Wednesday Comments – Womp Womp

Columns, Top Story

So the Eisner Awards were announced yesterday and it was nothing but bad news for DC.

DC received two nominations for cover artist with a third for a colorist who works on a DC title. No DC titles were nominated for new or continuing series. No DC creators were nominated for Best Writer or Penciller.

DC got two nominations for cover artist. That’s basically like saying DC books have nothing to offer, though a couple of them have pretty covers.

Getting so few nominations has got to be crushing on an already taxed morale at DC Comics. Nominations matter. Take it from me; I wrote for a struggling television program where morale was low. But we were nominated for an NAACP Image Award and it made a huge difference in everyone’s attitude.

And that was an NAACP Image Award, not an Emmy. The Eisner’s are like the comic book equivalent of The Oscars. So the nearly complete snub is not good at all.

For about a year I’ve been writing about areas I felt DC was lacking or losing their footing in. I wrote about my fears for Vertigo. I wrote about how Vertigo might correct it’s course. I wrote about DC’s lack of creative direction. And most recently I wrote about DC treating it’s properties too preciously.

And, at least to me, it seems like all of the things I was worried about have been proven true by the Eisner nominations; the industry is telling DC that they’re doing things wrong.

By my count, had DC not traveled down the miserable path they’re on, they probably could have scored at least nine additional nominations.

Here’s how I add things up in my head;

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips both have histories with Vertigo. It’s not unreasonable to believe that Fatale could have ended up at Vertigo if Vertigo had not become less than hospitable to creator owned series. With that title alone you’ve got five more nominations.

The same is true of Brian K. Vaughn and Saga. That’s three more nominations.

And Chris Samnee was doing some pretty awesome work with DC before he jumped over to Marvel. I’ve got to believe that had DC offered him more work and possibly a New 52 launch, he’d still be working with DC. Which brings the total to nine additional nominations.

That’s just books and creators who were actually nominated. Imagine what other series DC might be publishing through Vertigo and which books could be greenlit? But of course we’ll never know because we’re currently stuck in the creative quagmire that is DC’s current regime.

For the second week in a row I’m going to reference Matthew Weiner. Since it debuted Mad Men has been a critical darling and has always been a contender at the Emmys and the Golden Globes. But this past season Showtime’s Homeland has bested Mad Men at both the Globes and the Emmys. Completely stole it’s thunder.

So what did Matthew Weiner do? He hired the people behind Harvey Weinstein’s award season campaigns. Weiner saw the result of the awards season and took steps to correct course.

Will DC Entertainment realize that they’re currently in need of course correction? The Eisner nominations aren’t a cry for help, they’re the three alarms that signify a three alarm fire. It’s a wake up call. It might as well be rock bottom for DC Comics.

I’m just a blogger, who enjoys DC Comics and I’m shaking my head. What do you think other comic book companies are doing? What do you think writers and artists are thinking?

I think it’s going to be a very interesting next 12 months for DC. The optimist in me wants to believe that DC will make moves to correct the course. But the other part of me remembers Countdown.

That’s it for this week. It’s Wednesday so go and pick up some new comics already!