Thoughts on Before Watchmen

Early this morning DC announced Before Watchmen, a series of mini-series prequels to one of the best regarded (and best-selling) comic stories of all time. (And under previous regimes an area deemed as untouchable as far as spin-off projects went.)

Some initial thoughts:

• Watchmen doesn't really need prequels or sequels, as it is complete unto itself. However, these days such things are an anathema to comic companies. But if you don't like the idea of the prequels, it still leaves the original intact; it's not like they're going and doing a 3-D Special Edition of the original Moore & Gibbons collection or anything.
• DC needed something big to recapture the comics and mainstream media's attention now that the excitement over the New 52 has wound down.
• The creative teams are top-notch, creators from whom I would take a serious consideration of buying if they were producing a 'regular' comic series unrelated to Watchmen. I'm particularly looking forward to Minutemen by Darwyn Cooke and Silk Spectre by Cooke and Amanda Conner.
• While original series artist Dave Gibbons has apparently given his blessing to the prequels, I'm surprised he isn't involved in any of the series. I would have thought maybe they'd have him do the covers or something? (Maybe there will be variant covers by Gibbons?
• If you were wondering why some of DC's top creators have been absent from the New 52, well here you go. I wonder how far in advance they've been working on this?
• The original Watchmen series was twelve issues; the prequels in total will consist of thirty-five issues. Of course, each Watchmen issue was 32 pages of story: 28 story pages and a 4 page text feature. Will the prequel minis be the standard 20 pages that is the norm for DC these days?
• I wonder if sales of the Watchmen collection will spike after the announcement of the prequels? Tune in back here on Friday when we do the Amazon Top 50 to find out...

Marvel's Continuing Faith in Powers' Shipping

I used to be annoyed at how the shipping dates of issues of Bendis & Oeming's Powers (published via Marvel's imprint for creator-owned titles, Icon) were constantly being pushed back. Now I just find it amusing.

In today's Diamond Shipping Updates, Powers #8 was pushed back to November 23, 2011. It was originally solicited for August 25, 2010, making it more than a year overdue.

Powers #6 shipped on September 29, 2010; Powers #7 shipped on March 2, 2011.

Despite this obviously erratic schedule, according to today's shipping updates Marvel have scheduled Powers #9 for November 30, 2011; Powers #10 for December 14, 2011; and Powers #11 for December 21, 2011.

Now I suppose it is possible that Bendis and Oeming have been stockpiling completed issues of Powers and we will see four issues come out in the span of five weeks. But given the title's past shipping performance, I see very little chance of that actually being the case.

Mind you, I have no problem with Bendis and Oeming taking all the time they want to produce their creator-owned comic; I'm sure their mainstream gigs pay much better. But I find it very funny that Marvel continue to solicit and adjust dates for Powers as if it were actually a monthly comic book.

Success Metrics for the new DCU

Tomorrow the era of the new DC Universe (DCnU) begins with the release of Justice League #1. The "New 52" (as DC are calling it) represents a bold and, as DC have more-or-less admitted, somewhat desperate publishing strategy: 52 new (or new-ish) monthly titles starting with #1 issues, available day-and-date as print and digital versions. They are hoping to attract new readers to DC Comics, or at least capture back a good number of lapsed readers. So how might the success of the DCnU be judged? Here are some possibilities:

(Note that I am considering success from the publisher's perspective in this post. For we readers, success will and should be determined by quality of the comics themselves.)

Profit. Actually, the chance of making a profit from the venture is slim at best. But that's okay, as profit isn't the main motivator for DC anyway. Oh sure they'd be happy if all of their titles were making money, but I suspect they'll be perfectly happy with simply losing less money overall, especially if some of the other metrics are met.

Sales. Obviously, increasing sales is one of DC's main goals. This could be measured in many ways, e.g. by increase in individual titles that are being relaunched, or the number of the 52 titles over a certain threshold. But as this is a complete line-wide revamp, perhaps the most salient number to look at will be the average sales of the entire DCU line. Courtesy of The Beat, here's a table of the line-wide averages for the DCU as of this past June's sales figures:

DC UNIVERSE
06/2006: 53,274
06/2007: 47,986
06/2008: 35,800
06/2009: 36,329
---------------
06/2010: 34,612 (- 7.6%)**
07/2010: 35,372 (+ 2.2%)
08/2010: 33,411 (- 5.5%)
09/2010: 32,042 (- 4.1%)
10/2010: 32,832 (+ 2.5%)
11/2010: 34,180 (+ 4.1%)
12/2010: 30,870 (- 9.7%)
01/2011: 24,321 (-21.2%)**
02/2011: 25,887 (+ 6.4%)**
03/2011: 26,720 (+ 3.2%)**
04/2011: 29,126 (+ 9.0%)
05/2011: 27,745 (- 4.7%)**
06/2011: 28,673 (+ 3.4%)**
----------------
6 months: - 7.1%
1 year  : -17.2%
2 years : -21.1%
5 years : -46.2%

Notice a trend? Even the two-year comparison is bad, and the five-year number is atrocious. Now part of that five-year decline can be attributed to DC pumping out even more low-selling titles; one sure way of raising the line-wide average would be to cut out all of the low-selling titles and publish fewer comics. But since DC seem determined to publish 52 monthly titles (or more, with additional mini-series coming starting in October...), getting the line-wide average as it stands a year from now up to at least where it was in 2009 would be considered a win.

