DC Comics has cancelled orders for the first two issues of Doctor Fate. The company says the issues will be resolicited later, but it brings into question what exactly is going on at the company.
While it is able to deliver a weekly series with nary a problem, other titles continually miss target dates. While Marvel received a mountain of criticism over the delays with Civil War, readers don’t seem as upset with DC.
What are your thoughts?
Stephen Schleicher began his career writing for the Digital Media Online community of sites, including Digital Producer and Creative Mac covering all aspects of the digital content creation industry. He then moved on to consumer technology, and began the Coolness Roundup podcast. A writing fool, Stephen has freelanced for Sci-Fi Channel's Technology Blog, and Gizmodo. Still longing for the good ol' days, Stephen launched Major Spoilers in July 2006, because he is a glutton for punishment. You can follow him on Twitter @MajorSpoilers and tell him your darkest secrets...
9 Comments
I heard from another site, that the cancellation is due to the change in artist from Gulacy to Justiano.
While that is probably the case, why the heck isn’t DC cracking down on artists they hire, who then can’t deliver? I love the Dodsons work on Wonder Woman, but if they knew s/he were going to draw at a snails pace, they should have either held the title until they were caught up, or found someone else. Same with Jim Lee on All Star Batman and Robin – that series will never make it out of the mire and murk.
Stephen,
Not all delays are because of the artist(s). The Dodsons have a good track record in the past. Are you sure the WW delays are because of the artist, not the writer. The Dodsons faithfully put out Harley Quinn for quite a while before making the mistake of signing exclusively with Marvel and being stuck on a mini-series written by Kevin Smith.
What I wonder about is why something is solicited which isn’t complete yet.
James,
The WONDER WOMAN Update
Hey, everybody,
Because of our ongoing scheduling issues, DC Comics has been generous enough to allow Terry Dodson and me to make the conclusion of our “Who Is Wonder Woman?” arc into an extra-sized special issue, complete with guests artists, a backup story, and several cool additional features. The scheduling shift will allow a newly solicited WONDER WOMAN 5 to ship on schedule, an issue that ties into Jodi Picoult’s upcoming run on the book and Will Pfeiffer’s AMAZONS ATTACK event.
Oh, and I’m told WONDER WOMAN 4 is allegedly in stores next week. Hope you enjoy it.
All best,
Heinberg
The above message was what Allan Heinberg posted on his official MySpace.
Looks like both are at fault from that comment. Regardless, I agree with you that DC shouldn’t solicit titles that aren’t complete.
Stephen
I think the Heinberg quote is misleading. I think he’s trying to say that DC will let him and the Dodsons complete the arc together as opposed to the Dodsons moving onto another project and not having time when Heinberg finishes writing the issue.
The delay with Wonder Woman is Heinberg, not the Dodsons. The Dodsons have a very good track record from Generation X to Harley Quinn to Spider-Man.
Back to the Dr. Fate issue, if I’m understanding it correctly, DC is having Justiano redraw the first two issues Gulacy already did, thus the delay. I’m actually happy with this as Gulacy is not my cup of tea and I love Justiano’s work.
Thanks Josh! I love the Dodsons work, but notice they are only doing the covers for issue #10…bummer. My original rant was not targeted toward the Dodsons in particular, but rather the huge amount of delays with Wonder Woman and many of the other major titles from DC.
I think part of it is both Marvel and DC’s current theory that churning out as many titles as they can to take advantage of the upswing in readers will boost sales in the long run. The cracks are starting to show, and it will come back and bite them in the ass.
It could also have to do with the stunt-casting of creators, i.e. putting Jim Lee, a man known for being unable to do ONE monthly series on TWO different series that were ostensibly meant to be monthly, or Heinberg, who’s known for fiddling with his scripts up until the deadline and beyond.
Honestly, don’t solicit minies without at least 75% of the issues in the can. If a creator signs on for 6 issues, make sure you have at least 4 in the can before you solicit. The day and age when creators could do a monthly all year with minimum fill-ins has past. And don’t hire someone who can’t commit to a project, especially if it’s one of your flaghsip books (I’m looking at you Lindelof and Smith).
Stunt-casting of creators is the single worst thing to happens to comics in the last ten years.
I tried to get a direct answer to the cancellation from one of the DC PR guys… all I got in return was double speak… won’t admit directly to what the problem is.
Josh – great answer!