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The changes in how comics were perceived, how comic book people were able to work in the movie industry while they were still comic book people became a wonderful shift in that period. There were people in television too. Suddenly, a comic book credit was a good thing to have on your resume, as opposed to a lead weight, for a creative person.

And they came back with, really, a very different approach to how to make it work - a team writing approach from Dan's experience in television, which was not at all a way that comics were being produced in those years, and a set of creative ideas on how they would execute. All of that was theirs.

The things that I would put on my corporate tombstone, if you will, would be devising the credit and business terms we used for the direct market, which significantly invested in the growth of the comic shops and the direct distribution system; my role in helping devise the first standard royalty plan for the business; my role in developing the graphic novel format in this country - those are some of the things that are more singly mine.

Beyond embracing the darker undercurrents of the DC canon, the company is also revisiting characters that they believe were ill-served by previous big screen adventures.

nternally, insiders are quick to credit Walter Hamada, the longtime New Line executive who was brought on board in 2018 as president of DC Films, with helping to plot a new, more sustainable course for the DC cinematic universe. He’s credited with having a strong sense of story and with keeping a firm eye on the bottom line, reining in budgets so productions don’t go off the rails. It also helps that he is closely allied with Warner Bros. film chief Toby Emmerich, with both men having worked together on past New Line hits such as “It” and “The Conjuring.” Insiders believe that under the former regime of top DC film executives Jon Berg and Geoff Johns and DC Entertainment head Diane Nelson, there were too many decision makers involved, leading to the lack of a clear vision. They also maintain that Warner Bros. erred by initially rushing movies in the hopes of making release dates that had been snapped up before scripts were even fully in place. Emmerich has made righting the DC ship a key priority since taking control of the studio in 2017.

However, Greg Berlanti, another major talent on the Warner lot, is partnering with Johns on a “Green Lantern” television show. There’s speculation that relationship could lead to his involvement in a feature film.

I see it as a restart for the whole industry. We’ve always had an industry that was the Rodney Dangerfield of pop culture, but in recent years we had gained tremendous respect as movies paved the way to show comics to the world.

“one thing this has done is laid bare the supply chain and how things work.

roth appreciated the positive message but reiterated that retailers operated on slim margins, and a 20-30% drop in business could be a disaster. This led to a rather curious exchange from Geppi about back issues. “Don’t underestimate the retailer’s survival instinct. Many of them are subsidizing their lack of new product with back issues and stuff like that.” I guess he meant…graphic novels too, but never mentioned them. Diamond is only 40% of the product at some stores, and they are really pop culture stores