A stunning number of "layoffs" (nicer word than "firings") was announced today at DC Comics. I've received a number of calls and e-mails asking if I know what happened and what the company will be like in the future. No, I don't know and I wonder if anyone does, especially about that second part.
I don't even know that I care except, of course, that I hope the folks I know there land somewhere safely…hopefully on more secure terra firma than DC has been lately. The last time I was up there, it felt peopled with folks who were temps, whether they knew that or not. I also had a hard time holding it in my brain that I was in the DC offices because absolutely nothing about that company, apart from the trademarked names of some of the characters they publish, connected for me to the DC Comics I read in the fifties and sixties and worked for in the seventies and a few decades after.
I understand that companies change. They have to. And among the folks who've worked there in this century we've clearly seen great talent and some real good ideas. It's just been too long since I felt it all coalesced into a firm with a firm direction and a unified idea of what comic books should be. I'm not sure any two people on the payroll even agreed on who Superman or Batman were.
Once upon a time, an explosion of this sort at DC Comics would have shaken my world, even if it came at a time (like now) when I wasn't working for them. DC was always there and relatively stable. It was my old neighborhood, a place that gave me a certain comfort, an institution with a fascinating lineage and history. Maybe it will be again but I stopped recognizing it long ago.