Dan Didio: “When we have a book about teenagers, we want it to feel like it’s a book about teenagers.”
The average age of the writers working on the “teenager” books in the DCU reboot is 47.6. If you take away Sterling Gates on Hawk and Dove (which doesn’t seem to be a “teenager” book, but who knows, reboot?), it’s 51.
I’m just saying.
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Yes, because the vast majority of YA book writers are still in high school.
I, too, am just saying.
The vast majority of YA book writers work in their early thirties, though.
This is kind of important: you need at least a bit of sorta-recent memory as to what being a teenager is like. The further away you get from that, the more you’re Mark Waid, who’s a great writer but who writes teenagers as either squabbling kids or little adults, depending on what plot beat he needs to hit.
At that point you might as well just scrap the “we want teenagers to sound like teenagers” thing. I’ve never seen the point of writing, say, Legion and wanting the kids to sound like regular teenagers, because they’re not regular teenagers.
Clearly, Kate Beaton needs to write all the teenage dialogue for the DCU reboot.
I’m pretty sure you would double sales if you promised that.
I’m just amazed at some of the artists they’re bringing back. A bunch of old 90s Wildstorm guys and Rob Liefeld? Yeah, that sure screams change and innovation.
Well they’ve canceled so many of the teen lead books…Batgirl was in college, but still young. Oh no, now she’s no-longer-oracle Gordon. Supergirl, gone. Superboy, gone. Robin, gone (and also not a teen, and doesn’t have to be written like one. So Tim loses his book and gets rebooted, but we still get Damien? Huzzah!). We have what, Teen Titans, which looks like a fucking mess and a half (although with some of the Gen X creative team) and Static…and that’s it.
Have I mentioned how utterly retarded this is?
Look, these people will do a great job with teenage books. As long as you like stories where they’re all being told to get off people’s lawns constantly.
>The vast majority of YA book writers work in their early thirties, though.
If you say so. All the ones I know are in their early forties.
“The average age of the writers working on the “teenager” books in the DCU reboot is 47.6. If you take away Sterling Gates on Hawk and Dove (which doesn’t seem to be a “teenager” book, but who knows, reboot?), it’s 51.”
Ah but what is the average age of the reader?
Surely it’s more important that the books be written for what readers think being a teen is like with their tatoos and hippity hop sexting rather than what it is actually like.
Just out of curiosity, I decided to combine the Amazon YA bestseller list with whatever Wikipedia entries contain birthdates with years.
Within margin of error, if your name is familiar to the hippity sexting teens and isn’t Amanda Hocking or Chris Paolini, you’re 41 to 47 years of age.
Don’t forget their stupid pants falling down. Why doesn’t DC just make a comic about kids wearing their stupid pants falling down and then they get chased by bad guys and the kids all DIE because of their stupid stupid pants?
Well to be fair the age group that is 2nd most familiar with how teens speak these days is probably parents of teens.
I’m not saying that middle-aged authors can’t write teenagers well, but here’s a couple of things to think about.
Stephanie Meyer released the first Twilight book when she was 30. It was written when she was 28.
Also, Suzanne Collins, writer of The Hunger Games, may be 47 now, but started writing for Nickelodeon in 1991.
I’m curious how long those other YA writers have been writing for a younger audience. That might explain a lot.
All the hep cats down at the malt shop can’t stop talking about the return of Barry Allen
Sounds like DC in the ’50s and ’60s, when kids actually bought the books.
Not that we’re judging anything sight unseen….
When I see a book about superheroes I want it to feel like a book about superheroes, no matter what their age.
Okay, the Kate Beaton suggestion would definitely get me buying at least some of the books.
I mean, Superboy adventures consisting entirely of smoking behind the Fortress of Solitude and hoping Superman doesn’t see would be swell.
Her version of Wonder Woman was certainly an improvement.
“I find cleavage helps alot. In a crime fighting sense.”
DAN DIDIO- when people said they wanted more Reboot, we were talking about your old TV show, not DC comics . You seem to be confused.
@Jonathon Miller: but it’s the Internets…
Steve Ditko and Stan Lee certainly did well with Spider-Man and they were hardly kids at the time. But that doesn’t make me any less inclined to mock Didio–statements like his always deserve mockery (“I will reach out to teens by speaking their language!”)
I can see it now…
Wonder Girl – Oh Superboy your sexting is so hot! Let’s go hippity hop dancing and then get Obamacare tatoos!
Superboy – Sorry babe, me and Bart are getting gay married on the Twitter.
The stated purpose of the don’t-call-it-a-reboot is to make the characters younger and more relevant to younger readers, whatever that means.
The goal is to try to attract younger readers into the habit of reading (or rather buying, as I doubt DC cares if the books are actually read by anyone as long as they are bought) their comics.
And DC is at least attempt to actually reach a younger audience with its day-and-date strategy, as kids are more likely to consume media on their mobile devices than to go into a comic book store and buy little pamphlets, so that’s at least an attempt.
There are two things that are going to be important if this strategy is going to succeed.
