RANT: Civil War Delays

As I'm sure you've all heard, Civil War has been delayed. Now when I first heard this, I was more disappointed than angry. Civil War has, so far, been a great read, and the tie-ins have been mostly (GASP!) both intersting while adding something to the overall story. As I said, a little angry, a lot disappointed.

That is, until I started to read some of Marvel's excuses for the delays. Now, I'm pissed off.

I'll start with Mark Millar:

Steve had virtually no lead-time on Civil War and a title with a million characters has proven much tougher than he expected.

So howsabout instead of giving an unproven penciller such a short lead-time you, oh I don't know, delay the start of the mini a few months to give him the lead he may need? I know there was a proposed summer event that was scrapped when Civil War was pitched, but why couldn't they just make Civil War a fall event? You can't tell me that in 2006 a quality series would sell in the summer but not the fall.

Next we move on to Bryan Hitch (who is the foremost expert on late books)

Two of my favourite re-reads in collections are Dark Knight and Watchmen. Nobody now remembers that each was late at the time of the original periodicals but that was a blip, a couple of years in each's 25 year publication history and these will STILL be published 25 years from now.

Now Hitch isn't the only personen making this point, in fact this comparison was so prevalent in comments from Marvel personnel that I suspect it was distributed by management as a talking point to all involved. While this may be true (Dave Gibbons claims that Watchmen only shipped one issue late and the delay was very short) it's also a terrible comparason. DKR and Watchmen were both stand alone stories set outside of DC's main continuity and had no direct bearing on other titles. Civil War ties into (by my count) about 60% of Marvel's main continuity regular titles, most of which will be delayed significantly by this. You want to compare this situation to Infinite Crisis? Fine, it's a valid comparason and it illustrates why Marvel doesn't want to use fill-in artists. But to draw a parallel between Civil War and Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns is assinine, just as comparing Civil War to 52 would be equally stupid.

My final, and biggest, complaint is with this statement from Marvel editor Tom Brevoort.

The only reason our industry runs on a thirty day cycle is because it’s a holdover from the days when comic books were newsstand-oriented periodicals, and everybody’s used to that. But if you look at the entire field over the last five years, you can see that starting to change. And, like with any change, not everybody is going to be equally comfortable with it.

We put out monthly comics because that’s the way we’ve always largely done it. But the reason for why the comics are produced monthly in this format has kind of fallen away–and because of this fact, you’ve begun to see a metamorphosis in the way the industry operates, in my opinion.

So you don't think comics should be done on a monthly schedule anymore? Then why are you soliciting them as such? If you feel that way then announce that from now on all Marvel books will come out on a when-it's-done basis. You know why this won't happen? Because it would be an unmitigated disaster for the House of Ideas. Comics generally come out on a monthly basis for the same reason television shows come on at the same time each week: Because consumers are creatures of habit. A book that comes out sporatically, unless it's an absolute masterpiece like The Ultimates, won't be successful. Want proof? Look at the early days of Image Comics. They put out some okay books that were absolutely killed by a complete lack of scheduling. Brevoort knows all this, but he's trying to spin the delays as some kind of prescient look at the future of the industry.

All of the above mentioned bothered me, but not nearly as much as what wasn't said: We're Sorry. The first thing out of Quesada & Brevoort's mouths should have been mea maxima culpa, instead we get justifications and excuses.