Big Brass Ones

Let's see...

You just lost your artist to a competing publisher. The writer was overworked and chose this book to drop. You move a writing duo on to the book that has mostly been writing Vertigo stuff and one of the group had their previous super-hero book cancelled for low sales.

Then, before you can get any real sales feedback from the consumers (via retailers adjusting their orders over a few months), you create a spin-off title with the least heralded of the two writers (he of the cancelled super-hero book).

It takes HUGE BALLS to try to bleed the fans left on that book by trusting that enough of them will stick around on the original and buy the new title. I didn't know they allowed wheelbarrows in DC editorial.

Maybe There Is Hope For JSA After All...

From Bill Willingham's comments in his own blog up on Big Hollywood/Breitbart:

Full Metal, yes, I will be writing the JSA starting soon (I’m not entirely sure just at the moment which issue will be my first, and I’m too lazy to walk across the room and look it up), along with my frequent writing partner Matt Sturges. This will indeed be the first test to see if I can hold to my guns. And since JSA is a DC company owned series my only real weapon is the last resort kind. If they insist on imposing too many changes from above, ones that would corrupt my shiny new mission statement, then I’d have to reluctantly walk.

This is the first time I'm rooting for editorial interference.

The actual opinion put forth in the blog itself only strengthen my desire to see Willingham & Sturges off/never on JSA.

I Know I Hibernated For A Few Weeks...

But when did putting Willingham and Sturges on JSA after a bunch of fill-in issues become a smart decision?

Thank God I found out about this move by listening to the Funny Book Babylon podcast. It helps to have the source of the info already railing on how stupid an idea it is.

You know, Willingham is a great pick. I mean, who doesn't want half of the team working on DCU: Decisions to get on JSA ASAP? Or the guy who wasted away the last few issues of the Blue Beetle series on a gimmick immigration story (after, as the FBB guys point out, the series had a few flailing fill-ins before Sturges settled in)?

And did one of them actually argue that the JSA is a lot like FABLES, only without talking animals?

Ugh.

Blue Beetle Canceled

Thought I'd share a quick bit regarding Didio's announcement regarding Blue Beetle:

One of the books that I’m most disappointed about in that regard is a book like Blue Beetle, which we are cancelling. That’s a book that we started with very high expectations, but it lost its audience along the way. Recently, we felt that it was standing on firmer ground, and was getting a more positive response. The problem is that the firmer ground and positive response is not enough to keep the book afloat. So unfortunately, we had to cancel that series.

You put Matt Sturges on the book and pretty much immediately had an arc about illegal immigration/border-crossing. When that happens right after a writer change, it feels a little dubious. If it happened in the middle of Rogers' run, I wouldn't have raised a brow. If it happened after a half year of the new team, maybe I'd be fine with it. But it turned me off immediately to where I dropped it quickly.

I can deal with message books, but not when they're heavy-handed. Blame Winick, but I've been made very wary of the overall quality of a story in a message book. Having it be about the first thing of an announced new direction (right after the Spanish language gimmick issue), didn't send signals that would leave me hopeful.

SCHWAPP!!! Week 21.2: Salvation Run #4 & Suicide Squad #6