Ack.

1 COMMENT

  1. Killing Joke was a one-shot, how is it relevant to monthly-scheduled productivity?

    (Or is he thinking of Camelot 3000?)

  2. The only flaw I see in Adam’s logic is that fans (and sometimes pros) are not, on the whole, complaining about artists who can’t meet a monthly schedule. Generally speaking, they’re complaining about artists (and, with increasing frequency, writers) who agree to a monthly schedule when they know they can’t meet it. I applaud Adam for not doing so.

    Also, I have to disagree with the way the Watchmen card is played, because I don’t believe it was Dave Gibbons who was responsible for the book being late. Unless I’m misremembering, Alan Moore was running late with scripts. Great an artist as he is, even Gibbons can’t start drawing a script he doesn’t have.

    PDS

  3. There is absolutely nothing wrong with an artist or creative team being unable to produce an X-page comic monthly. However, it’s a big problem when a publishing company schedules or solicits a series at a publishing frequency that’s not realistic or improbable–for comic book stores that actually treat their ordering and budgeting as a serious and professional business, this plays utter havoc with their scheduling and creates double or at least more work when books are cancelled and then resolicited. Sadly, money is where the mouth is in the industry, and if every fanboy who vehemently complains that such-and-such a title is late and scolds the creators and publishers for letting it be late actually stopped buying the thing, the industry would get the message.

    Books run late…they always have. I would rather have a new late issue than a fill-in or reprint like the Big Two used to solve the lateness problem of the Dreaded Deadline Doom back in the seventies. But the fans and the blogosphere is sitting on their cake and chowin’ down on it too: if a book being egregiously later than scheduled is something you must complain and wail and gnash your teeth over and point fingers and call names, stop buying it. You’ve missed the point of our hobby; it’s stopped being fun.

  6. With all this lead time, maybe it’ll give Mr. Hughes enough time to add a little more coverage to WW’s costume. Or do her nipples have the Wonderpower to keep her shrinking top up?

    I AM glad that DC knows the type of artist they have here and are enacting appropriate working conditions/schedules to accomodate reliable shipping. Why is it so difficult for comic companies to simply give enough time to the writers/artists involved? Especially miniseries? It just strikes me as odd. One thing’s for sure, I do not miss working in the retail end of comics. Bleh.