Market Share. Despite DC's claims to the contrary, I believe that a market share win against their cross-town rivals at Marvel will be considered a victory. Market share is one of the things you can trumpet even when you are not actually making money. And if market share wasn't a top concern, there would be no reason to be pumping out so many new comics every month, most of which are losing money and whose only purpose seems to be taking retail shelf space away from your competitors. It seems highly likely that DC will see a market share win in September; if they can keep that going for a majority of the coming twelve months—or at least keep it more competitive than it has been in the recent past—they will consider the New 52 a success.

Digital Sales. With the day-and-date availability of digital versions of all of the DCnU titles, DC is obviously hoping to pick up new readers who are willing to pay for online comics. To date, digital sales on most comics have been a small fraction of the print sales, due to: 1) inconsistent availability; 2) the gawdawful hard-to-use old comiXology app (a new revised version was released last week, and based on my initial few minutes of testing it appears to be vastly improved); and 3) competition from cost- and DRM-free illegal scans. With all of the DCnU titles now available online on a consistent basis, they should see an upswing in the number of people buying online. The question is how big that upswing will be? I don't imagine that the number of people who are willing to pay the parity-with-print $2.99 cost for the digital comics in their first month of release will be huge; but there may be enough people willing to cough-up the month-old $1.99 price for titles to make up for any deficiencies in the sales of print.

Visibility. The real business of DC Comics, as far as their corporate overlords are concerned, is in generating characters and other intellectual property that can be exploited for profit in other media. Not just blockbuster movies like The Dark Knight, but in video games, television, licensed apparel, etc. So every time a story about the DCnU hits the comic press, or especially the mainstream press, it is a win for DC. Even if all of the other metrics we've discussed are moderate at best, the amount of publicity already generated is likely being viewed as a success.

Long Term. It will be tempting to look at the first-month sales figures for the DCnU titles and make a snap judgment about the New 52's success. But the real measure won't be apparent until at least a year, or even better two years, down the line. How many of the New 52 are still being published in 2013? Will the "cancellation floor" for the line as a whole rise? Can titles maintain their initial sales boost? Will DC be able to successfully launch new comics and properties? Answers to these kinds of questions will ultimately tell us if this big experiment has really succeeded.

Sometimes I Hate Being Psychic

Three weeks ago, I wrote a Ten Random Things About Comics post. Number four was:

4. The big two have created an event mentality that hinders their ability to successfully launch new titles. When you send out the message that "these comics 'matter,'" that also sends out the message that "these other comics don't 'matter.'" Take for example Marvel's new all-ages Thor: The Mighty Avenger; just about anyone who has actually read it agrees that it is very good, perhaps even wonderful. But hardly anyone reads it, because it's not the 'real' Thor, and the out-of-continuity stories don't 'matter.' It also doesn't help that there are something like five or six different Thor comics being published every month right now.

And now we learn that Thor: The Mighty Avenger has gotten the axe, just as former editor Nate Cosby has written an article about the way that overhyped event mentality solicitations are hurting comics.

Apparently Marvel is now undertaking an effort to cut back on the number of multiple titles for identical characters. Which in general is good (and addresses my Number five...) but the fact that they've chosen this particular title is a sad way to begin.

We can gnash our teeth all we want, but there's just no way that an all-ages, non-continuity super-hero book is going to survive at Marvel, especially when there's little promotion and it is lost in a sea of similar sounding titles.

Never mind that Marvel Adventures Spider-Man is the best Spider-Man comic being published right now; between Amazing Spider-Man being published 3 times a month, ancillary in-continuity titles and minis, and Ultimate Spider-Man, people just aren't willing to give the Marvel Adventures version a try.

The moral of the story is that if you want better comics, you have to buy better comics. (It should go without saying, but downloading off of torrents doesn't help...) Also, you have to seek out better comics; you cannot count on the comic companies properly promoting their own wares (as crazy as that sounds!)

Ten Random Things About Comics

It's all the rage this week to make up lists of ten things about comics. And it's fun to rant. So...

1. Everybody reads comics. Well, nearly everybody. They may not be reading traditional comic books, but they will read collections of their favorite comic strips; or one or two Web comics; or the latest graphic novel reviewed by the New York Times; or the comic that an upcoming movie is based on; or a comic purportedly written by their favorite prose novelist; or, well, you get the idea. The notion that comics readership is limited to one particular demographic (be it 40-year-old super-hero fans or 15-year-old manga fans) is just not true.

