It’s been quite a while since the “Has Dc Done Something Stupid” clock has been reset, but I suspect it may get a new countdown today.

The Legend of Wonder Woman by Renae De Liz and Ray Dillon was one of the best reviewed books of the year, showing up on multiple best of lists. Collected from an Eisner Award nominated digital serial, it’s yet another retelling of Wonder Woman’s youth, but done in a fresh and adventurous way that found many admirers.

A second series was planned as announced in the spring. But then…

This seems rather abrupt and…mysterious. While there were no fewer than FOUR (FOUR!!!) different versions of Wonder Woman’s youth published this year, and the ones by Greg Rucka, Grant Morrison and Jill Thompson probably got more press, the De Liz/Dillon version seems to have struck a chord with more fans, and there was a lot of interest in the follow up…which is now not to be.

wonder woman de lizCertainly losing a gig just before Christmas with a nw baby on the way isn’t the most festive holiday season. De Liz has set up a GoFundMe to solicit donations to help the family (she has three kids already) get through this time while she looks for work. It’s alreayd about halfway to the modest goal and should make it with no problem.

While there could be behind the scenes stuff about this we don’t know, the optics of this are bad for DC given their historic track record with women creators and the mild kerfuffle over a recently announced Amazon origin written by Kevin Grevioux  – an assignment some on Twitter thought would have been better handled by a female creator.

At any rate, as I write this, the dumpster fire is just a little smoulder, but by the time I wake up it could be three alarms.

De Liz and Dillon are immensely talented creators. They’ve certainly had some ups and downs in their career, but one would think an artist of de Liz’s talent should have no problem getting new work. Hopefully things will work out for the best for her and her family.

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21 COMMENTS

  1. Yeah, I’m going to have to flag that as flagrant trolling. This has a) nothing to do with the article, and b) an idiotic, heinous and sexist comment in any regard. Shame on you, ‘Bobby’.

  2. Marvel sh0uld hire them to do a similar series about whoever in their stable of characters is the most similar. It’s been a while since Marvel directly tweaked DC over something like this, hasn’t it?

  3. This is disappointing. Renae De Liz came out of nowhere and delivered this gem. Between Morrison’s Earth 1 and Rucka’s Rebirth origin, which both I like, this was significantly better. I hope people don’t get discouraged from buying the collected edition. It’s a solid story with a few threads to set up the next volume.

    First Prez now this. I guess DC is doesn’t like my money.

  4. Speculation is that DC decided to can the project after her husband Ray kept complaining on twitter about how DC was handling it. It may have been petty, but don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

  5. This news is unfortunate but i feel one of the bigger components to this story is that the creator is living so close to financial ruin that a few hours after a freelance gig gets canceled, they’re already panhandling for bill money. There is something extremely wrong here, and the days of comic creators being able to make a living from comics seem to be numbered. Maybe we’re already past that point.

    If only more creators had the courage to discuss wages, maybe we’d all understand the change that needs to happen in the industry.

  6. Losing a job is always awful before the holidays, but some of this is self-inflicted. Perhaps bringing your frustrations to your editors and management about how the book is promoted is more effective than putting that company on blast on social media. The fact that the incriminating tweets are now deleted doesn’t make it look any better. ESPECIALLY given DC’s past history with people airing dirty laundry publicly being directly synonymous with people ending up losing opportunities at said company (Chris Roberson, Dwayne McDuffie and Mark Waid being a few I can think of off the top of my head) I think the creators deserve to share some responsibility in this outcome.

  7. Instead of blaming DC, how about seeing that the book was a horrible seller. As a LCS retailer, I had cut that title back to just 3 copies for the shelf. If the title isn’t making money do you blame DC for axing the book? No, you don’t.

  8. So to sum up; they acted like dicks towards their employers, got fired for it and then turned round to beg for money from people.

    Is that about right?

  10. @J Chandler

    All indications are that the cancellation wasn’t sales related. Keep in mind that as a digital first title it may have had solid sales outside the direct market and word is that the hardcover sales were above expectations as well.

