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The above joke was courtesy of fellow Morrison Whorrison, Cayman.

Ouch! Declarative Rabbit is mean!

Of course, it's not like Infinite Crisis came out on time, even with the red-wash background.

But Infinite Crisis was never more than a couple of weeks late and it never wreck DC's whole schedule. The problem here is not Civil War being late is it pushing back Amazing Spiderman or Fantastic Four (and just wait for the second wave of delays that will include New Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man and so on). Ask a small retailer what he thinks about the idea of not having amazing Spider-man in October.

I'm sure retailers feel pretty screwed. From my perspective (waiting for the trade if the story turns out to be any good, not buying any of the affected tie-ins because the writing sucks), it doesn't mean much. I'd rather have a product that looks good (and reads well) than mediocrity that ships on schedule.

Yeah, it sucks that Marvel can't keep to a schedule, and it's pretty embarrasing. And Marvel could clearly lean on its writers, artists, and editors more than it actually does. But they aren't getting an incentive to for a couple reasons. First, artists and writers have become almost as much of a draw as the characters; how many people would still buy Civil War if they swapped out Mark Millar with Chuck Austen to get the book in on time? Second, despite all complaints, too many people buy the late books anyway to provide Marvel with a strong enough disincentive to lateness. Until you put your money where your mouth is, Marvel will keep ignoring you and screwing retailers.

There are various tensions at work here (preference for certain big-name writers and artists versus the corporate desire for disposability of same, for instance) that add to the factors that make the current American comics industry untenable. The desire to maintain a greater emphasis on quality storytelling will always conflict with a monthly shipping schedule, and the direction readers have been trending towards for the last twenty years (emphasis on particular creative teams over completist obsession with owning every appearance of Spider-man) is pulling against the old model of the industry (monthly serial pamphlets sold in a handful of out-of-the-way specialty shops).

The problem here is that stuff like IC and CW are not really creator driven. I really don't see much of a problem when Young Avengers or All Star Superman are a little late (as long as the schedule doesn't became a joke), now something like those big crossovers are different. A Waid/Pacheco Infinite Crisis or a JMS/Finch Civil War would play similar with most Marvel and DC readers. And if a guy like Mark Millar has a terrible track record with keeping his deadlines and the editor can't be sure that he can keep him on schedule, the writer should never be put in a big event that half of the monthlies books are connect to.

Yes, the red pages in INFINITE CRISIS sucked, but IC had to come out on time or all of 52 would have been thrown off schedule. DC has a lot riding on whether Week 52 ships the first week of May 2007 and something had to give. Marvel decided to delay publishing anything related to this series, and DC really did not have that flexibility.

A shame it had to be that double-page spread, but maybe they will put it up on the web when the hardcover comes out so we can at least tell who the characters are in the background. I'm certainly not buying the collection just for that spread.

Also, I don't mind Marvel's announcement so much. It got me off the fence and finalized my decision to drop FANTASTIC FOUR, since it won't be coming out anyway. I just hope this doesn't affect THUNDERBOLTS too much, as it's the only series I'm reading that is really taking advantage of the CIVIL WAR setup in a way that fits the characters and the setup.

Greg

For the record, the delay is all on McNiven's end.

For the record, the delay is all on McNiven’s end.

Yeah, I saw that on the Newsarama update. I think the principle still holds, though. In an older market individual writers and artists were considered more disposable, so you could have the situation Brian Hibbs cites, where George Perez is replaced with Ron Lim to keep Infinity Gauntlet on schedule. But individual, big-name artists carry a higher premium now, so you get stuff like this, where the entire crossover get delayed for weeks just to keep the same artist on the book. I don't think anyone really wins in this scenario (other than the wait-for-the-traders), but I can see where that pressure's coming from.

I think the really glaring and stupid mistake on Marvel's part was that they apparently gave McNiven no head start. They planned Civil War for months in advance, right? They couldn't start the artist off a little bit ahead?

Oh, yeah, it doesn't change YOUR point, but it just needs to be said so folks don't blame Millar.

And wow...what a point by Hibbs.

I'm more pissed at the dealys on other titles being caused by Civil War. I'm nopt reading Civil War, I'm already dreading what it might wind up doing to books I enjoy (like Brubaker's Cap), and now on top of everything else it's going to create "non-creative" delays for other comics? Jeebus.

This is as bad as having to wait an extra half year for the end of Seven Soldiers because Morrison, Williams, and DC needed to get OYL Batman and 52 out on schedule. It's not like there's a particularly good artistic-integrity-related case to be made for either set of delays, because in neither case do I get the sense that the delayed books (other than Civil War itself) will be of better quality for it. This is just publishers and, worse, writers and artists, blowing of prior commitments for cashflow purposes.

I have to think the companies have lost a lot of the "high ground" on delayed publication for this one, much as Kevin Smith did when he blew off his Marvel commitments because the money is in movies.