2. Not all of those people pay for the comics they read. They borrow them from the library, or a friend. They read their favorite Web comics online. I've even heard that some people download comics through means of dubious legality. Most people enjoy comics, but not enough to pay for them more than occasionally.

3. The big two publishers cater to a particular demographic because those are the people who continue to pay for their comics. If you want to see a Supergirl comic written for tween girls, people are going to actually have to buy it when it is published. If not, you're just going to get yet another iteration of Secret Civil World War Blackest Infinite Crisis War.

4. The big two have created an event mentality that hinders their ability to successfully launch new titles. When you send out the message that "these comics 'matter,'" that also sends out the message that "these other comics don't 'matter.'" Take for example Marvel's new all-ages Thor: The Mighty Avenger; just about anyone who has actually read it agrees that it is very good, perhaps even wonderful. But hardly anyone reads it, because it's not the 'real' Thor, and the out-of-continuity stories don't 'matter.' It also doesn't help that there are something like five or six different Thor comics being published every month right now, which leads us to the next point:

5. The big two are flooding the market with titles, which has destroyed the mid-list and hinders their ability to successfully launch new titles. If one Deadpool book is selling moderately well, then why not have five Deadpool books? Well, because 50,000 people copies sold of one Deadpool comic does not equate to 250,000 copies sold of five Deadpool comics; you'll actually be lucky to get 100,000 sold. (I just made those numbers up; I'm too lazy to look up actual sales numbers.) That equates to money that comics buyers could be spending on something else; it also equates to an opportunity cost in not publishing something else. The only comics properties that should be carrying more than one title are Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and maybe X-Men; and those should cap out at two titles for each.

6. The manga boom is over, and it's not coming back. It was killed by a flood of titles. And returns. A few popular titles like Naruto continue to sell well, but it's mostly transformed into another niche market. Not that there's anything wring with niche markets; as long as I can still get Yotsuba&!, or stuff by Jiro Taniguchi, and Fantagraphics is willing to put out a nice hardcover of Moto Hagio's stuff, I'm happy.

7. The best way to sell comics to a general audience is to have a tie-in to some other media, preferably a movie. Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Scott Pilgrim. The Walking Dead. Kick-Ass. Buffy. Etc. Mostly this means "Well-regarded comic becomes a movie," and not "make a comic based on a movie property." Or (in the case of Buffy), "creator with a rabid fan base continues his creation in comics form." (Note the necessity of the term 'rabid.')

8. Some of the biggest comics series are not sold primarily (or at all) through Diamond. Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Amulet. Witch & Wizard. Ook & Gluk. Did you see those at your local comics store? Probably not. But they're comics for kids that are selling quite well in the bookstore market.

9. Digital is the wave of the future for the traditional comic book. It's simple math: when you cut out printing and distribution costs, you need only sell half as many comics to make the same profit digitally. (Alternately, cut your prince in half, and make more money in volume.) With digital distribution, your comic is always available, and you can get long-tail effects. In five to ten years, look for the digital market to replace the traditional floppy market. Absurd you say? I'm sure they thought the same at Tower Records. Or Blockbuster.

10. People will continue to create comics, whether or not there is an industry to support them. Just like people will continue to write and perform music whether or not there is a record industry. We just had a 24 Hour Comics Day event at the library where I work, and I had the pleasure of sharing a room with thirty mostly college-age kids all making comics. Most have no desire to be professional comics creators, but they do have a desire for self-expression through art. And with the Internet, they can share their work with others. The currency they'll trade in is attention (and for those who are profit-minded, they'll find that attention translates to sales).

What's Happening with DC's Kids Comics?

Those of us reading the DC October solicitations may have noticed (like Johanna did) that Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! are having their final issues. This follows on with Super Friends ending (the last issue came out this month, though I don't think it was ever formally announced); and Tiny Titans is not on the schedule for October either. Also, this month DC raised the price on their kids line to $2.99.

The cancellation of  Batman TBaTB, is somewhat surprising, as the show it is based on is still running on Cartoon Network and there is a video game due out in September. Billy Batson was originally meant to be a showcase for Mike Kunkel—based on the critically acclaimed Shazam! comic by Jeff Smith—but when it became obvious that Kunkel would not be able to stick to a monthly schedule (which really should have been obvious from the get go to everyone) it was turned over to Tiny Titans  writers Art Baltazar and Franco. They gave it their best, but the comic as established didn't really mess with their sensibilities, and a constantly changing art team didn't help matters (although Mike Norton seems to have finally settled in nicely). Super Friends, which replaced the excellent Justice League Unlimited title on the schedule, had a reputation of being 'too kiddy.'

(Outside of the super-hero books, Scooby-Doo is getting relaunched in September with a new subtitle and #1 issue; Cartoon Network Action Pack and Looney Tunes are still intact, at least for now...)

