was barely any kind of crossover, it had so much to do with the world-building aspects of comics. That’s the kind of stuff I love to read in comics, and hopefully what we’re putting in comics today. NRAMA: Going back to what you said about 52 taking full advantage of the weekly distribution system of comics…when during the run of 52 were you able to sit back and say, “Okay – we’ve got it. We know how to produce a weekly comic book without any problems,” and was it at the same time, or alter did it come across that weekly comics were a viable model in the current market? DD: For the first part of that question, I was never comfortable with the way we did it. We could have always done something better, from turning scripts around in a better fashion to get them to Keith and the artists faster, or making sure we have the right artist for the right book…in a sense, we were always behind the eight ball, hoping we were making the right choices at the right time. The one thing that we were able to do for the most part, and again, I can’t say enough about the quality of the staff – not just DC editorial, but in production and in so many other areas, is that they were able to shield the higher end of the company from how close we might cut it on certain days. But again, and the one thing that we understood to a man was that we were not going to miss shipping, and we always had contingencies if a book wasn’t complete, or if something had to be done in order to get something out faster. Luckily, we never had to pull any of those triggers – we were always able to get it done. NRAMA: What were some of those contingencies? DD: I was willing to put a book out with a shorter page count, if necessary, because I felt that those stories held up. We had things where we knew how tightly we had to cut it to get it into the printers, both best and worst case scenarios, but we never had to come to that. We came close, but never to that extent. NRAMA: I’d heard a story where Keith said he would never have a book go out without dialogue, and if his name was on it, he’d end up writing it if he had to, if the scripts got late… DD: Keith was always the secret weapon. If there was ever a point where someone couldn’t be there, Keith was ready to step in and be a part of it. But to a man, the four writers were so dedicated that I had to believe that, even if they were on their respective deathbeds, they would still be turning in scripts, because they were that committed to the project. They would hold off dying just to make suyre they got their pages in. NRAMA: Were there any “last minute” stories? DD: Yes – there were a couple of times where we were discussing a beat or a story point up until the very last moment. There might have been times where we had an inker in house, inking it up so we could send the pages out. There were times where things were running very close to the wire. At the end of the day, though – we got the books out on time, and that’s all that matters. NRAMA: You said you were there for some of the summit meetings, but would leave…how much say did you have with this story? Is the end the ending that you envisioned it would be? DD: Not even slightly. The earlier meetings had a completely different ending for the story, and by the second issue, we were already headed into directions that I had not known anything about. At that point, I knew that we could do one of two things – we could either try to find a way to put things back into some plan that you came up with before the first word was written, or you could just sit back and let nature take its course, and let the true creative process work, and that’s what happened here. That’s why you got the quality of the product that you do. NRAMA: Every book, every series is a learning process. In doing a book like this, in real-time, and weekly, what did you learn about the readers? DD: The level of dedication and involvement and support for the story was greater than I ever imagined it would be. We were pretty much in the position where the audience that we had in the first two months was the same size as the audience that we had in the 12th month, which shows that the people who were there, who found the book, were committed to the series and stayed with it all the way through. We saw very little fluctuation in regards to sales on the book. Even something like World War III didn’t spike the book in a huge way. Everybody was already there and were part of the ride. We saw a decent sized increase for World War III, as well as one when we introduced Batwoman, but for the most part, it was a steady ride all the way through. Much more steady than we ever imagined it would be. NRAMA: You mention Batwoman – she came into the story, and became a news story unto herself. Was that planned all? DD: Not really. We were trying to fill in some of the missing places in the year that 52 covered, and we were looking at Gotham City and the characters that would fill the void with Batman, Robin and Nightwing all gone. That’s one of the places where Batwoman came to be. It was more about what happens to Gotham City when its greatest protector has gone missing, and it ultimately evolved into something else. One of the things that really pushed her to the forefront was that it was a character that had a history, and a