With the penultimate issue of Hawkeye on the stands, I’ve started to think about the delays that have had so many readers (myself included) complaining during the second half of the title’s run. Debuting in October of 2012, the first year or so of Hawkeye came out monthly, with slips in the second year of publication, with the last few months of the book essentially appearing every other month or so. It hasn’t affected the quality of the stories a bit, but I have to admit it seems to have affected my opinion of the series as a whole, and some on the internet have said they’re happy to see the book end because of the delays, which leads us to today’s late-edition query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) doesn’t condone trade-waiters, but this is one of the times I understand ’em, asking: Have you ever quit watching/reading something you otherwise enjoyed because of excessive delay?
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Yes, actually. I stopped keeping up with Hawkeye because… well, it just became too much of a pain to go back and read the older comics just so I had a bit more of a clue as to what was even happening.
There are a lot of comics whose storylines I gotta juggle in my head to keep track of – which is one of the reasons I love crossovers so much, it’s a shared story that’s easier to keep track of. Also crossover issues tend to have more than one part of the story in a month.
Sometimes, yes, but that is an exception rather than the norm. I’m quite used to delays or erratic schedules being a lifelong fan of things like Doctor Who (which had some delays in the 80’s and has had a bit of an erratic schedule since returning, particularly back when there was almost a year between UK airings and US airings) and Red Dwarf (despite being like 20 years old, it only has 9 or 10 seasons). There have been very few TV series I’ve lost interest in due to delay, but there have been a small few.
Most of the comic titles I’ve lost interest in due to delays have been those published by the big name companies (such as DC and Marvel). Indie stuff never bothered me that much being delayed since that was more understandable when considering the vast differences in how comics are made and distributed. A big name company is bound to have more resources, where an indie publisher might be doing all the work with just a couple of people and funding out of pocket.
There have also been a few novel series I’ve lost interest in because the books promised within a year or two of the last book took anywhere from five to fifteen years to finally show up.
But for the most part, I usually don’t lose interest due to delays. I may be frustrated and lose some of my initial curiosity or excitement, but I usually still have some degree of interest.
Yes. I stopped reading Berlin by Jason Lute’s for that reason. Optic Nerve similarly fell by the wayside. Sandman Overture is the most recent victim of my impatience.
-Dan’L
I feel kind of bad about it, but yes. It’s not really a conscious decision for me; my mind just loses where the story is at and I feel pressure to go read all of these back issues before I continue.
Fraction is somewhat of an exception, I’ve managed to keep reading both Satellite Sam and Hawkeye despite the delays. This is partially because he’s so damn good, but also because now Comixology just shoots them right onto my phone whenever they come out, and I can read the back issues without going down to my storage locker and pulling out old longboxes.
Case in point, was the second issue of Eerie Tales of Sabrina ever published?
Not as of yet, as far as I know… :)
Ceberus. I was a devoted reader early on but as the delays got more frequent and longer, I eventually stopped reading the thing. We’re talking YEARS between issues in some cases. I very nearly stopped reading Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind because of several lengthy delays in production (usually when Miyazaki quit drawing it to work on a new animated feature) there were several breaks of two to six months and one break of a year and a half if memory serves me correctly, but unlike Ceberus, the story was intriguing enough to keep me reading and also the anime version wasn’t available in English for nearly a decade after the comic finished. And there have been so many cancellations and delays in the production of Starstruck by Kaluta and Lee that I am on the verge of not caring about it any more. It’s been well over a year since they raised the funds in Kickstarter to produce a new volume and no book yet. Hell, I am getting pretty damn old here. I can’t wait decades any more for a favorite comic series to come back to life, because I don’t have that many decades left!!!
What’s Ceberus?