DC Comics moves back to Wednesdays. DC also announces Absolute Power event. Oh, and DC also announces new Finest line of collections.
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Episode Transcript:
DC is headed back to Wednesdays.
DC also announces Absolute Power event.
Furthermore, DC announces new Finest line.
This is Comic Book Club News for February 26, 2024.
DC Comics Heads Back To Wednesday Release Schedule:
This past weekend was the ComicsPRO annual membership meeting in scenic Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It’s a chance for comic store owners to talk to publishers, and vice versa. And it’s also a chance for the publishers to tout their next big initiatives to sell the store owners on buying what they’re selling.
Consequently, there was so much news coming out of the conference that we’re going to split it over two days on this podcast. But we’re kicking off with a biggie that according to The Beat’s Heidi McDonald, who was present at ComicsPRO, led to literally bringing the house down, so RIP, ComicsPRO.
That announcement? DC Comics is moving back to distributing their single issues on Wednesdays.
This is a big deal for a number of reasons, and something that has not just been heavily requested but downright demanded from comic store owners for the past couple of years. The change came towards the beginning of the pandemic when DC switched to Lunar Distribution instead of Diamond, and started dropping their comics on Tuesdays, concurrent with graphic novel and trade collection releases.
For a time, it seemed some others in the industry might follow suit — particularly Image Comics, which has also switched to Lunar. However… They didn’t. And DC blinked, moving back to Wednesdays. To clarify, this is for single issues only – trades and graphic novels will still hit stores on Tuesdays, concurrent with when new books are released in bookstores.
But why were stores pushing so hard for this? Two reasons. The big reason is that comic book shops normally need to get their order forms for Final Order Cutoff in on Mondays for Wednesday releasing comics. With the shift to Tuesdays, they now had to submit for DC on Sundays, meaning an extra day of work. This simplifies the whole process for the retailers.
The second is pure advertising, and I say this as someone who has to consistently talk on podcasts about when new comic books come out… It’s very annoying to talk about how new comics come out on Wednesdays, except DC, which comes out on Tuesdays. Having one “new comic book day” makes things simpler on retailers, fans, and most importantly, podcasters.
The change will go into effect this July.
DC Also Announces Absolute Power Event:
Not content to rest on their laurels, DC Comics also announced their next, big event, one they’ve been teasing for years: Absolute Power, written by Mark Waid with art by Dan Mora.
In the upcoming series, Amanda Waller teams up with Failsafe, aka the evil robot Batman, and the Brainiac Queen, soon to be introduced over in Superman, to strip all superheroes and villains in the DC Universe of their powers. That leaves Superman shot and falling presumably to his death in some preview pages provided. And Batman I guess no longer being rich, which he said was his superpower in the hit movie Justice League.
The event will kick off with May’s Absolute Power Free Comic Book Day Special Edition featuring a preview of the first issue of the event as well as a new recap story by Waid and Mikel Janin. That will be followed by Absolute Power: Ground Zero by Waid, which will connect the events in the “House of Brainiac” storyline with Absolute Power.
The event formally kicks off in July, though still on a Tuesday, July 2, with Absolute Power #1, which will run four issues monthly. There will also be at least three monthly Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman tie-in issues, a seven-issue spinoff titled Absolute Power: Task Force Seven, a three-issue spinoff titled Absolute Power: Origins, and probably more.
And in fact, most of this will be written by Waid, which is probably why he’s stepping away from Shazam! and other writing duties in the meantime. Mark, drink plenty of water and try to get some rest. As they say, power corrupts, but Absolute Power is a lot of issues for one man to write.
DC Announces New Finest Line Of Collected Editions:
Okay, fine — or rather, finest, one more DC story. The publisher has unveiled yet another new line of comic book collections at ComicsPRO titled DC Finest.
The trade collections will be priced at $34.99, and rather than collecting complete stories in order will include issues highlighting different aspects of a character from throughout their history. As DC puts it: “For example, a ‘Robin’ volume may include stories featuring Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, and Jason Todd, while a ‘Green Lantern’ volume would include classic stories featuring Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner, Alan Scott, and other fan-favorite ring slingers.”
The line won’t be restricted to characters, however, it will also include genres like Westerns, humor, horror, war, romance, and more.
The new line of paperbacks will start hitting stores in November.
For Comic Book Club News, I’m Alex Zalben. And tomorrow on the podcast, ComicsPRO news not about DC!
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