The risky strategy of restarting their entire comic book line paid off for DC Comics, which had the top-selling comics of 2011. We talked with copublishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio about what inspired the relaunch--and what challenges the creators had to heroically overcome to get it off the ground.
Fast Company: Why was the decision made to reboot the entire comic line?
Jim Lee: A year ago right after New York Comic Con we had a gathering of all our top creators and we talked about what defines the DC Universe, what makes it special, how do we keep it relevant and interesting. Out of that discussion we started talking about some key characters, specifically Superman, ways to revitalize that character, and we identified some key elements of the DC universe that could use some updating. And out of that came this crazy idea of what if we did it across the entire line, and more importantly, what if we renumbered everything to really signal to readers and lapsed readers that we are doing something very significant. The desire was to get people talking about comics, specifically our books, get them excited about our characters, and really set the table for future decades of storytelling.
Dan DiDio: And I think also the other thing that was important was we were trying to expand our reach. One of the things we did is we went same day digital with all of our product because we felt that we were trying to reach a new audience, new styles of readers, so this allowed us to really try to get as broad an audience as possible. We have a very strong direct market, we have material in bookstores across the country, but the thing for us too is that we wanted to reach out in the digital form and see if we can attract new people that way too.
Was there one thing or one moment that made you say we need to reinvent ourselves?
DiDio: I've been using the expression "death by a thousand cuts." There are a lot of things that we could have been doing better across the line: We could ...
[Source: Fast Company]
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