So its fairly obvious that the DC Kids books (formally Johnny DC) are the next target in the new DCE management overhaul. It's not terribly surprising. Despite being of fairly high quality (Especially Batman TBaTB, which I recently highlighted as one of DC's best titles) they haven't managed to capture much readership. It's been speculated that these titles survive on low sales in the direct market due to their being available on newsstands and via subscription, and that collected editions may sell in bookstores.  But I suspect that the new management looked at the overall sales figures for these titles and decided that they could and should do better.

I find it highly unlikely that DCE will stop their line of kids super-hero comics all together. Rather, I think that DCE is rethinking the entire line-up, with an aim towards increasing sales; their overall strategy is to emphasize their corporate-owned super-hero characters, and getting comics featuring those characters into the hand of kids only makes sense. A mini-series crossover with L'il Archie has already been announced for Tiny Titans. The DC Kids panel is scheduled for Sunday morning at SDCC where I suspect we'll see some announcements made. (I highly doubt they'd invite Mike Norton to be on the panel if they were simply canceling his title without there being something to replace it.)

What the CMX Shuttering May Tell Us About the Future of Comics Publishing at DC

Last week's abrupt ending to DC's CMX manga line really should come as no surprise. It was always the bastard stepchild of the DC publishing family; a sub-imprint of an imprint (WildStorm) that is headquartered across the country. One imagines that the manga line was originally developed because the powers-that-be at DC saw that manga was becoming popular, and so maybe they should dip their toes in the water and see what the what was.

The only surprises about CMX closing down are a) the suddenness of it all; and b) that it took so long to happen. Most likely once Diane Nelson found out about its existence and figured out that it wasn't making any money, it was very quickly axed.

CMX never really fit in with DC before the creation of DC Entertainment, and it certainly doesn't fit in now. I've made the point previously that DC (and for that matter Marvel) are not in the business of making money from publishing comic books. Nor for that matter are they in the business of trying to get comic books into the hands of underserved readers. No, DC are in the business of exploiting their intellectual property through movies, television, licensing, etc.

Viewed in this light, the decision to shutter CMX was a no-brainer for the DCE suits. Since these were properties that DC was licensing from other entities in order to publish them, there was no chance that they could make any money off of any other exploitations. Should a movie get made based on From Eroica with Love or Emma, DCE wouldn't see one thin dime. (Sure they may see some uptick in sales of the manga, but except in an exceptional case that would not result in much revenue.)

So given this new attitude, what other moves can we expect to see in the coming months?

Look for WildStorm to stop licensing properties from movies and tv to make comics. These sorts of comics rarely sell well these days, and they fall under the same non-exploitable category as manga. There may be an exception for Warner-owned properties like Supernatural. And it's likely that DC Kids will continue to publish comics based on Looney Tunes & the various Cartoon Network shows, if only to keep a nominal toe in the comics publishing waters for those Warner-owned items. First Wave? Sales are very soft, so if it makes it out of the year I'll be surprised. Certainly when the various licenses come up for renewal I doubt there will be much reason to maintain them.

In fact, I would wager that WildStorm itself will find its days numbered. I don't think it will fall right away; Jim Lee's position as co-publisher will protect it somewhat. (If Lee had been a champion of CMX, it might have had a more graceful exit...) But when it comes right down to it there's no good reason to have a separate west coast comics publishing arm. The traditional WildStorm properties (Wildcats, Gen13, The Authority, etc.) haven't been commercial or critical successes in a long time; licensed comics days are numbered; and outside of Ex Machina (whose ending is nigh) they haven't had a creator-owned success lately either.

Speaking of creator-owned properties, their days are probably numbered as well. While I believe that most creator-owned works published by DC/WildStorm/Vertigo do have some degree of profit participation for the publisher should the work end up being exploited in other media (and likely Warner has some sort of right of first refusal for producing such things), given DCE's new explicit focus I suspect that they will opt to concentrate on properties for which they would get full participation. So unless you happen to be a creator who is also working on their mainstream company-owned titles and they want to keep you happy (e.g. your name is Grant Morrison), don't expect WildStorm or Vertigo to be terribly welcoming for your creator-owned comics in the future.

And where does this leave Vertigo? I suspect that the imprint will remain for a while. I suspect that existing creator-owned comics will be allowed to stay as long as they aren't losing a lot of money (i.e. Fables is probably safe for the time being), but new creator-owned comics will be few. With creator-owned projects likely being phased out, look for Vertigo to concentrate on the other half of their imprint, which if revamping musty DC-owned properties for an adult (or at least adult-ish) audience. Such new projects will still be tried, but if they don't catch fire don't look for even many of those to last beyond two years. You only need a handful of collected editions to make a suitable pitch for a movie or television series. So for the future of Vertigo, look towards Unknown Soldier.