    Also, as a retailer I find the way I promote or don’t promote books goes a long way to how they sell. Not 100% of course and somehow we still have a Solo series in 2016 for example, but if I know a book is good and there are customers who might be interested, I jump off on it. (Part of that is knowing/cultivating your clientele as well, of course) So basically, without knowing whether you were pushing the book hard or just ordering a middle amount of copies and tossing them up to see what happens, or what the demographics of your store look like, could be a few reasons it didn’t sell for you. Doesn’t mean it didn’t sell elsewhere though or didn’t have an audience, as DC would never have ordered a sequel in the first place if there wasn’t money in it.

    No one likes to cite Rich Johnson because he’s got the tabloid rep about him, but I really do think he’s right on with his assessment of this one.

  11. What the Hell is up with these comments? Someone lost their job so people are going to start blaming them and criticizing everything they may have done? Saying her husband’s tweets cost her the job is just pure speculation.

    The only person in the comments who’s had something reasonable to say is the guy who owns a comics store and said he can’t sell her book. Other than that, there’s a LOT of bah-humbug in these comments.

  12. “Someone lost their job so people are going to start blaming them and criticizing everything they may have done? Saying her husband’s tweets cost her the job is just pure speculation.”

    Let’s put it this way, if I go into work on Monday and start complaining about my employers I don’t have to be psychic to know what happens next.

    And I won’t be asking strangers to make up my lost income either.

  13. Is Donald Trump a DC executive? It sure seems that way based on how they handle criticism.

    It’s a good thing they aren’t thinking about implementing a ratings system or anything. If so they’d probably have to replace half their freelancers and perhaps some editors too.

  14. OK, so if I’m understanding everyone correctly…DC is totally right to fire someone for putting them on blast through Twitter.

    But…how do you explain Eddie Berganza continuing to be employed? Sexual abuse is ok but you guys draw the line at mean tweets?

    It just seems to me if a company is going to continue to employ someone and have a rule that no woman can work on the same family of books as him (the highest profile family in DC thus discriminating against women by not giving them equal opportunity), they should be ok with a few angry tweets. One of those things is a MUCH worse look than the other.

  15. Yeah I am a freelancer and I have no kids – they’re too expensive – and I put money away to get me thru the lean times. Do not depend on income until it’s in your pocket.

    But Ray and Renae have been accused of unprofessionalism in the past – or does nobody else remember their Kickstarter fiasco from not too long ago? And this is not the first time they have asked for donations – the first was a few years ago, when Renae had an accident or something. And before THAT, they were asking for money to save their house (or something).

    So it’s a shame this was cancelled, but these two seem to have repeated issues with their careers as artists.

  16. Just going to tell people not to read the garbage comments on here. So, yeah. Don’t read the garbage comments.

  18. I haven’t had a chance to sit down and read an issue of Rene’s Wonder Woman comic book series but I liked what I saw of it. She seems to have succeeded in producing a better looking and more accessible WW comic than anything put out by veteran creators in the industry in recent years.The runs by Grant Morrison and Greg Rucka seemed to lack any whim,

    “an artist of de Liz’s talent should have no problem getting new work.” That statement would be true if the job market was a strict meritocracy but it’s not. Factors such as personalities, egos, (complaining about authority figures is usually grounds for termination. The workplace is NOT A DEMOCRACY. Neither are most human organizations, including the family) compensation (how many creators have walked away from comics because they cannot afford to live in the large metropolitan areas where they are expected to do business?) and, of course, politics (People may dislike a creator’s work simply because the creators views are different from their own.)

  19. “Lucia says
    12/17/2016 AT 4:52 AM

    Just going to tell people not to read the garbage comments on here. So, yeah. Don’t read the garbage comments.

    So, anything other than praise is garbage? Perhaps it’s just possible that talented creators, male or female, are flawed individuals just like the rest of us?

    I like Rene and Ray . But that doesn’t mean they are above criticism.

    So can you authoritarian tone. It’s emotionally stunted.

  21. I won’t lie. I didn’t like the decision to portray Etta Candy as overweight.

    Renae should have portrayed her as overweight, but suffering from hyptertension and diabetes. Seeing Diana and the Amazons would have inspired Etta to eat less, exercise more, and make permanent lifestyle changes to keep the weight off.

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