DC Comics will be consolidating its offices in Burbank, California in 2015, the company told New York staffers today.  The move will take DC from its deep roots in a city where its predecessor company started publishing comics in 1935, beginning a run of some 80 years in New York.  The move is symbolic of the changing role of comics in a media conglomerate:  DC’s executive team, movie, TV, and videogame operations, toys, licensing, and digital are already headquartered in Burbank, with print publishing the last outpost in New York. 

"I can confirm that plans are in the works to centralize DCE’s operations in 2015," DC Entertainment CEO Diane Nelson said in an e-mail to New York staff.  "Everyone on the New York staff will be offered an opportunity to join their Burbank colleagues and those details will be shared with you individually, comprehensively, and thoughtfully next week...  We know this will be a big change for people and we will work diligently to make this as smooth and seamless a transition as possible."

DC moved some functions to California in 2010 in a process that involved layoffs and other changes in staff (see "DC Executive Shake-Up Continues").  Based on Nelson’s e-mail, it sounds like it hopes that a higher percentage of the remaining New York employees will make the move than was the case in 2010. 

The move will put the entire DC staff near its immediate corporate parents at Warner Bros., which makes sense, given that the media exploitation of comics intellectual property is now worth a significant multiple of the comic publishing business on which the stories are based.    

Marvel, the other Big Two comic publisher, is owned by Disney, also headquartered in California, but Marvel retains more of its operations in New York and has shown no signs of gravitational pull to Hollywood.