Let me begin by extending my greetings to those of you in the past receiving this message on behalf of all of us living in September, 2016. In a way, the five year experiment that was the New 52 drew to a close a little over a week ago, on that last Wednesday of August. Yet that continuity can and will continue on, as will the pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and countless Elseworlds as well, all thanks to the successor to the New 52, the Infinite Imprint Initiative.
The Infinite Imprint Initiative is a move away from the editorial driven singular continuity that was the New 52. Instead of DC’s iconic characters inhabiting a single shared universe, or even a shared multiverse, multiple iterations of such characters exist across multiple imprints which have no interaction with one another. In a response to the booming success of the indie scene, the Infinite Imprint Initiative is creator driven, with a single auteur exercising nearly complete creative control over an individual title or family of titles.
In addition to greater creator control, the second platform of the Infinite Imprint Initiative is the replacement of ongoing series with limited series, essentially formalizing story arcs as distinct titles (not unlike what Mark Millar did with Ultimates 1 & 2 in the early 2000s). Within the Infinite Imprint Initiative only two ongoing anthology titles exist: volumes 3 of Detective Comics and Action Comics. This allows for a greater proliferation of #1s (and thus greater profitability) as well as more numerous and obvious jumping on points for new readers. In fact, the start of the Infinite Imprint Initiative saw the biggest spike in new readership to comics of the 21st century, even more so than the start of the New 52 five years ago. Furthermore, event fatigue has all but disappeared, while at the same time, every single title is in essence an event.
The third and final pillar of the Infinite Imprint Initiative is digital first exclusivity. All comics are now made to be read natively in a widescreen, guided view format, with the unique transitions and use of hyperlinks first introduced in Marvel Infinite and DC squared. These will later be printed in limited run trade paper backs, but printed single issues are a rare gimmick aimed mostly at collectors. The demographics of the comic community have changed drastically in the last two years, so that the overwhelming majority of sales are for digital comics through Comixology, to the point that it has become unprofitable for either DC or Marvel to continue eating the cost of printing and shipping paper comics. Without such overhead DC has seen its highest profit margins in decades.
In summary, the Infinite Imprint Initiative which replaces the New 52 is built around Three Pillars:
- Greater Creator Control
- Limited Series instead of Ongoing Titles
- Digital Replacing Print
Finally, as proof that I'm really from the future, tomorrow's winning lotto numbers will be...
4 8 15 16 23 42
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