MIKE GOLD: Stupid Logo Tricks

Mike Gold

ComicMix's award-winning and spectacularly shy editor-in-chief Mike Gold also performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com and on iNetRadio, www.iNetRadio.com (search: Hit Oldies) every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week – check www.getthepointradio.com above for times and on-demand streaming information.

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15 Responses

  1. Holy crap is Bongo’s new logo garbage. The old one is great, in my opinion.

    Damnit, I read a lot of Bongo these days…I’m gonna have to keep looking at that crap.

  2. Doug Abramson says:

    Yup, boring, but I can live with it. The company logo doesn’t have an effect on what I purchase, as long as I can recognize the logo. Personal taste is funny though Mike. I agree that DC has only had one good logo, but it wasn’t the swish. I’ve always preferred the bullet. Although there was a test of an update on the old “Superman” logo that I have on an early issue of JL/I, from ’87 or so, that wasn’t too bad. I only ever saw it the one month though.

  3. dan says:

    THEY ARE SO AWFUL!!!! They’ve both lost their marbles!

  4. Mike Gold says:

    I was one of the people behind that test — I believe it was on two or three different books. DC’s newsstand circulation director, with whom I was tight when I was at First Comics and he at Marvel, said we were doing covers all wrong for newsstand sales. I suggested a test and management went through with it. Even at that time, overall newsstand sales were negligible, and not worth double-covering all the newsstand titles (ironic by today’s standards). I don’t believe the newsstand sell-thrus were significantly improved. But it was a fun test. I think by the time newsstand sales numbers came through, we all forgot about it.

  5. Unshaven Comics’ logo was designed on a whim, and changed once. We simplified it (removed a silly hat that I thought would brand me beyond the beard which is good enough). At every convention, we get compliment after compliment on the logo. Even if they don’t read comics, or like us. Suffice to say, we won’t be changing it anytime soon.

  6. Mike Gold says:

    Yep. Imagine if they altered the Superman logo.

    Oh, yeah. Right. They did. Gee thanks, Neal.

  7. A friend of mine said he thought the new DC logo looked liked a public toilet seat half-covered in toilet paper.

    • Oh, jeez. How did I not see that? It totally does!

      • Mike Gold says:

        Me neither. But if you put a chain coming down from the upper right, you’ve got it nailed as a toilet.

        Well, since I usually commit my heresy over on MichaelDavisWorld.com, it’s time to commit a little here.

        Maybe it’s time for Warner Bros to bite the bullet (ahem) and replace the DC Toilet with the Warner Bros shield. They can run the DC Comics banner across the shield the way they do with the other divisions. It’s the most honest solution: it brands the product for exactly what it is.

  8. I can’t see the ‘D’ in the new DC logo. When it comes to logo design THAT’S a problem.

  9. an says:

    The redesigned DC logo looks like Dual Star, the Mary-Kate and Ashley company.

    http://f08-mana156.wikispaces.com/file/view/dualstar.gif/45843075/dualstar.gif

  10. Jess Willey says:

    I don’t care what a companies logo looks like as long a the quality is good. In the case of Bongo– I love Sergio Aragones’s Funnies was the best new titles of 2011.

    • Mike Gold says:

      Wow, I hate to say this, but Sergio’s new book is just exactly the same stuff I’ve been reading for… well, ever. I’d love to see something different from the ridiculously talented man who also did Bat Lash, Jonah Hex, and a really interesting issue of Jon Sable Freelance.

      • Yep. I’m reading Sergio’s book cuz he’s been one of my favorite comic creators since I was a kid, but not every issue is fantastic. The stories about his life are really interesting, but some of the fictional shorts not as much.

  11. I must agree, the new DC logo is bland AT BEST. I know there’s a trick of the eye in there, but my eyes just don’t catch it, unless it’s just to say “oogly.” Sure, I’ve seen the many different variations of how they intend to syle the logo but why? It’s no longer a standard at that point and isn’t from title to title. Then again, the NuDC isn’t, either.