Newsarama Interview with Dan Didio and Jim Lee on Rebuilding DC (2011)

Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers has a long interview with Didio and Lee where she asks them some tough questions. The interview provides more insight into Lee and Didio’s thinking than you probably ever wanted. (Just don’t expect the details of the compressed timeline to make any more sense after reading their answers.)

Newsarama: LEE, DIDIO: Rebuilding DC To Counteract ‘Shrinking Market’

Jim Lee said something that contradicted a comment by Dan Didio that was reported at one of the DC retailer roadshows:

Dan Didio said “They had an unofficial curve chart no one would see in the offices where the higher the sales the less is changed.” This is why the Batman & Green Lantern titles will re-launch relatively unchanged story wise.

But in the Newsarama interview, Lee sticks to the “creativity” party line:

Jim Lee: I would say it was all creatively decided, but obviously if you have really strong content and really great creative direction, it’s going to affect sales.

On an editorial level, we instinctively knew what was working and what wasn’t working.

“Instinctively knowing” what is and isn’t working is one of the dumbest, most arrogant things any creator could say. What’s worse is that Lee and Didio are among the least astute at knowing what’s working creatively, if Didio’s 9 year track record and Lee’s artistic choices in the DCU and DCUO indicate anything.

There are a lot of things wrong in this and other interviews – like Dan Didio implying that Oracle isn’t as interesting as Batgirl because the internet is less relevant today. But what stands out in every interview with them is how out of touch and arrogant Didio and Lee sound. And how they can’t keep their answers straight on anything.