Marvel might've done it more recently, but when their Distinguished Competition hit rock bottom, they did it properly. A sardonic riff on the DC Explosion the name of a marketing campaign at the time which celebrated the increased number of titles being published, as well as the expanded issue lengths and increased cover prices the DC Implosion refers to the moment in 1978 when, out of nowhere, they cancelled more than two dozen ongoing and planned series. Twenty series were cancelled abruptly, including titles like Aquaman, and numerous writers and artists were put out of work seemingly overnight. What the heck happened? DC might've had eyes bigger than its stomach. They'd premiered 57 new titles from 1975 to 1978, including the resurrection of many series that had been previously cancelled in the sixties (for good reason from the looks of it). Marvel had made considerable inroads to the overall market share, and the Explosion was supposed to help with that, apparently by just taking up more shelf space? In fact the opposite happened, DC overreached their hand, with the effects of ongoing economic inflation, recession, printing costs and a particularly bad winter damaging their sales to the point they laid off staff and considered cancelling Batman. Batman!
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
