Reactions to Paul Levitz Stepping down as DC President & Publisher – Take the Poll and Tell us What You Think!

In case you missed it, see here, earlier today Warner Bros. decided to create a new company called DC Entertainment, to be run by Diane Nelson, and then folded DC Comics into this new company, causing Paul Levitz to step down as DC Comics President & Publisher.

Personally, I think it is very upsetting that Paul Levitz has stepped down from the DC throne. Levitz has been a very important driving force behind DC Comics for the last few years. Sure there have been some dark times, but the DC Universe is currently the strongest it has been in a long time. So to reward this achievement WB have come along and unceremoniously removed him from his position!

To those inside the industry it comes as no shock that WB would sit up and take a bit of an interest in the fact that they own DC Comics, who they have ignored for many years, in light of the fact that Disney just purchased Marvel Comics for $4 Billion. No one was quite expecting this to happen though.

Warner Bros. taking a more active role in DC affair could have a positive impact on the company, but it could also lead to the production of more movie friendly comics, and cause the company to take less risks. I would also like to draw peoples attention to Warner’s previous DC Comics movie properties, which have been pretty damn terrible. Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are the exceptions to this rule. The early Superman films are just fun for their camp appeal, and the recent Superman Returns movie was just an ugly mess. Don’t get me started on Smallville!

Anyway, lets see what others are saying:

TerryMoore (Terry Moore):

DC big shake up today. Feels less like scary change and more like growing up to be a major co. of today.

BRIANMBENDIS (Brian Michael Bendis):

excited for the possibilities of all the new (sic) that has come out of the comic book biz news of late. hoping all my pals find fortune and glory

Jasonaaron (Jason Aaron):

A few weeks ago, I wrote for Marvel and DC Comics. Now I write for Disney and DC Entertainment. My head is spinning.

Robertliefeld (Robert Liefeld):

Glad to hear that Levitz got a golden parachute to go with his demotion.

andydiggle (Andy Diggle):

Jeff Robinov pulls a lever, and Paul Levitz’ chair drops through the floor.

Bclaymoore (B. Clay Moore):

So, wait…Paul McCartney is writing the Legion of Super-Heroes?

StephenWacker (Stephen Wacker):

I think it’s time for a joint Marvel/DC Roger Rabbit comic just to cool things off.

Kurt Bukiek:

As I’ve told a couple of the comics news organizations already, the DC Entertainment news, like the Disney-buys-Marvel news, doesn’t much interest me—it’s all about movies and video games and brand management, and I’m sure it’ll change the way things get done in some ways, but the part of the industry I care most about, the comics—it doesn’t seem to affect that much at all.

But Paul Levitz leaving DC management?

That’s huge. That’s the story that’s going to change things.

Paul has been at the forefront of just about every industry development of the last couple of decades, and has been key to how the industry’s shaped itself over those years. Shifting from a periodicals-only business to a strong backlist-oriented business with trade paperbacks and hardcovers, adding imprints like Vertigo, creating new opportunities for creators and for creator ownership, seeing that DC gave a fair (or at least fairer) deal to the creators who originated the concepts that turned up in DC-based movies, from Arkham Asylum and Lucius Fox to Robin’s motorcycles (yeah, because they called Chris O’Donnell’s ride the “Redbird” in one of the movies, Paul Levitz saw to it that Chuck Dixon got money) and more, Paul was an important part of a huge number of changes that DC’s seen, and that the whole industry’s seen. Some of them big changes everyone’s noticed, some of them behind-the-scenes stuff few people know about.

And some people have been impatient that Paul was cautious, and wanted him to move faster, to leap into new things instead of easing into them. But in an industry where many publishers throw money into the latest cool thing, only to find themselves overextended and floundering, Paul was always careful that growth and change should be sustainable, doing things like building a backlist of trade paperbacks slowly, so the revenue from the existing books would fuel the addition of new ones, and a large library was built over time. And often, when other publishers’ precipitous actions had made things unstable, DC Comics provided a backstop, a stability that let the comics industry ride out the rough waters and get to the next safe haven. To mix metaphors shamelessly.

Paul is one of a very few people who’ve been absolutely key in shaping the comics industry from what it was in the mid-Seventies to what it is today. Staggering changes, built slowly over time, so that DC (and the companies that adopted DC’s innovations) could build from strength to strength.