Is Pick On Didio Day Over?

Cuz I just wanted to sneak these bits in:

People seem to identify this problem as being unique to DC, but I would argue that it happens across the entire industry. I would argue that no matter what your expectations are every week, those expectations are unfortunately broken. I would argue that this problem is unique to the business.

Sure, it happens everywhere. But you, Mr. Didio, were those most emphatic about scheduling issues getting fixed. Marvel made the decision that it won't put fill-in artists on a major event and stuck to it. Quesada has said they'd do everything they can on scheduling issues, but did not feel that sacrificing quality for timeliness was an acceptable trade-off.

DC, on the other hand, lets their events run fairly late and then STILL uses fill-in artists. You have to pick a course and stick to it. If you're willing to use fill-ins, then try to have artists ready to fill-in, rather than wait until you're sacrificing both quality (in as much as lack of consistency in art styles) and timeliness.

As Mr. Miyagi said:

"Left side road? OK. Right side road? OK. Middle of road? (SLAP) Squish like grape."

Pick an approach that satisfies timeliness or satisfies quality issues, rather than satisfying neither.

Regarding the use of the multiverse:

DD: The real answer – I just don’t want to approach it in a haphazard manner. Being incredibly candid, I want Grant Morrison to have first crack at it. So realistically, the multiverse is Grant’s toy to play with and use as he likes. I want Grant, when he becomes available, to do the first and best exploration of the mutliverse. He has the best grasp of the concept, and the interpretations that I feel matter.

Geoff did a wonderful job for the Earth-2 story he did in JSA recently, but Grant has so many fabulous ideas for the multiverse that we’re going to wait for him.

That's right. It is an incredibly wise idea to wait for the guy who's work ethic more or less led to you needing to bring in Doug Mahnke to finish Final Crisis and who wants to go off and do Vertigo for awhile. I'm sure we'll get to see that in a reasonable amount of time with the customer base just as anxious and excited to see it.

All that said, I like Didio and think he often gets too much shit from fans (and told him as much at Wizard World Chicago...twice...while drunk). There's just obvious room for improvement.

Ultimate Comics Walk-Up Sales For Oct 15th, 2008

From Lee Newman of Ultimate Comics, the list of top-selling books at one of their locations in North Carolina for what was released on 10/15/08. Pull lists are not included, as this is meant to capture what is being bought off the shelf.

1. Presidential Materials: Barack Obama
2. Amazing Spider-Man #573
3. Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #2
4. Final Crisis: Rogue's Revenge #3
5. Presidential Materials: Flip Book
6. Amazing Spider-Man #573 Stephen Colbert Variant
7. Ultimate Origins #5
8. Presidential Materials: John McCain
9. Scooby Doo #137
10. Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen Special #1

Presidential Material - JUGGERNAUT!!!! Yay, unfortunately this will slow down as I will not be reordering any more, the time is past. If I could guarantee delivery and sales for before the election I would, but to reorder at this point would be fiscally irresponsible (editor's note: did political debate talking points slip in here?)

Amazing-Spiderman - Despite what the interwebs say, when you take Peter Parker put him in his proper setting and thro in Venom and the Green Goblin to boot, he sells comics. Since the Colbert variant was a seperately ordered item all together we had ample quantities and I tracked as if it were another title.

Final Crisis Tie-Ins, these are the best of the bunch and written by Johns, none of the others perform as well. Wonder why that is?

Scooby Doo - Kid's books, if you buy them, they will come. This one often makes the top ten as does Tiny Titans. Now if I could just convince more kids to buy Billy Batson.

Jimmy Olsen - Yeah, have Robinson write a phenomenal comic book and it sells well, even when it ties into the odd Atlas Arc.

Not mentioned in Lee's notes: looks like maybe some readers that left the Ultimate titles are wandering back to see its death and rebirth.