relationship with Renee, so it felt a lot more organic than we expected. It felt right, and it felt like a good place to do it. NRAMA: That said, were there times where the format trumped the story? Where the day-by-day, week-by-week pacing affected how the story was told? DD: In what way? NRAMA: Well, Greg Rucka has said that something that was pointed out very early was that cliffhangers were gone from the writers’ toolbox DD: okay – that I can see. It’s something that will show in Countdown, that is, the actual real time, wee-by-week rollout was as interesting as it was inhibiting in regards to what we were doing. But again, this serves as a testament to the strength of the writers – they were able to find ways to create cliffhangers that wouldn’t leave a person hanging for 24 hours until the next issue – you can’t have a guy holding a gun on a guy for 24 hours, but they did find ways to make it work, and I was always pleasantly surprised by that. All these things – the level of creativity, reinventing the wheel, and so much of inventing things as they went along was just amazing, because a lot of times you don’t get the feeling of people trying to figure things out, or trying to find a new way of doing things like you would in 52. But again, these guys worked extremely hard, side bi side, arguing, talking, discussing, and compromising every week, every day. And they did most of it by themselves, outside of Editorial, and they really did eat, sleep and breathe this project for over a year. The amount of effort they put into it allowed for the level of success it met. NRAMA: Going back to story versus format, something that Michael Siglain and I got into now and again in the weekly looks at the issue was that 52 used the day as it’s main unit of time. When you put that structure onto the story, and move away from the gray, “an indeterminate amount of time later…” you can end up with something like you did where Black Adam killed every man, woman and child in Bialya for a span of two days; and the heroes did nothing. That seemed to cast all the heroes (except the latter retconned-in Martian Manhunter) in a rather jerkish light… DD: Yeah. There’s a limitation to the format, and a choice was made because you didn’t want to sacrifice the impact of the moment of the scene to play the day-by-day moment up. That was something that was so adhered to throughout the line. For the most part, every once in a while we had to stretch the understandings of realty and real time, but the fact of the matter is that it’s a world that the story was covering, and even in our own world, we don’t know every event taking place at every moment on every continent. We put Black Adam in a corner of the world, and I have to believe that it will not come to every heroes’ attention at the same moment. It may not take the amount of time that was shown, but it’s not as if that whenever a crime is perpetrated against an individual, or a group, that a bell goes off inside a hero’s house, and they suit up and go. That’s part of the reality that we were building in this story – giving a feeling of the size and scope of the DC Universe, and, by issue #52, the DC multiverse. So when you’re looking at things that are that big, and there are events taking place in a small corner of that world, you need to stretch reality a little bit, even if just to say, “You know what? Not every hero would know about this going on immediately.” And they might not hear about it for a while. Do we know everything that happens across the globe at all times? Even in smaller counties where there’s usually no news? We have spontaneity of information, but still – look at how we all learned about the tsunami that hit a few years back. We have very good information flow around our world, but if you were Superman, and you saw about that on CNN, you’d arrive far too late to save any great number of people. That’s some of the stuff that we have to understand, and what we were exploring in 52 - the relationships and the connections – or the lack of connections between characters in the DC Universe. Every character is not privy to the actions of every other hero. The fans are – and that’s probably where some of this comes from, but the characters’ aren’t. NRAMA: Sure – being the omniscient observer can skew your perspective… DD: Yep. People weight the importance based upon the moment as they see it. “My God – why doesn’t every hero come to the aid? Can’t they see this?” The heroes don’t get Previews each month, so no, they can’t. NRAMA: Isn’t that the plot to the new Animal Man #1 by Grant? Buddy walks by a park bench and sees a copy of Previews just sitting there? DD: [laughs] And from then on, Buddy knows everything that happens three months in advance – but only as frustratingly vague teases, as if these glimpses were released by some cosmic marketing department… NRAMA: Picking out a couple of story beats that piqued fans’ interest…or ire…obviously, replacing the Question with a new version was at the top of the list of major changes that occurred. In your view, why was that something that it was time for? DD: It was something that Greg embraced and was the champion of from day one. The one thing that we wanted to do, and that, frankly, Greg was perfect with, was making the change feel so natural