KidColt wrote:
The numbers i've seen say Batman sales went from 600,000 per month in the mid 50s to 265,000 when Schiff was finally booted off them. The stories sucked. It might have been proto-psychedelic but it wasn't Batman.


No, there were some bad stories, but there were plenty of good ones, by Bill Finger and Dick Sprang especially. Comic sales in general dropped during the period you cite, especially superhero sales. That's why Superman, Batman, and WW were the only ones left at DC at one point.


The superhero die off preceeded the slippage in Batman sales. During the period of the collapse in Batman circulation, sales of Superman sales remained strong. WW sales were fairly steady but weak. If this weren't the case, why would Schiff be pulled off Batman? None of the other Big 4 DC editors had their core titles removed from them.  Schwartz was told Batman was the one road to cancellation when he took over. Clearly the Batman titles were a special case.


Some have made the case that the sci-fi Batman was Weisenger's idea and Schiff was bullied into it. If you can't fight your corner, you can't be an editor. Can you imagine what Kanigher would have said/done if Mort had told him to put more sci-fi into Sgt Rock?
  1.  Mort wasn't Kanigher's boss.
  2.  Kanigher followed orders when given them. He hated the idea of editing Wonder Woman, and keeping H.G.Peter on the strip. The bosses told him to do both and he did it. He even took Dr. Marston's widow out for lunch every few months to keep everything smooth with Wonder Woman and DC. He followed orders when he had to. The bosses at DC in the 40's and 50's were tough---you didn't mess with those guys. I'm sure Schiff made arguments about things, but when push came to shove, he likely did what he was asked to.

Weisenger wasn't Schiff's boss either.Mort was at an equal level to Schiff. Mort urged that Schiff adopt his succesful Superman formula. Schiff complied. When the changes clearly failed (losing more than half your readership has to be considered failure, right?) he did nothing substanitial to deal with the problem.