Quite Possibly Fan Reaction To Final Crisis Tie-In Minis

(as in there's a fire burning in the tie-ins when there isn't in the main book)

DC's Hinting Bart Is Coming Back? Really?

Love Rich Johnston's column, Lying in the Gutters. L-O-V-E it. Seriously. I refresh CBR several time, starting around 4pm EST, until I see it pop up. When it is pushed to Tuesday without prior announcement, I think I've double-checked as late as 9pm EST to see if someone just forgot to make it available earlier.

Rich is a busy man that has so many different possibilities of things to cover. So, on occasion, something can seem like a bigger find than it is. For example:

FLASH TALKING

One San Diegoer tells me, "I was waiting at the Aspen booth at Comic-Con getting a sketch done by current Legion Artist Francis Manapul, when Geoff Johns came over and interrupted to talk to him for a second. Johns had a copy of the first trade from his first Teen Titans trade, and handed it to Manapul, which Manapul said, ‘I eventually did get my hands on a copy and read it last night.’ The two of them talked about Bart Allen for a couple of minutes, with Manapul being very complimentary of how he was written. Johns looked around, saw people were watching, and turned his back and the two of them continued to talk inaudibly for about 10 minutes about something before Johns left.

"Combine that with the vague question that Johns asked at one panel: ‘Does anyone miss Bart Allen?’ and there has to be something there."

I dunno. You can't spend ten minutes having a friendly chat without people reading something into it.

Yeah...but...well...

Will they bring back Bart Allen? "You have read the first issue of 'Legion of Three Worlds,' right?" Didio asked, and Johns hid his head in his hands.

"I haven't read it," Wayne said. "It hasn't come out."

"No plans at this time," Didio came back. "How did I cover, Geoff?

Mind you, Hannibal did leave out the "you'll read it now" uttered by Geoff, but the point is still there. Oh, and that was Wizard World Chicago coverage, almost a full month before the little convo the fan overheard at SDCCI.

Happens to the best of us. Thank God that goatse link got pulled down though. Here I stupidly thought it couldn't be too bad since there was no NSFW warning... ;)

(For the record: yes, I've heard of goatse before, but since it wasn't a plain link to the front page, I gave the benefit of the doubt.)

SCHWAPP!!! Final Crisis As Major Event

And here's the second take: looking at Final Crisis as the first issue in a major event meant to shake up and redefine the DC Universe. The event we've been counting down to for a year. The Crisis to end all Crisis...umm...Crisises...Crises! Yeah...that's it...the Crisis to end all Crises.

DC's Legion Shuffling

Rich Johnston reported that Jim Shooter didn't wind up attending the Bristol convention because he's off Legion of Super Heroes. That was news to me.

In a follow-up thread about it in the Lying In The Gutters forums, a CBR poster named Ontire had the following to say:

I'd heard, more than a year ago, that Johns was going to take over shortly after the Bedard run. Shooter was going to come in and do a fill-in, leading up to Final Crisis, and Waid.2 Legion would cross-over with the Legion of the Lightning Saga, leading to Johns returning the Levitz era, pre-Crisis Legion, essentially intact afterwards.

Then, allegedly as a face-saving measure, it was decided that admitting complete failure on the re-launch was a bad move, and Shooter was made permanent, but as they say @ Grace Bros., "Our figures are slipping." So who knows now.

I had heard there was some interest in Geoff's version of the Legion before they even saw print in Lightning Saga or Action, but I never heard that it got anywhere near that sort of planning stage.

SPOILERS: Flash Of Three Worlds?

OK, so Wally West came back directly in the JLA/JSA/LoSH crossover done by Meltzer & Johns.

Now Barry Allen is back in a big way, for who knows how long.

Has anyone thought about that Legion of Super Heroes lightning rod? Has a Flash trapped in it, right?

Process of elimination, people.

Geoff Johns + George Perez + 3(LoSH) = FULL OF WIN

For more of the details, run over to Newsarama to read Vaneta Rogers' excellent interview with Geoff Johns.