DC Comics brought Dan DiDio and Jim Lee to WonderCon for a special “DC Meet The Publisher” panel. In this panel Didio and Lee spoke heavily on the upcoming future of the plans DC Comics has in development and soon to be released. That includes what is going on in the DC Universe, with their young adult comics and much more. See what details were unveiled with our look at the DC Meet The Publisher panel at WonderCon 2019.
Jim Lee opened the panel by going over the 20,000 comics that are being made available on the DC Universe streaming service. He then showed the same sizzle reel that was shown at the This Is Your DC Universe panel the previous day.
While talking about the next big issue Lee and Didio mentioned Detective Comics #1027 as possibly being the next big oversized issue.
After this Lee glowingly spoke about working with Kevin Smith on their Detective Comics #1000 story together.talked glowingly about Kevin Smith’s DC #1000 story that he worked on. Lee mentioned the Smith was surprised no one touched their story before and it was fun to tell a Batman story that is new to the mythos.
Lee then praised the publicity team for all their hardwork on marketing Detective Comics #1000. More things will be available about Batman celebration on the the Batman 80 website. Lee spoke with pride about his upcoming trip overseas to sign for the troops.
Didio talked about the Year of the Villain comic that will be priced $.25 issue and released on the Wednesday before Free Comic Book Day. The Year of the Villain will feature content about the major stories going on in Batman, Justice League and Superman comic books by Scott Snyder and Brian Bendis.
Didio segwayed this to talk up how they are driving to have a stronger connective tissue with all of their comic books within the DC Universe. He was big on pushing Year of the Villain being what will help with that.
Lee then goes on to talk about Leviathan Rises series, specifically on how both Jimmy Olson and Lois Lane are getting their own spinoff comics. For the Lois Lane series Greg Rucka will be focusing on how Lois plays a key role in Leviathan Rises. Additionally, Renee Montoya will be part of Lois’ series. For Jimmy Olson’s comic Fraction is setting a tone similar to his Hawkeye run for the series.
When talking about the Black Label line, Lee praised Sean Murphy’s ability as a writer and artist with his upcoming work on Batman: Curse Of The White Knight.
Didio meanwhile spoke about Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Last Knight On Earth being the end of their Batman run. Didio brought up how energetic Snyder was when making his pitch for Last Knight On Earth. While Superman: Year One and Batman: Damned are oversized issues Last Knight On Earth will be the normal page count.
Didio then talked about about how Frank Miller is using the opportunity in writing Superman: Year One to show how much he loves Superman, something he wasn’t able to get across in his Dark Knight Rises series. It is then said that each chapter is built around Superman’s greatest loves with the first chapter focused on Lana Lang, second chapter focuses on Lori Lemaris and the third chapter focused on Lois Lane.
Didio shifted to talking about the Walmart exclusive comics and how it gave them the chance to get more eyes on comics being published. He then announced that the individual stories found in the Walmart DC Comics series will be collected in trade format for each hero and team to release in the direct market.
Lee moves on to talking about the young reader series as it is a growing comic. DC purposely found creators that have not worked on DC Comics books and are major names with the young adult market to appeal to that segment. Additionally the artists on these young adult comics are also those who are new to working on DC to give the comics a different look from the core DC Universe. Didio emphasize how they want to have different ways to penetrate the different markets and challenging themselves to explore different areas to get everyone excited.
Didio then revealed that they will be doing a second year of the Sandman Universe comics under the Vertigo line. Additionally Gerard Way will be returning, after taking time for Umbrella Academy, to bring back the Young Animals comic books.
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