and progressive so that it makes sense when it does finally occur. People feel the loss when Vic dies, but they also wanted Renee to pick up that mantle. And again, every once in a while, we look at the generational aspect of the DC Universe and at different characters. The Question was on the borderline, and you could argue that the character is a symbol – a faceless character, rather than a specific individual. The question of course then is: Can we tell the same style of stories? Can we move into another direction with this character based upon this change? These are questions that will be answered as we explore that character over the next year or so. We’re going to let the fans decide. I like it, I think it’s a wonderful change, and think it’s in extremely capable hands with Greg. I look forward to seeing what he tries to do with it. NRAMA: And Ralph’s big change – it’s Nick and Nora as ghosts? DD: Something like that, yeah. True lovers are reunited. Maybe not in the fashion that everyone was hoping for, but Ralph and Sue are together again. NRAMA: Whose idea was that? DD: You can see the fingerprints of everyone on that, but deep down, you’ve got guys with real affinity for those characters, like Mark and Grant who, at the end, wanted to see something positive come from Ralph’s story, because he was put through the wringer so much that you wanted to feel like it was all worthwhile at the end. It’s a happy ending – not the happy ending that everyone wanted, like I said, but a happy ending, nonetheless. NRAMA: And as we’ve talked about with Mark Waid, the story itself was a nice touch of misdirection – fans didn’t catch on when Ralph’s approach and plan changed… DD: Exactly. It wasn’t about resurrecting her, it was always about reuniting with her, and as he went on, it became about reuniting with her using any means necessary. Whatever it took. That was his wish, and it was granted. NRAMA: Wrapping things up – you’ve mentioned that some of the characters are going to be seen again soon, and some projects have been announced, but there are a whole second set of characters – Animal Man, the Question, Batwoman, and others who’ve now had their own “missing year.” When will se start to see the rest roll out? DD: The Booster Gold series starts in August for one. Black Adam gets his own miniseries as well – and that picks up from his disappearance at the end of 52 and covers the time to his appearance in Countdown - his brief, but important appearance in Countdown. John Henry Irons and Natasha will be in the new Infinity Inc. series by Peter Milligan… And, as Michael Siglain announced Friday, we’ll be doing a Four Horsemen miniseries written by Keith Giffen. NRAMA: Even though there are no Horsemen left? DD: But there are some survivors of Bialya… And then, there are a couple of new books in the pipeline that feature that same feel of the 52 aftermath, and are built upon storylines, rather than individual characters that we feel had plenty of room for exploration. NRAMA: Obviously also one of the larger ramifications of 52 was the pulling back of the curtain to show the multiverse is present… DD: The warm and fuzzy multiverse… NRAMA: And we have Mr. Mind to thank for this… DD: Mr. Mind’s digestive problems, I think. [laughs] He couldn’t keep a good Phantom Zone down. I think the concept was brilliant on the writers’ part – 52 carbon copies of the same universe and then each one took on new life and a new direction by the flapping of Mr. Mind’s wings…to put it one way. What’s fun about all of that is that these are new interpretations of these worlds. It’s not the Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths multiverse, but something that is much more contained, and will hopefully be well managed as the months and years go by so that people will clearly understand the differences between the worlds. Of course, the 52 monitors help with making sure that the rules are followed among the earths…or do they? NRAMA: Do they? DD: Read Countdown to find out. NRAMA: Speaking of Countdown - will that series have any backups a la the origins that were in 52? DD: There will be – the backups in Countdown will be reflective of what they were in 52, which means a ten part “History of the Multiverse” story which takes us through the incarnations of the multiverse before crisis on Infinite Earths and through Infinite Crisis. We’ll see the previous multiverse and the one we have right now. And after that, we’ll be doing the origins in the backs of Countdown as well, but this time, we’ll be doing the villains, which will explain where those went when we’d already talked about some of them coming up in 52. NRAMA: Equal time for heroes? DD: A little of that, but more importantly, for something very important that’s coming up later. Previously: Mark Waid Geoff Johns Keith Giffen |
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05-07-2007, 05:55 PM
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#2 |
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Boy, it's interesting how much less I cared about this interview than those with the actual creators of the book. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated him answering the questions he did, but hearing from the actual artists who wove it together was much more fulfilling.
