[...] the end of last year, DC announced Earth One, two origin retellings of Superman and Batman that would go direct to book format (original graphic [...]

[...] Johanna Draper Carlson: "When it comes to this particular Earth One effort, I’m glad to see DC considering trying something new. … However, in this case, I think it may be (as so many of their past outreach attempts have been) too little, too late." [...]

I don’t think comics are going to survive as weekly floppies, so I’ll be happy to see some other approach to succeed, but this has all the warning flags of Minx.

[...] DC’s upcoming series of “Earth One” original graphic novels has garnered a good bit of commentary, much of it tepid to negative. [...]

Tim, I hope planning is extending that far in advance. I do wonder whether these hypothetical new readers will wait a year or so when this launches, though.

This line seems created for the book store crowd.

Given that I’ve started working in a new roles with the public, I’ve seen a fairly wide variety of people. One thing that really struck me is how many people that don’t really invest their total focus, even in entertainment they like. I’ve talked with people who will say they loved The Dark Knight, but when I’ve tried to talk about it with them don’t remember certain key scenes or even characters names. Yet will show me all this Batman junk they have because “they love Batman!”.

Johanna, well I was hoping to just provide a different view! ha ha I used to be a big comic nerd, went to the shop every week, etc. Yet these days I couldn’t for the life of me, with all the time and money on Earth ever see myself wanting to do that again.

Yet I do still have some affection for some of the characters. If it was possible that once or twice a year I could pick up a nice GN that was structured to be one story by one creative team. Well that would have me very interested in picking it up.

Oh an yeah I was trying to be a little… overblown(?) in my comparison to Twilight and the like. Yet like I said who knows what might happen.?:)

The whole point of these books, I believe, is that it will answer the “what’s next?” question because these are just first volume of a projected series of books. So readers will get a new Superman graphic novel each year, or whatever. If that’s not the plan, then it REALLY seems like a foolish idea.

On using Superman and Batman, well really who else are they going to use to start out? As much as I may personally like Booster Gold, you put him out as a launch title and its going to get completely ignored. Its going to be hard enough to get people to try this with the marquee brand names people know and generally like.

On origin stories, I wouldn’t be so sure that everyone knows it or at least knows the details well enough that this will seem rehashed. Sure we comic nerds know it all and may be tired of them, but this isn’t being targeted towards us. Plus honestly, for these two characters their origin stories are probably their best stories.

The name Earth One we agree on, it doesn’t make much sense. It would seem better to use a title like “Superman/Batman Now” or even simply “The (All?) New Adventures of Superman/Batman.”

I’m honestly kind of hoping the format and price make the books look like regular novels. People aren’t going to be concerned about price, as much as value. Have it in a format that gets it put on the New Books shelf in bookstores, and get it in Wal-Mart and Target stores on their shelves.

You ask what they buy after they read these and enjoy it. I think this is where the comic company has to take a different approach to their customer. In the past it was “enjoy this and then you try our other lines and become a regular weekly comic reader!” That doesn’t work, and in fact usually turns the customer off.

Instead be like a real book publisher, while you bring out other series and hope they try those. You mainly work to build anticipation and get the reader excited about the next volume in what series they like. You make it a special event, just like the new releases of Harry Potter or Twilight volumes were.

Will it work? I have no idea. Who knows what will happen, the books could get lost in the crowd of books or become big hits. I still don’t know why books like the Twilight or Harry Potter series took off like they did either. I applaud DC for trying though, as what they’ve been doing certainly wasn’t working.

This would be a far more effective format for something you don’t get enough of in pamphlet form; in particular, DC’s female characters, who seem to have trouble sustaining their own books (especially when they’re actually aimed at their natural target audience, young girls) would be natural fit with this format and distribution model. Unfortunately, DC seems to be so locked into the geek audience that they’ve forgotten how different things are outside the direct market.

I’d like to see something that takes the origin as read (or summarizes it very quickly in the off chance the reader doesn’t know it) and then just hits the ground running for a good self-contained story.

JMS is actually pretty good for that, if his recent work on The Brave and the Bold is any indication; he’s had two absolutely wonderful stories teaming Batman up with obscure characters (Dial H for Hero and Brother Power the Geek).

Don’t care much for the art I’ve seen so far, but I usually like Gary Frank’s work.

Anyhow, interested, at least, in seeing what happens.

Less appealing, as you note, is the fact that they’re retelling the origins yet again. But I’m probably not the primary target for this.

In any case, I’ll give it a shot, despite any misgivings I may have about some of the creators involved.

[...] the coverage of DC’s new Earth One announcement, many people have noted that there’s no mention of the missing member of DC’s Big [...]