NEW FEATURE: The Watchtower

By Chris

Welcome to The Watchtower, a new comics centric blog feature. Entries will focus on news, industry trends, creator spotlights, top # lists, rumors and speculation, comic to film and television adaptations, and whatever else I feel like writing about or you would be interested in reading about . The title, of course, is a reference to the Satellite Headquarters of the Justice League of America.

This first several entries will examine DC Comics extensive plans for September 2011.

For anyone who hasn't heard, all news about DC Comics publishing plans past September went dark about 2 or 3 months ago, with writers and editors keeping a tight lip on the plans for their titles and story lines going into the Fall. That all changed last week when DC made massive, bombshell press releases to USA Today detailing exactly what was in store for Superman, Batman, Green Lantern and the rest of their iconic characters come September. The details of the plan can be found here: http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/ , but can be briefly summarized as this:

1.) All current books end in August. In September DC will launch 52 ongoing series, each with a new #1 issue.

2.) The DC Continuity will be altered to some degree. The means through which this will happen is probably the alterations to the timeline currently happening in DC's big summer event book Flashpoint. Just how drastically the Continuity will be altered remains to be seen.

3.) DC will be offering all of its titles for sale in digital format the same day the physical paper titles hit the local comic shops. They will also begin offering combination hard and digital copies for a slightly higher price. This move could have drastic effects on the small business comic book retailers which has been the lifeblood of the industry for years.

4.) DC has begun to release the details on the creative teams that will be working on their 52 new ongoings. A new slew of descriptions has and will be released each day starting last Thursday.

I'm going to do an individual article looking at the first three points, with the potential of a follow up once more details become public. I will do an entry for each new batch of title reveals examine DC's creative plans in more details as they are announced.

This is bound to be the biggest comics news of the Summer, if not the entire year, as the ramifications for DC and comics publication going forward could be huge. Regardless of their feelings on this move, DC has achieved the most important thing you can in the current declining comics market: a lot of buzz and engaged (sometimes heated) discourse. Personally, I believe that it's a very, very exciting time to be a fan!