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05-07-2007, 06:00 PM
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#3 |
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awesome!! very excited for the booster gold monthly!!
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05-07-2007, 06:02 PM
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05-07-2007, 06:03 PM
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We did want Renee to take up the mantle? Last edited by TCJohnson : 05-07-2007 at 06:29 PM. |
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05-07-2007, 06:08 PM
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I would so buy that as well. |
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05-07-2007, 06:12 PM
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#7 |
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Not for nothing, but it's a bit of a cop out that all the creators involved were asked about Didio spilling the beans about the multi-verse, but Didio was not.
While there were problems with the series (and some great parts), Didio basically revealing the ending was easily the worst. |
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05-07-2007, 06:13 PM
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#8 | |
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With Morrison writing it, i have no doubt that the book would be a success! Hell yeah, I'd buy it! |
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05-07-2007, 06:16 PM
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#9 |
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I hope Black Adam isn't the one that dies in the beginning of Countdown.
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05-07-2007, 06:19 PM
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Holy crap, that would be a great angle for an ongoing. Can ghosts get trashed? |
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05-07-2007, 06:23 PM
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05-07-2007, 06:24 PM
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#12 |
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I wonder about which alternate earths will be revealed.
Tangent Earth is quite a likely possiblity, no? |
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05-07-2007, 06:29 PM
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#13 |
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Journey of the hero nonwithstanding, I don't see how a Montoya as the Question book is better than a Question and Montoya book
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05-07-2007, 06:31 PM
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05-07-2007, 06:34 PM
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05-07-2007, 06:34 PM
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#16 |
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Would've liked to have seen him answer for Wackers 'defection.'
I think it was Rucka who said in an interview a while ago he didn't like the way DC handled the Wacker situation. I took that to mean he couldn't believe they let him go, or was unhappy that he was basically treated like a cog in the machine after he'd helped fine-tune the weekly system. I myself can't understand how DC would let him walk in the middle of such a big event, but maybe he asked for an exorbitant amount of money to stay. I doubt that happened, but it's a thought. Anyone know the specifics of what happened backstage, or was it just a case of Marvel offering more, so he left? |
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05-07-2007, 06:38 PM
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Can't believe I forgot to mention that in my previous post, but, yeah, what the hell? How was he not asked what the hell he was thinking giving away the ending like that. If he would have said readers will see Ted Kord again before the end of 52, I think we could let that slide. But, damn, he just gave it all away. |
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05-07-2007, 06:41 PM
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That would have been nice. It looks like this interview wasn't done by Vaneta. I guess that explains why the question didn't come up. |
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05-07-2007, 06:45 PM
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I was going to say exactly the same. Has this question been answered by Didio somewhere ?  |
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05-07-2007, 06:46 PM
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#20 |
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Renee as the Question was a very well executed storyline. I'd love to see a Question mini-series.
Any chance we'll get a Grant Morrison exit interview? |
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05-07-2007, 06:47 PM
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#21 | |
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He did, it was in a Wizard article. He said DC was planning to kill him off but Grant wanted to write his last story because he believed he had a better one. Or something along those lines. |
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05-07-2007, 06:47 PM
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#22 | |
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52 moniters? Since when? I thought there was only like 5 or 6 keeping tabs on Nightwing, Donna, Supergirl, Kyle Rayner, and whomever else. |
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05-07-2007, 06:49 PM
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I would like to see that, too. |
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05-07-2007, 06:50 PM
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I thought that when I first started reading. But thus far all the interviews have really only covered how well the writers came together and how difficult it was "to create the weekly machine". Not that those weren't good interviews, but this one actually gave me insight into what's coming up, and I appreciate that a tad more. I am kind of curious where the Greg Rucka and Grant Morrison interviews are though... .....But not asking Didio about giving away the ending WAS a cop-out. |
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05-07-2007, 06:52 PM
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#25 | |
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The return of a multiverse wasn't surprising. DiDio and Johns said that months before, but it wasn't clear where the multiverse would return. The reveal didn't ruin 52 for me, but I think the final issue would have had an even bigger impact without knowing about the return of the multiverse in the series in advance. |
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