Parent company |
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Status | Active |
Founded |
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Founder | Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson |
Country of origin | United States |
Headquarters location | 4000 Warner Blvd., Burbank, California |
Distribution |
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Key people |
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Publication types | List of publications |
Fiction genres | |
Imprints | List of imprints |
No. of employees | approx. 230[5] |
Official website | dc |
DC Comics, Inc. (later simply known as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment,[6][7] a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.[8][9] DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book series first published in 1937.[10]
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, the first comic under the DC banner being published in 1937.[11] The majority of its publications are set in the fictional DC Universe and feature numerous culturally iconic heroic characters, such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman; as well as famous fictional teams, including the Justice League, the Justice Society of America, the Teen Titans, and the Suicide Squad. The universe contains an assortment of well-known supervillains, such as the Joker, Lex Luthor, Deathstroke, the Reverse-Flash, Brainiac, and Darkseid. The company has published non-DC Universe-related material, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Fables, and many other titles, under the alternative imprint Vertigo and DC Black Label.
Originally at 432 Fourth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, the company offices have been located at 480 and later 575 Lexington Avenue, 909 Third Avenue, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, 666 Fifth Avenue, and 1325 Avenue of the Americas. DC Comics was located at 1700 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan until April 2015, when DC Entertainment transferred its headquarters to Burbank, California.[12]
DC Comics books are distributed to the bookstore market by Penguin Random House Publisher Services.[13] The comics shop direct market was supplied by Diamond Comic Distributors[12][14] until June 2020, when Lunar Distribution and UCS Comic Distributors (who were by then dominating direct market distribution on account of the disruption to Diamond caused by the COVID-19 pandemic) replaced Diamond as the direct market distributor.[4]
In 2017, approximately 70% of the American comic book market was shared by DC Comics and its long-time major competitor Marvel Comics (acquired in 2009 by Warner Bros. Discovery's main competitor, The Walt Disney Company),[15] though this figure may be distorted by the fact that sales of graphic novels are excluded. When all book sales are included, DC is the second largest publisher of comic books, after Viz Media; and Marvel is third.[16]
Fifty
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Goulart55
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Benton17
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Share of Overall Units—Marvel 38.30%, DC 33.93%; Share of Overall Dollars—Marvel 36.36%, DC 30.07%