Mark it as a rumor, but it’s a big one. DC Comics, after nearly a century in business, may join its sister app DC Universe later on in 2021 in the dust bin of history.
This news may be a rumor, but it’s a big one, and comes from inside information provided to comic artist and creator Ethan Van Sciver, known for Cyberfrog and his celebrated run on Green Lantern, who says an informant told him of AT&T’s plan to shutter the legendary comic book publisher.
Van Sciver has strongly believed and said in the last few years DC would be sold to pay off debts the communications giant incurred when buying Time Warner.
However, Van Sciver also warned on his ComicsArtistPro Secrets live stream that the doomsday intel regarding DC’s comic operations is currently unverified.
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“I received a tip, by the way, an unverifiable tip, I gotta say, I don’t know if it’s true or not, but they are saying DC Comics will close down publishing paper comics in June of 2021,” he said. “I think they just solicited March’s comics, and I guess that, if this is true, that’s going to be it.”
Van Sciver blames the current politically polarized state of comic book editorial staff for DC’s rumored downfall, asserting that “comic books themselves have fallen into the hands of extremely irresponsible people in editorial and in publishing who have taken comics and turned them from a good, fun pastime, escapist fantasy into identity, political, evil, poisonous pamphlets that insult their own readers.”
“So this company was ruined,” Van Sciver goes on to explain. “It was ruined by far left-wing radical activists who would I say invaded. These parasitic monsters used DC Comics as their host, their platform to change culture, in an attempt to change politics.”
In the past, Van Sciver has called out former DC Editor Andy Khouri for hiring activist types, specifically Eric Esquivel and Robbi Rodriguez, despite their having a known history of harassing the veteran comic creator
Last year, Van Sciver also detailed step-by-step the multitude of steps taken by DC to alienate readers, especially Christians, in a thread on his personal Twitter account.
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Van Sciver also cited the employee purges that have occurred at the company throughout the year as a troubling development that supports the anonymous informant’s allegations.
“AT&T fired a BIG portion of their editorial staff in April and just this week they fired the rest of them, essentially,” Van Sciver noted. “We understand from sources at this point that there are no editors at DC Comics anymore.”
He adds a skeleton crew of low-level employees is running things: “There are the people who just used to get coffee, interns, people who aren’t making very much, people who are going to be running the company until it ends.”
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“Things are closing down pretty rapidly,” Ethan portends, before restating, “Now again, I don’t know if that tip is going to turn out to be true but it does seem reasonable to me.”
The comic pro continued, speculating, “Yeah, I can see them wrapping things up perhaps by June and switching entirely to a digital market. I think the way things are happening with three-month increments, the sudden change, it sounds about right to me.”
EVS also suggested that DC’s Chief Publisher, Jim Lee, would also be departing as a part of this shake-up, which if true, would make him the second DC head, following former co-publisher Dan Didio, to exit the company this year. Additionally, DC cut ties with Diamond this year, and recently its new direct-market distributor as well.
At the very least, this rumors points to a shift in focus to digital publishing, which could mean DC Universe Infinite becomes WarnerMedia’s next pet project, following in the footsteps of HBO Max, which is currently serving that role on the streaming side of Warner’s operations.
Only time will tell if this rumor turns out to be true.
What do you make of this rumor? What do you think the future of DC looks like without its comic book publishing division? Let us know your thoughts on social media or in the comments down below!