In the final analysis then, what will DC Comics be up to? Publishing comics based on their existing catalog of characters. Quality, it should be noted, doesn't really matter in the equation. As long as there are comics on the racks that feature Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc., then the comics are doing their job of keeping those properties in the comic-buying consumer's consciousness until the next movie or tv show comes out. Expect the comics to be increasingly driven by top-down editorial mandate.

We might still get some good comics. I enjoy Jonah Hex most months, even though its continued existence is mainly due to the upcoming movie (and to some extent Dan Didio's reported soft spot for the character). But unless your comic maintains a minimal sales level, or has a champion at the VP level, or has been optioned for a movie, don't expect it to last for long in its present form.

Prices? DC is quietly instituting the Marvel-esque $4 for a standard comic, or at least testing the waters. I'll have another post about that in the (near?) future...

The Apple iPad: Will It Save the Comics Industry? Or Destroy It?

Probably neither, at least right away.

Yesterday Apple finally unveiled their tablet computer, the iPad. Which means that after weeks of rampant speculation as to what it means for comics, there's finally something concrete that can be considered.

Apple has decided to use the open ebook standard EPUB for their new iBookstore and reader on the iPad. Which is great for mostly textual books, but not so good for highly graphical publications such as comic books. This means that it is highly unlikely that publishers will offer comics and/or graphic novels directly through iBookstore. Thus, comic distribution on the iPad will no doubt be tied to a number of different 3rd-party apps, such as comiXology and the like. So instead of there being one place on your iPad where you go for all your comics and other reading material, you'll need to fire up a bunch of different apps, each of which has a different interface, different agreements with different publishers, and different pricing schemes. In other words, kind of a mess that won't make it easy for the casual comics reader to decided to download the latest 'it' comic that they hear about on NPR or see a review of the the New York Times.

I could be wrong. Jobs casually mentioned textbooks being part of iBookstore, and in the case of many math- and science-related textbooks there are graphical challenges as well, so maybe there's a plan to support formats other than EPUB in the iBookstore at some point. In which case, we'll be headed down a different rabbit hole all together.

Creating a Kids' Comic Section the Simple & Easy Way

Over at Blog@Newsarama, Egg Embry posts:

Yesterday I spoke to Galactic Quest store owner Kyle Puttkammer... and he laid a little comic shop science on me: How can retailers be expected to have a Kid’s Comic Section in their store if Diamond will not put a Kid’s Section in Previews? It is a point I had not considered before…

My response:

1. Look for the ‘Kid Friendly’ logo next to items in Previews; order those things.

2. Order Archie stuff.

3. Order One Piece & Naruto.

4. Order Bone collections.

5. Order Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.

6. Order the items listed on School Library Journal’s Best Comics for Kids: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/540000654/post/1340051134.html

7. Order the Johnny DC & Marvel Adventures titles.

Rack all of the above together on the shelf. Enjoy sales to kids & their parents!

Lessons Not Learned from Watchmen

One of the reasons I believe that the Watchmen collection has been a perennial best-seller for over twenty years is the fact that it is complete in one volume. An interested reader can pick up the entire story at once and not have to worry about finding Watchmen Book 2.

But for some reason, DC has been releasing their collections of their limited series in multi-volume chunks. This week sees the release of Rann/Thanagar Holy War, vol. 1, which collects just issues #1-4 (of 8) and the attendant Hawkman Special. The War That Time Forgot, a twelve-issue series, is being released as two separate volumes. And possibly the worst offender of all, Justice, the twelve-issue series from Alex Ross & co., has been released as three separate hardcover volumes (later as paperbacks), each collecting just four issues of the series! If you want the entire series in one volume, your only choice is the $100 Absolute edition.

While there may be some short-term gain for DC in releasing their collections this way, in the long term I think they'd be much better served by releasing an entire limited series together in one volume. Much easier for stores to stock, and much more attractive for readers to get the complete story in one purchase.

30,000 Comics!

It may not surprise you to know that I keep track of which comics I have (and how many) in a couple of database files. It may surprise you to find out—as it certainly did me—that a couple of weeks ago I passed the 30,000 mark in the number of comics I own!

Also interesting is that with a week of passing that milestone I also hit round-number counts on three publishers:

• 12,000 DC Comics
• 6,000 Marvel Comics
• 1,000 Dark Horse Comics

I should note that it took 28 years of comic book collecting to reach that number. It is surely too many. I'd like to cut that number down at least in half, but I can never find the time to go through the many boxes to figure out which to divest from the collection.

My Free Comic Book Day 2008

Here's how I spent my Free Comic Book Day this year:

I started out by going to Fun 4 All in Ypsilanti. It's in a strip mall anchored by a dollar store, a grocery store, and the Secretary of State's office (closed on Saturday). The store opened at 11 and I got there at about 11:30. They had their FCBD wares displayed on little easels on top of their graphic novel shelves, and then you went to the counter to ask for what you want (limit 3). There were plenty of people inside, including a lot of families with little kids; I overheard a couple of the conversations, and the kids were definitely attracted to the appropriate comics--and quite enthused about getting comics. I picked up the FCBD editions of Amelia Rules, Owly, and Love & Capes; and I bought the Hulk vs. Hercules comic, because I always feel I should purchase something on Free Comic Book Day.

