What Scott Snyder says about the market, and the revived Vertigo imprint

Comic Book Club Live interviewed Snyder about where he's going lately with his writing, and predictably, a big deal is made out of his work on Batman, sales figures and the newly revived Vertigo line also comes up. And, there's another something that may be surprising, but also mention of a very tunnelvisioned writer:

And all of a sudden in comics, it feels the same. I was really hesitant to to bet on the sales margin of something like Absolute Batman or Absolute Wonder Woman. I really love the books, and I knew that they were going to do well, but Nick Dragotta and Hayden Sherman, artists that are a little unconventional, you don’t know on big books like that if it’s going to hit, because sometimes retailers will order the same as the last book. When I did Wildfire and Dungeon with Hayden, those books aren’t designed to sell 80,000 copies, 60,000 copies, so they might just hit reset and be like, 20,000 copies. Which would be disastrous on a big Absolute thing. But it was James Tynion who, when I was considering all of it, literally two years ago… He was like, “I really believe that the vision that you have, and Josh [Williamson] has, and for it is where the market is headed. He is just such a genius about everything that I believed him.

And then all of a sudden, Dan Johnson is on Transformers, and it’s a big hit, and you see it coming true. It feels like there’s room for not darker, grimmer content, but really passionate content that’s not pandering, not corporate driven, not part of big tent machinations, but instead feels pushed by creators. They’re personally invested, and they are artistically invested with styles you might not have seen before. And animation feels really similar to me, so I enjoy the energy of it over there.

And just how much did the books in question actually sell? They may give figures that're noticeably below 100,000 copies, and definitely way below a million, whatever comics they're talking about have long ceased to sell in millions, if they ever did at all. That aside, interesting how it's implied pamphlet copies are what they're in the business of selling, not a story that's paperback only. Why do these overconfident writers have no interest in changing formats? GNs have been around for at least a few decades, yet they're all but thrown away as an exclusive option by only so many modern writers.

However, it is admittedly surprising Snyder indicates it's possible to do stuff that's not driven by darkness. Well in that case, wouldn't it do some good to make sure your next project is driven by brightness and optimism, along with comedy in good taste? That way, what Snyder says can be a lot more convincing, and far more than Tynion's ever bound to be. And admittedly amazing Snyder's willing to acknowledge corporatism had a disastrous effect on classic creations in the long run. But, as his work on Batman suggests, he's still sticking with darkness, and that doesn't convey his argument about not having to rely on darkness convincingly.

I like the idea that there’s a whole new audience for both comics and animation, twinning together and developing is so exciting. Since it feels like the big temtpole movies are in panic mode right now, and that could be the future, which is more creator-driven and creative.

I have a lot of faith in — having gotten to see what James Gunn is doing and that stuff in a small way, getting to go to the set [of Superman] with friends and hear his vision for it. I mean, the guy is so passionate and so died in the wool comics that I have a lot of faith in the universe really taking off. But there are these moments that are lulls that I think people point to, and they’re like, it’s a down moment for comics, or it’s a down moment for the market. We’ve been inflated for 15 years between the corporate influx of being bought by places, and then injected with money, and then movies and TV having this thing, and then all of a sudden, the success of The Walking Dead, and there’s options and streaming and that balloons, and then COVID balloon, the speculator market. So we’ve been living in a 15-year bubble, in my opinion. This is where the real market exists. Not a down market. The real market, good news, is f**king awesome when you see what you can sell with passionate stuff like this. I’ve never had a book sell this much on launch as Absolute Batman. And I just can’t believe it, but it confirms everything that we’ve been feeling about the market.

Well I don't have much faith in what Gunn will bring to the table, based on any woke directions he takes, ditto his choice of story consultants. But, without sales figures, Snyder fails to convince Absolute Batman sold as much as he says it did, and it won't be shocking if it sold far below a million copies. Nor would it be surprising if the whole story relies on the pamphlet format instead of paperbacks.

Yesterday at Jim Lee’s panel, he announced that Vertigo is coming back. That’s pretty much where you started your career. I’m curious to get your feelings on it.

I literally teared up when James [Tynion IV] — I mean, I knew about it for a while — [editor] Chris Conroy told me, but James told me that Nice House was going to get the Vertigo label. Because when I started, James was a student, and I was his adjunct teacher, and we were all Vertigo died in the wool heads. And when I got American Vampire, it was like, “Yeah!” It meant the world to him. And as his friend, to see him get that. And the DC star thing was so cool, too.

It means everything. They’re being really creator-friendly with their deals and everything. This whole All In initiative, everything about it is trying to be, why it’s so fun to love DC Comics all around and to invite everybody in on every level. This wasn’t part of it that I organized. It was a long time coming from amazing people there, but to see it roll out at the same moment we’re trying to do this very big comprehensive, “Welcome to comics. Everybody’s included. There’s every kind of book. Everything starts here.” [It] feels great.

And are you going to do anything for Vertigo?

I can’t say. But, I mean, I would love to, but I have my hands full right now with Absolute Batman, which I never expected to take off this way. I just can’t wrap my head around it. So thank you to everybody out there, because it means the world. Nick and I are really doing it as a really personal project for us, and it’s been in the works for a long time. I brought him in, it was summer ago. So we’ve been working on it since June of last year, and it’s the first time I really, totally under-calculated how a book would do entirely. It really was overwhelming. And more importantly than the book selling well was the fact that Absolute Wonder Woman sold out at high six figures. Absolute Superman is too, or will too. And the other books, the smaller books, and mainline big books, all of them are getting a boost. People are really buying into the idea of this celebration of superhero comics. It means a lot to be a part of it, and that the retailers and fans were right that the market is out there. It’s exciting.

Even the part about Absolute WW presents no actual figures, which could amount to little more than 200,000 copies. Even that's nothing to write home about. And if we take Bill Willingham's recent fallout with DC as an example, I'm not sure you can say they're that creator-friendly. Nor that conservatives are "included", and Chuck Dixon suffered worse than Willingham did. So, what good will really come of this revival of the Vertigo imprint? Despite what Snyder says about "not darker" content, the imprint's bound to serve as little more than a platform for more horror-thriller titles, and there's been way too much of that already on the market.

And Snyder's associations with Tynion, already notorious as a left-wing propagandist, doesn't inspire much confidence either. If guys like Snyder really want to prove they can diversify the market, they'd do well to move away from the kind of dark quasi-horror thrillers they've been known for, and try to develop something relying more on optimism, and even comedy. And also switch from monthly pamphlet format to paperbacks and hardcovers. Until then, they fail to convince.