Comic Book Resources

I'm so baffled by this.

Did Casey not have to prop his story arc in full in advance?

Was that proposal not approved?

What the hell?

Here's what Casey said on the matter, from an interview at CBR:

[Chris]Cross and I have been trying to – and dying to – work together for years. Y’know, we were primed to do a “Velocity” series for Top Cow and although I wrote and got paid for three issues and Cross penciled a first issue that was so visually stunning and the best-looking thing Top Cow would’ve published this year, somewhere along the line that famous Top Cow brand of common sense disappeared into an unexpectedly bizarre rift in time and space, they started firing staff left and right – including our beloved editor – and our book was suddenly no more, resulting in an obviously broken promise to four million Pilot Season voters. Ouch.

Maybe he wanted to make Velocity a baby-eater.

The irony here is staggering.

If Rob Liefeld created her, making her a baby-eater would have been fine.

Hmmm... maybe I dunno, have got the head editor to have told the other editor to shut the fuck up and no one cares about where he thinks the story should go?

For fucks sake Top Cow - you do realise your own publisher guy just invalidated the entire concept of Pilot Season?
If it's about the fans voting for the story they want to see continue, you have to go with that vote for it to mean anything.
They said they wanted Casey on Velocity, give them what they want.

Honestly... it's like Top Cow are happy being a small imprint of a small publisher surviving on whatever media deals they can scrape for their characters.

Oh sorry, I take it all back - just read the rest.
Velocity plays a vital role in the upcoming Cyberforce/HunterKiller crossover.
We wouldn't want to fuck that up.

Velocity plays a vital role in the upcoming Cyberforce/HunterKiller crossover.
We wouldn’t want to fuck that up.

Very true FGJ -- a classic in the making can't be derailed but what people actually want to buy! I mean, it's not like people who read superhero comics are capable of reading about multiple interpretations of a single character, or are willing to accept stories set in different continuities or alternate timelines or universe. That's unheard of.

Gosh! What next? Bringing characters back to life? Like superhero fans will ever buy into that nonsense.

Four million? Please tell me that's a super-exaggeration?

By "four million," read "a dozen guys voting thousands upon thousands of times."

I mean, the books sold terribly, but the voting was ridiculous. Of course, you could vote as many times as you want. Me, I'm still miffed Urban Myths didn't make it to series.

They didn't even have a barcode or number in the book to type in to prove you'd read it before voting?

Weird.

I'd been waiting for the trade on this one - figured Casey let loose on a character would be fun.
Sad to see Top Cow thinks it's Marvel or DC.

Didn't they offer the pilot books free online after a while, at least for the 2008 season?

Filip Sablik? Hey, we know who Joe Casey is. Who the fuck are you, Filip Sablik? You don't even have a Wikipedia page, Filip Sablik.

I kind of liked Velocity. I thought she had kind of a cool look and stood from the other grim and gritty Top Cow characters. It sucks the Casey thing didn't work out but I wouldn't be adverse to see another Velocity book from a different creative team.

So..... Silvestri's designing all of the concepts....So.... We'll have 5 characters that look exactly like every thing Top Cow puts out....excellent. CyberMagicBrooding and no pupils.

In other news, it's 2009 and veteran comic creators are still allowing publishers to own their creations.

Realistically, there's no way Casey or CrissCross should have seen this one coming, but still, they should have at least been aware that work for hire can easily turn in to only-what-the-publisher-wants for hire.

Realistically, there’s no way Casey or CrissCross should have seen this one coming, but still, they should have at least been aware that work for hire can easily turn in to only-what-the-publisher-wants for hire.

They're not amateurs, I'm sure they were AWARE about the pitfalls of work-for-hire. But when the product comes from a highly promoted stunt that all of Top Cow's fans voted for, it's reasonable to believe such an occurrence would be much less likely in such a case.

Hmm... interesting. Obviously, the publisher -- and owner of the character -- is well within its rights to not publish a comic they feel doesn't represent the character as they see fit, but what an odd -- and possibly damaging -- time to exert that right. Also, what makes it worse is not bringing this information forward earlier, which would have been a sign of respect to readers. By sitting on it for so long, especially after Casey's interview with CBR, it really looks like the company was hoping no one would notice that they effectively broke their word regarding one of their biggest promotions -- and one that they still want people to confidence in. I wonder: would it have been better to announce that this book fell through and maybe put the third-place book into production instead?

I think they are still figuring out the process. I think the big problem is the loss of momentum. When they announce the winners and release the book a year or so later people are just not interested. But at the same time it takes a while to put together a book and get a solid creative team together.

I don't know if putting the third place book would help either because again the creative team could have gone on to do other things and wouldn't be available. I think Jason Aaron wrote one of them and doesn't he have an exclusive contract at Marvel?

It's easy to say they should have done this or this in retrospect but again they are doing something different and they haven't worked out the kinks. Maybe they'll figure it out this go around.

"I mean, the books sold terribly, but the voting was ridiculous. Of course, you could vote as many times as you want. Me, I’m still miffed Urban Myths didn’t make it to series."

I'm not sure why they couldn't take Urban Myths to another publisher or even Image Central. Does Top Cow own that property?

"CyberMagicBrooding and no pupils."

That's funny stuff.

Ahh, Filip Sabik!
He thinks his latest promotion is where he went crazy: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22086 , not the promotion where the readers said they wanted one team on a book, but he took them off because he wanted that character for a crossover nobody wanted.
Instead of selling books people want, he's giving away books people don't.
True Genius!