DC Comics announced that they’ve signed writer/artist Frank Miller (“The Dark Knight Returns”) to a new, five-project deal. While the news will be officially announced at WonderCon’s DC Publishers panel tomorrow, Publishers Weekly received the exclusive, providing details on some of the projects Miller will pen and how this new deal fits in with DC’s ever widening brand of imprints.
The already announced “Superman: Year One,” which will be written by Miller and feature art by John Romita Jr., is part of the deal, as is a previously unannounced young adult graphic novel starring Carrie Kelly (a.k.a. “The Dark Knight Returns”‘s Robin). That book’s set to be drawn by Ben Caldwell (“Wednesday Comics”).
In an interview with Publishers Weekly, DC co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee laid out why they were bringing Miller back for graphic novels, specifically, rather than monthly comics.
“We’re looking at our business strategy and how the market and our fans have changed,” DiDio said. “We’re developing a new strategy about how we deal with all our characters and we want to get the widest audience possible.”
That new strategy appears to be giving writers and artists an ever larger number of avenues and imprints under which to tell their stories. The success of Shea Fontana and co.’s “DC Super Hero Girls” has led DC to increase their focus on book format publishing and establish new brands that reach out to young, old, new, and established readers. Miller’s “Superman: Year One” will join a number of other books under DC’s recently announced Black Label line, and it’s likely that his Carrie Kelly project will find its way into the young adult-focused DC Ink imprint.
“We’re becoming a book publisher,” said Lee, closing out the Publishers Weekly interview and summarizing DC’s new strategy. “We’re bringing in new talent with their own audiences to attract readers we haven’t had before.”
