Civil War Delayed; The Internet Kerplodinates
Civil War Delayed; The Internet Kerplodinates
Aug 16If you’re a geek with a brain pan, you’ve already heard–Civil War, the mega crossover event Marvel is currently issuing upon the universe at large, will be late. Like six weeks late. Many things. Maybe most, or all things. BIG books here: Civil War itself, Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four.
Lots of fun coverage of this, slicing and dicing the news and creating some fun Julienne fries from the wreckage:
Retailer and blogginator Brian Hibbs on why this is, to use his terminology, “fucked up.”
Blog @ Newsarama rounds up some fun message board ephemera covering the topic.
Comments from artist Steve McNiven and Bryan Hitch on the delays. Hint: McNiven cowboys up and takes the hit.
And on Newsarama’s boards, a personal favorite: A swipe from Joe Quesada’s boards where Tom Brevoort calls Dan Slott out on lateness, which it’s worth noting he hasn’t yet done for Steve McNiven. Maybe he will. I doubt it.
May I now unpack?
1) Fanboys can harumph all they like; we will still buy it late. I will buy it late. There is no question. I’m in for a penny on this and I’ll take my pound now or six weeks from now. This move has little to no affect on Marvel in that regard.
2) I guess it can be said that this is a pretty accomodating move from a creative standpoint; having the original artist finish the miniseries is a preferable alternative to having a fill-in come along and toss a Molotov cocktail into the book’s flow and style.
3) To a retailer, this SHOULD be fucked up. Brian Hibbs nails it; read his goddamn post linked above. *Poof* to 3.5% of your average store’s monthly revenue. I wonder if Marvel legitimately cares…see above re: them getting their cash regardless.
4) It IS damned irresponsible on the part of the creators and the publisher, not from a fan bitching standpoint, but from the above retailer standpoint. If the company I work for decided to just NOT pay me one week and make it up to me in six weeks, that would fucking SUCK. I would be PISSED. I would be ready to QUIT.
5) This IS an industry-wide issue, and I bet this flap serves as a wake-up call, because a delay of this magnitude isn’t just unfortunate for readers–there is a very real impact to the bottom line for the main places that actually put these comics into the hands of readers.
6) The one question that has NEVER been reasonably answered, regarding this or any delay, by any publisher of comic books, is WHY they do not perform their responsible due diligence and have more material “in the can” before the solicit and release. Mark Millar mentions a six-week head start on Civil War; that was clearly a very shitty idea. I understand Marvel wanting to release Civil War #1 on the same day Infinite Crisis #7 shipped, and I get the whole “arms race” attitude of escalation that exists between Marvel and DC.
Still…fucking WAIT. Comics fans are NOT a fly-by-night crowd with shitty memories. We are not so fickle that we need to have “Marvel RULZ” shoved in our face the same day DC is shoving “DC ROX” into our face.
We like good comics. We like good stories and art. We will wait and support publishers producing that work. Just don’t fuck over the places that sell us our comics to gain a few inches of ground against the Distinguished Competition.
We, as comic buyers, are investing up to $316 dollars into this series. If you’re just buying the core series, there’s no right to bitch – it’s late, but that happens and it’s not like you’re going to read a tie-in and whoops, be surprised by something that has still yet to happen in the core series.
Personally, shit happens. The logistics of laying out a mega-crossover event means that there’s no margin for error, and there will always be error. They did it once, but putting out a Civil War issue AFTER the Thunderbolts referencing it went out as a preview (thus spoiling the surprise.)
I’m backing you on 1) and 2) and I agree on 6) – this whole arms race concept is bullshit. So what if Infinite Crisis drops first? It’s not like we’ll never read another comic afterwards.
I’m going to take the counter position on 3) and 4) – I’m going to read Hibb’s post, but from what I know of running a comic shop, they live and die on the non-comics they sell. The percentage on a comic sold isn’t enough to keep a store afloat, compared to the percentage on a box of Clix or an Angel action figure. It sucks, to be sure.
And 5)I have to go back to my arguement that the way the industry is structured, these mistakes will happen. Particularly as we demand higher and higher quality content. What used to work in the Jack and Stan era is strained in the Ross and Moore era. Comics don’t get produced as fast as they used to.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Time to chuck it all and produce nothing but trade paperbacks!
And no, you can’t unpack now.
Gotcha on 3/4, and I’m sure that’s absolutely true, except that ultimately, I would wager we’re talking about basically the biggest books in the Marvel line shipping late enough to defer that revenue source by six weeks, or whatever. One book, a few books at a time, there’s no impact. But if a shop suddenly cannot, in essence, sell ANY popular Marvel comics for a month, that HAS to have an impact on their bottom line, even if it’s negligible.
And too bad. I already put my underwear on the radiator.