Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jan 11, 2020 | 7 comments

Interesting insight into the publisher’s popular — but sometimes elusive — reprint program, including Dollar Comics and the 100-Page Giants…

Given the nature of what we do here at 13th Dimension — comics yesterday and today, with a very heavy emphasis on the classics — we spend a lot of time revealing and reporting on the latest Facsimile Editions, dollar reprints and book collections produced by DC, Marvel and other publishers.

I dig ’em and it’s obviously something readers like you care an awful lot about.

Well, DC exec Dan DiDio addressed these issues and more in a Facebook chat with retailers on Friday. Bleeding Cool and other sites covered the discussion in detail but here are four takeaways that will certainly interest you:

On books getting solicited and cancelled and rejiggered:

Early placeholder art for the Steve Englehart Batman collection that has been solicited, cancelled and re-named and re-solicited. (It’s now Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart.)

DiDio: “We had a very poor 2018 with our collections. It forced us to reevaluate what we were collecting and how, so you saw a lot of changes taking place. If you saw the cancellations that occurred after solicitation, that’s probably because there was no appreciable interest for these titles-meaning that we couldn’t hit the minimum number to justify print. I’d much prefer just to cancel books than to have devalued product out there. We have to find ways to make our collected editions valuable, so that people want to purchase them and put them on a shelf. We also have to reevaluate these collections of six issues and out — when you collect six issues of a periodical regardless if it’s a complete story. You’re going to see more tweaking going forward, but I feel like we’re in a very good place.”

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On Facsimile Editions:

DiDio: “We’ll make sure we continue to push those out. We’ll make sure we have exciting ads from the past on those things reprinted in a way that makes them highly collectible and interesting. We’ll make sure we curate a smart list of really intriguing, hard-to-find or unique books. Not just to fill a bucket, but to have a purpose behind them.”

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On Dollar Comics — and the possibility of a dollar periodical:

DiDio: “The dollar books have the purpose of being promotional material for some of the key trades that are going to be coming out, or key events. I also know these are great entry points. We’re toying with the idea of maybe doing a reprint program of a dollar book on a series per month, but want to hear some feedback on that if there is real interest or not. In speaking to retailers, we’ve heard they’re using the dollar books as an entry point to get people into buying on a periodical basis, but if they don’t come out periodically, all we’re doing is one-offs. Maybe creating a periodical dollar book is one way to start that buying pattern again. It’s an idea.”

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On how the 100-Page Giants may start reprinting older material:

DiDio: “Another way we’re looking at as an entry point for new readers. One of the things I’m looking at with the Giants is going further back in the catalogue. We still have a lot of material that have easy entry and standalone stories. The purpose behind each of the Giants is very clear — it’s our key franchises, key characters, characters that are tied into movies or other initiatives that might create general interest, for people that want to be able to pick something up at a low price and get a good reading experience.”

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That’s a lot to chew over and it looks like mostly good news heading into 2020, so I look forward to seeing how it all plays out.

Oh, and we have a lot of coverage of upcoming Facsimile Editions and other reprints headed your way over the next week or so, so keep checking back.

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MORE

— It’s Official: DC Re-Solicits the ENGLEHART-ROGERS BATMAN Hardcover. Click here.

— DC Plans LEGION: FIVE YEARS LATER Omnibus For This Summer. Click here.