1. New readers are going to have to be willing to pay for the content. How many are going to be willing to pay the same amount for a digital copy of the content as for a print copy? I think DC (and Marvel and every other comics publisher) doesn’t realize that part of the reason the comics-reading audience has continued to shrink over the past 30 years is because they have priced themselves out of the market. When I was a kid (and wasn’t walking uphill both ways through 12 feet of snow in summer to get to school), comics cost a quarter. I was kid, and a poor kid at that, but I could afford a pretty fair stack of comics every month at a quarter a pop. Personally, I don’t think the digital version should cost more than a dollar. Hell, I don’t think the print version should cost more than a dollar.
2. If all they’re doing is basically making a PDF version of what they’re printing available, then the strategy will fail. In order to succeed, the content has to be designed to work with the medium upon which it is intended to be viewed. In order to make digital comics a going concern, they’re going to have to author them to work on smartphones and tablets, and to take advantage of what can be done with those tools. Marvel had a pretty good idea with the motion comics they produced a few years ago; it was just that the execution wasn’t up to par.
My 2 cents.
L.
The implication that there’s no ‘young adult’ focus on DC titles is true, but sadly the industry isn’t big on giving ‘those youngsters’ a shot on comics, because it’s built on this ‘you need to prove yourself for ten years while barely getting paid’ mindset, similar to pro wrestling.
I wish they’d open up the floor to people in their early, mid twenties… maybe then I’d get paid something close a living wage for writing instead of doing webcomics like Death Boy for… well, not free as a small amount has been earned, but not pittance!
The problem with trying to get new readers through Day and Date Digital is they are releasing FIFTY FOUR books. That’s what? $150 and multiple hours of reading for some superstars, some new ideas and a ton of warmed over titles.
No one has the time or money for this, certainly not a casual reader who’ll have no idea where to start.
DC should go the ‘Ultimate’ route. Launch a few new titles, concentrate their best creators on them and deliver a consistant product. While the Ulitmate line has its ups and downs it’s lasted more than 10 years and had some real hits.
A new line of 54 unproven books is too much. If they’s started with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and 1 or 2 new ideas then new readers could manage. This… this is just a mess. Even reading the soliticts will take a half hour.
Almost completely unrelated, but you mentioned Waid writing teens, so I have to mention how much I miss the threeboot Legion by him and Kitson, and how little I care about the precrisis/preboot Legion in modern comics.
Maybe they should just try to make sure that the comic books don’t suck?
I’m with Lamar, they’ve priced themselves right out of the game. Especially given that an average new comic takes, what ten minutes to read? Fifteen tops? You’re never going to get a new reader with that kind of return on investment. Hell, you can buy the paperback version of your average Harry Potter book for roughly eight to ten bucks. So you can either have (charitably) forty-five minutes worth of comics to read, or a huge-ass novel. Your average downloadable video game costs ten to fifteen dollars, and that’s going to be at least a couple hours.
I agree that pricing is a huge issue, but I think it’s a broader fallacy that they “have to have younger characters for younger readers.” This seems to be an idea that has seeped in from manga/anime or something, where it’s an editorial mandate in some major magazines.
But really–kids loved Superman as an adult, Batman as an adult, and huge numbers of other entertainments featuring adult characters. Wrestling is hugely popular with younger audiences who are able to credulously follow the plotlines. Video games featuring various adult leads are huge with kids as well as adults. It isn’t the age of the characters, it’s the accessibility of the plotlines and writing for a child’s sensibility.
Dan Didio comes off like somebody’s dad trying to be hip in that quote.
I remember a priest once explaining to me his take on the inherent fallacy of Wesley Crusher. I’d never liked him, but this guy really explained it to me. The problem with having a teenaged anybody in some kind of fantasy milieu is that they have to be exception in order to not be a total load. They have to be der wunderkind ubermensch. Kids can’t relate to somebody like that. You know who they can relate to? Data. Because he’s awkward, he doesn’t fit in, and he isn’t sure how he wants his life to go from here.
Kids don’t necessarily relate to other kids, especially ones who by storytelling necessity have to act like adults-who-occasionally-do-very-stupid-things. They relate to whoever is finding their way.
Or Batman.
“Maybe they should just try to make sure that the comic books don’t suck?”
That would require launching less than 54 books and giving people more than 2 months to write and draw them.
Wasn’t that the plan for All-Star?
Of course, even with only 2 All Star books, they still only had a 50% success rate. Although, to be fair, All Star Batman and Robin was a very COMIC book.
I’m not entirely sure how turning back the clock is a way to bring in new readers. I’m sure all the people that watched the old Batman TV show will be glad that they have their Batgirl back. And of course, we have the “what if Image created the DC Universe” for a lot of the costume updates. There’s a few books I’ll look into … like Suicide Squad because I guess Deadshot was the one person to escape Secret Six alive (well, King Shark, but he was a member about as long as Harley, the Mad Hatter and the Fiddler were). They are at least giving Blue Beatle his own book … but that’s one step forward and twelve steps back since most of the other books I liked reading are getting cut. But hey, Blackhawks and Sgt Rock in the real world. I guess they had more Magog ‘military superhero’ stories banked and by gum they are going to use ’em.