Posted in: Comics | Tagged: cassandra cain, Comics, dan didio, dc, rob liefeld, stephanie brown

Talking To Dan DiDio About Stephanie Brown And Rob Liefeld

At Fan Expo Toronto, Dan DiDio spoke to one of our Little Bleeders at the show. This was before the Gail Simone/Bryan Q Miller Stephanie Brown pitch became common currency online, as well as the Rob Liefeld/Scott Snyder Twitter explosion. And he started asking Dan about the campaign to send waffles to protest the lack of Stephanie Brown-ness in the DC New 52.

I started off asking him how many waffles he got and he said about ten,(I wouldn't be shocked if he rounded down) so I said there doesn't seem to be as much demand as it appeared. He told me "yeah, there isn't really any ground swell support for the character". I then asked about the planned Stephanie Brown appearance in Smallville and Didio's reaction was "They never should have done that." He felt pretty strongly about it, emphasising it three times. He said that first of all as Stephanie was never Nightwing, there was no reason to put her in the comic as that character and that  Smallville is about Superman and not Batman, so there's no real point in putting Stephanie in to appease a small amount of fans, and the writer of the comic.

He was clearly rather annoyed about the situation, but the general feeling I got from him was that he believes only a few vocal fans actually care about the character. He pointed out the last time Stephanie was brought back because there was a groundswell of requests and it didn't do anything, sales wise – even putting her in as Batgirl didn't give her a bump. He said that they will be back eventually, and they are waiting for the right story.

I pointed out I think the big issue with with Cassandra Cain and Stephanie is that Batman's story arc, with the exception of Barbara Gordon coming back. seems to be the same as before the New 52. You have all four male Robins. But we're missing a Batgirl. He said that Barbara coming back into the suit meant DC could change that, presumably meaning there was never another Batgirl after Barbara was shot.

Were the waffles just a load of… waffle? The Little Bleeder also asked if, after Rob Liefeld had announced his resignation off his three books including details of his editorial disagreement, Dan regretted hiring Rob for the New 52.

He said no, Rob was just a passionate guy and these things happen. Yjay he didn;t have any issue with what Rob had said in publis up until that point.

That may be different after the Scott Snyder back and forth of course…

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