DC Comics/Entertainment Moving to West Coast

Holy Sh*t Batman!  DC Comics is moving to the West Coast... Some of it, at any rate. The publisher is moving a significant portion of its staff to Burbank, California (home of Warner Bros. Entertainment) while keeping its core comics publishing unit in New York.

From an announcement released this morning, DC will "relocate its business functions related to and supporting multi-media and digital content production." That is later clarified to encompass all of DC Entertainment's work in film, television, videogames, digital media, consumer products as well as administrative functions. The move is expected to be completed by the end of 2011.

"These organizational changes reinforce the strengths of DC's greatest legacies – most importantly its people and its creative talent – and offer greater opportunity for maximum growth, success and efficiency in the future," said Diane Nelson, President of DC Entertainment (DCE). "Our two offices will stretch and build their respective areas of focus, while prioritizing and aggressively striving to connect and cooperate more strongly than ever before between them and with their colleagues at Warner Bros." 

I know this is not a BIG surprise it has been rumored to happen since the formation of the DCE entity last year.   Diane Nelson, DCE Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, DC Comics Co-Publisher Jim Lee and DCE Executive VP of Sales, Marketing and Business Development John Rood are all based out West, so some shift to California seem likely.

I like this move and hope it boosters (gold) DC's entertainment arm.  We will hopefully continue to see more DC character movies, animation, video games and other entertainment projects in future. 

Lastly, the farther away any portion od DC can get from Dan Didio the better. 

What do you think?

Batman image courtesy of Jerahu

Comic Con Accepts $500k Bribe - Someone Call the Tea Party!

San Diego Union Tribune is reporting that the City of San Diego is so desperate to keep Comic Con International, that they are now willing to throw cold hard cash at the event organizers in order to convince them to stay.  The offer on the table is $500,000. 

If you like the idea, thank yourself, not San Diego.  The half million dollar bribe will come from a tax on hotel beds.  So San Diego is asking visitors to pay an extra tax so that residents may benefit from the increased business the Con brings to town.  This would be on top of the 10.5% hotel tax that San Diego already charges.  That simply sucks.     


At the urging of Mayor Jerry Sanders, San Diego has budgeted $100,000 annually over a five-year period for Comic-Con, which believes that the worldwide publicity the city gets from the pop culture extravaganza pays dividends in marketing San Diego as a tourist destination.

What's worse, is that Comic-Con organizers actually praised the decision to take the $500k in cash raised from its own customers, instead of from the citizens of San Diego who supposedly will see all the benefit from it. 

“We’re obviously very, very grateful for that,” Comic-Con spokesman David Glanzer said Tuesday.
Gfest now officially supports a move of Comic Con International.  And somebody get Sarah Palin on the phone, because Comic Con officials needs a visit from the Tea Party.  Maverick!