Don't Say I Didn't Warn You--DC And The 1/2 Page Ads

Last Friday I did a post warning of some rumors that DC was going to start running half page ads on the same pages as actual story...like Marvel used to do for a couple of months 40-odds years ago:

No one responded...hey, it was only a rumor, and it was a holiday weekend, and DC would never do anything like that in 2015, right?

Well, it turns out that it wasn't so much a rumor as a "hey, this is really happening starting in June."

As artist Chris Burnham confirmed upon receiving his comp copy's of next week's books:

What the fuck is up with these Nick Lachey Twix ads? pic.twitter.com/TR2t8o9VaB

— Chris Burnham (@TheBurnham) May 28, 2015

Burnham goes on to say that all the new DC #1's have this "feature." It's unclear if this will be happening only in the new books, which are $2.99, or in the continuing titles, which are anywhere from $2.99-$4.99, or what.

Great way to run a re-launch, DC!!

So while this sad plan may be a fait accompli, it's not too late to register your displeasure. As I said last week, "We should let DC know, before it happens, that, in the 21st century, this really isn't acceptable. We should tell Time/Warner that it might be unseemly and counter-productive for a multi-billion dollar media empire to try and eke out a few thousand extra dollars at the price of aesthetically wrecking the product we're paying for (and they're basing toys and movies upon). We should say loudly and often that any advertiser who buys space like that won't be patronized by us."

Or, we can sit there and meekly eat our Twix bars and shrug, not minding the distractions of having our stories even more interrupted by advertising than it already is. Your call.

Spread 'Em?!? A Slay Monstrobot Call To Action!

Most of you are probably too young to remember these--hell, I'm too young to remember them--but back in 1971, Marvel did something very, very annoying:

Yup, they interrupted the flow of their comics by running half-page ads on the same page as the story itself!!

You can click to embiggen, but you can already see why it's so freakin' disastrously amazingly annoying, can't you?

 I mean, come on now...how amateurish and classless does this look?

It didn't last long...Marvel learned their lesson, and put the kooky experiment in their rear-view window.

So why am I bringing this up?

Because in 2015, DC is about to start doing the same thing in their new comics.

Now, maybe this is just a rumor. Possibly it's just a trial balloon to see how the marketplace might react to the idea. Perhaps this is just some spitballing from some nameless executive that someone is taking out of context as an actual plan.

But we shouldn't wait until this actually happens. We should let DC know, before it happens, that, in the 21st century, this really isn't acceptable. We should tell Time/Warner that it might be unseemly and counter-productive for a multi-billion dollar media empire to try and eke out a few thousand extra dollars at the price of aesthetically wrecking the product we're paying for (and they're basing toys and movies upon). We should say loudly and often that any advertiser who buys space like that won't be patronized by us.

Or we can shrug and do nothing. Your call.

Then again, this might mean fewer gratuitous splash pages in DC books....nah, it still wouldn't be worth it.