Why? Well, personal relationships and politics aside, DC is a Premier Publisher and shops order more from Premier Publishers.

Vertigo will sell more of the same book than AiT can because it is Vertigo.

Not exactly rocket science.

Having checked out the press release at CBR, I have to assume that perhaps the key to whatever Rich might be hinting at would be found in Wood’s quote: “And it’s been my continuing mission for it to reach as many people as possible. We’re currently exploring options and offers from other publishers with that goal in mind.”

Now, it seems like a while back there was some discussion, possibly at The Engine, where the problem of AIT’s alleged inability to get books in stock and into stores was mentioned. I only half remember it so I’m sure someone will holler at me if they think I’ve warped the nature of the discussion but I do seem to recall some general disgruntlement about the issue (The Engine is dead so no chance of finding it if that’s where the discussion took place).

Today’s LITG mentions Vertigo several times so one would assume Demo is going to be published through Vertigo, though why this press release was issued still puzzles me. The wording is certainly something I’ve never read before in a PR statement: “Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan announce the immediate and full reversion of publishing and other media rights.” So, did the rights revert as a result of a lapse of a period of time from the initial printing, or perhaps the book being out of print for X period of time? Why would a publisher let a book go out of print when it seems like a something that could be a perennial which would really help a small publisher’s bottom line? Why would any of this warrant a press release to assert rights when this would seem like a standard behind the scenes event? I know this comes across as unfounded speculation and gossip but I admit to already having some questions and then Rich’s column led me to wonder if he wasn’t trying to hint at something more.

By the way, Demo WAS awesome and I hope it gets as wide a circulation as is possible. Becky Cloonan’s art is incredible and I can see the stories really appealing to a mass audience in a way many comics don’t.

Hey, I read the LITG blurb about this and I gotta say, respectfully, I’ve come to expect a better quality of gossip from LITG.

I mean, all you say is that the material is likely to be republished by another publisher, but you don’t have any juicy details on why the creators are switching publishers (not that *that’s* necessarily newsworthy; it happens often enough) or why they’d take the unusual step of publicly announcing their rights reversion (that sort of thing is often handled more behind-the-scenes, unless there’s a reason to go public…)

C’mon, Rich! Don’t we deserve a better class of muck racking, especially if you’re trying to divert attention to your muck racking?

(Do know that the above is written with more facetiousness and affection than perhaps can be conveyed in a text-only blog comment… ;-) )

Now it seems like even longtime AIT stalwarts want nothing to do with him and he’s persona non grata everywhere else where he used to be a regular fixture.

What happened?