I then headed over to Vault of Midnight, on Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor. They had the free comics on open shelves about a third of the way deep into the store (limit 4). There was a lot of foot traffic off of the street, and Curtis, the owner, stood near the front of the store ensuring people that yes, the comics were free, no strings attached! I picked up the FCBD editions of Marvel Adventures, Salem, Kid Houdini, and Atomic Robo; I get a 15% discount at Vault, so I used the occasion to buy the first Immortal Iron Fist trade as well as Yuichi Yokoyama's New Engineering.

After a stop at the grocery store I went home, set my free comics aside, and started cramming for my upcoming interview with Paul Hornschemeier. I read and took notes on The Collected Sequential and Let Us Be Perfectly Clear.

So I haven't had much of a chance to read hardly any of the books I picked up on Saturday. I did read the Marvel Adventures title, with a fun story of Iron Man, Hulk, Spider-Man & Ant-Man fighting The Mandarin by Jeff Parker & Paul Tobin. Plus I read the first couple chapters of New Engineering, and it's blowing my mind!

The Late Shipping Hall of Shame, Part 2: The Readers Strike Back!

There was overwhelming response to my first Late Shipping Hall of Shame post, not only here on this blog but elsewhere as well. As promised, I'm compiling some of your suggestions here, selecting several more comics to be added to the Late Shipping Hall of Shame.

Okay, here we go:


Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do - Kevin Smith is always high in demand as one of the first big-name movie writers to dabble in comics, with his work on Daredevil & Green Arrow breathing new life into second-string characters that many had thought past their prime. So teaming him with fan-favorite artists Terry & Rachel Dodson on a Spider-Man project seemed like a great idea. Sure, the project might run a little late; while both the writer and artists didn't have a sterling track record, up to that point they hadn't seen some of the obscene delays that had plagued others. But putting them on a mini-series meant that Marvel could be a bit more tolerant of delays. Heck, Smith even went on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to plug the book! But did anyone foresee a delay of over three years between issues three and four? I wonder if Smith wishes he'd kept on comics instead of shooting Jersey Girl? At least Smith came back to finish it, even if he set a record for a gap in a mini-series; a record that is in danger of being broken by:



Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk - A tale as old as time: Hollywood writer with a love of comics gets a chance to write a mini-series featuring his favorite super-heroes. He gets started, then better-paying Hollywood gigs get in the way and the next thing you know your comic is over two years late... and counting. Marvel and Lost impressario Damon Lindelof swear that the series will eventually be completed, and we believe them. Really...



The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Yeah, we forgive Moore for Watchmen, as it wasn't nearly as late as our collective memory thinks it was. But LXG, after three monthly issues, took another another sixteen months to finish up its final three issues. Many people still admire Moore as a writer, but with the delays on this comic and others in the America's Best Comics line, Moore's ability to sell floppies has atrophied, with fans preferring to wait for the trade instead of dealing with long delays in the middle of his intricate plots.



Rising Stars - J. Michael Straczynski's super-powered magnum opus for Top Cow suffered a nearly two-year delay near the end, between issues #21 & 22, but it wasn't the same old Hollywood writer story. Instead, JMS was protesting being cut out of film-rights negotiations for his property and delayed his scripts. Communications broke down between the parties, but once Top Cow issued an apology (along with a transfer of some minor intellectual property) the final three issues of the series were completed.



Astro City - Kurt Busiek & Brent Anderson's fan-favorite street-level view of super-heroes never maintained a perfect monthly record, but one of the more unusual episodes in the annals of late shipping books occured when writer Busiek came down with mercury poisoning and book was delayed for nearly a year as he was unable to concentrate enough to write the intricate scripts. Thankfully Busiek recovered, and DC have enough confidence in him to give him the job writing the lead story in their upcoming weekly Trinity series. But Astro City never really recovered, and after transitioning to a series of mini-series and one-shots its sales have never recovered.



Ministry of Space - Artist Chris Weston showed up in the comments of the original Hall of Shame post to nominate his and Warren Ellis's retro-future space series for the long delay between its second and final issues. We forgive you, Chris!



No, this isn't the end of the Late Shipping Hall of Shame; there's still plenty more to come. Look for part three at some point probably next week. In the meantime, please keep your nominations coming!

Late Shipping Hall of Shame Update

Thanks to everyone for your comments and suggestions on the Late Shipping Hall of Shame, and to Mike & Johanna for their helpful linkage and commentary. I've been going over your suggestions both here and elsewhere in anticipation of adding more titles to the Hall of Shame in a post later this week; in the meantime, keep those suggestions coming!

I'm thinking that I will most likely add a couple of sub-categories: Unfinished Business, for series that disappear and are never finished; and Vaporware, for titles which are announced but never materialize.

The Late Shipping Hall of Shame

These days, comics are late all the time. But some late-shipping titles stand out, due to their extreme lateness, frequncy of lateness, or their impact. For those titles, we are creating the Late Shipping Hall of Shame!

Here are our nominees:



Camelot 3000 - The granddaddy of them all. Back in the days of newsstand distribution, comics just weren't late. If a story wasn't ready to go in time, the editor would pull an inventory story from the drawer and run it instead. Because the newsstand distribution wasn't going to wait for the next issue of X-Men or Batman. But Camelot 3000 was one of DC's first direct-only titles, so the newsstand rules didn't apply. Brian Bolland is a wonderful artist, but these days editors know that to give the man a monthly book would be crazy talk. A number of delays plagued the book, with the result that the final isuse of the twelve-issue series came out more than a year later than originally planned. Not the worst delay ever, but certainly a harbinger of things to come...



Action Comics, Superman & Wonder Woman ca. late 2006/early 2007 - 2006 was to be a big year for Superman & Wonder Woman, with high-profile creative teams coming on board to give these stalwarts a needed boost. But small delays became longer delays, resulting in issues being published out-of-order and causing much embarassment for DC editorial.



All-Star Batman & Robin - Hey, let's get Frank Miller and Jim Lee to do a Batman comic together! Of course, Frank is busy becoming the latest darling of Hollywood, and Jim is also a VP in the company. Sure they'll sell a lot of Batman comics, but what made the powers-that-be think that this would come out monthly? The result was a comic that shipped just one issue during all of 2006, and saw a sixteen-month gap between issues #4 & 5.



Civil War - The delays weren't super terrible during Marvel's Civil War; but with so many other spin-off books tieing in tightly to the plot, delays of a few weeks in the core title saw a ripple effect that devestated a large chunk of Marvel's line-up. Sure Civil War sold like gangbusters, but how much money was lost because issues of Amazing Spider-Man or Captain America didn't ship?



Spider-Man "One More Day" - Remember how the big ending to JMS's Spider-Man was to come out weekly? But rewrites and other delays meant that it came out less-than-monthly, and pushed back the debut of the thrice-monthly Amazing Spider-Man, leaving one of Marvel's best-selling books on the sidelines for several months.



The Ultimates - The first Ultimates series saw many long delays, but they were going to not have that problem with Ultimates 2, as artist Brian Hitch would work far enough ahead that it wouldn't be a problem. Right? But series 2 saw the same type of delays in the back half that plagued series 1. But all would be well with series 3, as the delays on series 2 meant that the new creative team would have plenty of lead time to get issues in the can. Oops...



Powers - It seems like not a week goes by when the Diamond Shipping Updates don't include a shift of one or two weeks on a Powers comic. And yet, they still pretend that this will be a monthly, and even recently decided to increase the page count! It's time for Marvel to get real and admit that Powers will always be a bi-monthly-at-best book.



Astonishing X-Men - Debuting in 2004, this seemed like a match in heaven, with Joss Whedon & John Cassady taking on everyone's favorite mutants. Sure, a decompressed story lasting 24-issues might seem to take a bit long, but that would also mean a new top-selling trade collection every six months for those who prefer to wait for the trade. Alas, Whedon has Hollywood fish to fry, and Cassady, while a superb artist, has never been known for his speed. As a result, this slow-moving story has dragged on and on, and any surprises from the final (double-sized--wait twice as long!) issue are pretty much moot as the rest of the X-Men line has decided to move along without it. Theoretically this means that the new creative team of Ellis & Bianchi have plenty of time to work ahead, but we saw how well that worked with Ultimates...



Planetary - A comic that gets written whenever Warren Ellis gets around to it, and then John Cassady tries to squeeze in drawing it if he's waiting for an X-Men script from Whedon. Fine, we know what we're getting into. But there's just one issue remaining in the series, which means that the final trade collection is being held up as well. One might think that the potential paycheck for finishing just one more issue would spur the creators to finish the darn thing.



American Flagg hardcover collections - Image announced these way back in 2004, but they still haven't seen the light of day. They promise a Summer 2008 release for the first volume at the San Diego Comic Con; Howard Chaykin has reportedly said that he won't believe it until someone actually hands him one to sign.



Those are my choices for the Late Shipping Hall of Shame. Agree? Disagree? What other comics would you add?

Variant Covers

I don't normally mind the fact that there are variant covers on comics; as long as I get one issue to read, that's fine. I order most of my comics from DCBS, and sometimes they'll throw in a variant cover edition—which is usually good except when it's a photo cover; I'd rather have a nice piece of comic art than a re-used stock photograph.

Recently I loaned some of my Buffy season 8 & Angel season 6 comics to some friends who are only occasional comic readers but are fans of the shows. They had previously borrowed some of the Buffy comics from another friend. In looking through mine to see which issues they needed they got a bit confused due to the fact that some of mine had different covers from the ones they had seen. I explained about the multiple covers which they then grokked easily enough but thought was kind of strange.

I wonder what sort of general effect multiple covers have for those not used to the hobby aspect of comics? Do Buffy fans coming into comic stores looking for the latest issue try to buy a variant cover of a comic they already have?

Bad Reading Habits

I may have mentioned once or twice that I have a tremendous back-log of comics that I haven't read yet. There are three whole short-boxes of comics floppies in my to-be-read 'pile,' not to mention the scores of unread graphic novels and manga sitting on my shelves.

This means that in the evening when I'm selecting a comic to read next, I don't necessarily go for what I think will be the best read, but often the quickest, in an attempt to cut down on the sheer volume of comics that need to be read. So anything by Chuck Dixon? An easy read, five minutes tops. But even though an issue of Casanova will most likely be a better comic, the time spent per page count will be higher. So the last several issues of Casanova sit in one of the boxes.

Sometimes if I get a nice long weekend with nothing else to do I'll pull out a long run of something and give it a read. But those chances are few and far between these days.

One peculiar thing that happens, particularly with mini-series, is that I'll read the first issue to see if it's any good. If it is, I'll get the rest of the issues, but many times they go unread until the series is finished. Then I realize that several months have gone by since I read the first issue and I don't know remember what's going on. Going back to read the first issue again seems counterproductive--reading something I've already read when there are so many unread comics to be read. It's like a vicious circle or something.

Of course one solution to all this is to buy less comics. I've managed to cut about $100 off of my monthly DCBS order, so that's a start. I could also move more things to wait-for-the-trade, but that just means that the bookshelves grow more packed instead of the short boxes.

I long ago accepted the fact that I'll never read every prose novel I want to read. I guess I'll have to accept the same thing about comics.

Sigh.

That Sense of Wonder

Remember that sense of wonder you had when you read comics as a youngster. I can remember going to the spinner rack at the newsstand, being presented with so many choices and having to narrow it down to just one or two comics. Then getting home, cracking it open, and reading it cover-to-cover--the story, the letters pages, even the ads--over and over; pouring over it like a Talmudic scholar.

Where is that sense of wonder now? What made it leave? Is it age and experience? Have I just read too many comics?

Were the comics of my youth better in some way? By most objective measures today's comics are overall better--better writing, better art, better production values. And there are certainly many more choices in both types of material and in sheer number of comics being published. But is that 'wow' still there for a new comics reader?

Forgive me, I'm just feeling a bit melancholy today.

Does today's eleven-year-old kid who cracks open a new volume of Naruto have the same feeling of excitement, wonder and possibility that I did when reading an issue of DC Comics Presents?

I certainly hope so.

Steve Gerber

Most of you know by now that comics writer Steve Gerber passed away Sunday.

Most long-time comic readers are fans of Gerber's form his work on Howard the Duck; or perhaps The Defenders, Man-Thing, or Omega the Unknown.

I was a mostly DC kid, so my introduction to Gerber was in The Phantom Zone, a four-issue head-trip by Gerber and artist Gene Colan:



Basic plot was that Superman was trapped in the Phantom Zone and had to make his way through a multitude of dimension to make it back to Earth to stop the nasty Phantom Zone criminals who had escaped. Nearly all of the DC heroes took part in the battle for Earth while Superman struggled to reach home, and it was truly epic. It would be great (though alas unlikely) if DC could collect this into a trade.

Regarding Judd Winick

There's a common attitude towards his work that you seem often from online commentators; Valerie D'Orazio's recent comment is typical:

Judd Winick is still the guy nobody understands why he is still writing these books but somehow he is.

Most likely Winick continues to get work due to some combination of:
a) he turns his scripts in on time
b) he writes what the editors ask him to
c) his page rate is reasonable

Doing what the editor wants and turning it in on time for a good price will no doubt keep a career going, even if it doesn't result in great comics.

Recall that Winick's early career as a cartoonist was much different. After struggling in syndicated newspaper strip purgatory with the funny but overlooked Frumpy the Clown (based on a character he created for his student strip Nuts & Bolts at the Michigan Daily), Winick created the multi-award-winning Pedro & Me OGN, did the Eisner-winning "Road Trip," and did several hilarious mini-series of his Barry Ween character for Oni. It was only when he started writing multiple super-hero scripts for DC that he gained the reputation of being a hack--and even then, his early work on Green Lantern and Marvel's Exiles was, while not universally praised, at least well regarded.

(Winick also created the kids cartoon The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, which was better than 90% of the cartoons these days and also better than most of his recent super-hero writing.)

I'd like to see Winick go back to drawing his own stuff at some point, to see if he can recapture the magic. But sadly I expect that cranking out scripts for DC pays better.