Shazam Returns? Wither Batman: Earth One? (UPDATE)

Update: Well, no sooner did I post this than stumbled upon better coverage of the convention that demonstrated that BATMAN: EARTH ONE is, indeed, still coming and Amazon has it for pre-order.

Original article:
If you check The Source, Captain Marvel is coming back.

The team doing it? Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. It starts as a backup feature in Justice League, but this is the same team that was supposed to have completed the Batman: Earth One by now, with no word of its completion or scheduled publication coming out.

Honestly, if I had to pick one, I'd go with the CURSE OF SHAZAM project (even if the "curse" part has me a bit worried), despite my strong interest in the Batman: Earth One OGN.

DC has been remarkably quiet about the previously planned OGNs, as far as I can see.

DC'S Earth One Books No Longer OGNs?

Man, I can't believe I missed this and had to have it pointed out by a friend.

From CBR:

The last question went to Straczynski. The fan asked whether the writer plans on continuing the "Earth One" stories. The writer revealed that the hardcover release will be followed up with by single issues, which will later be collected.

Apparently, after the first Earth One Superman OGN, following volumes will be serialized in comic book form and then collected. So...the OGN/bookstore thing goes flying away before it even gets started.

Were pre-orders that low? Are the folks at DC that lacking in testicular fortitude that they can't wait to see how it performs for a bit before announcing a switch to serialized-into-collected traditional publishing?

How hard is it to at least wait until you're coming close to the time where you have to solicit the work from the second volume before you reveal to the world that you have no faith in this OGN idea?

There's phrasing at Newsarama that makes it sound possible that they're talking about publishing the OGN, publishing as single issues and then collecting it again (maybe with added material or something?), but that sounds about as unlikely as it sounds stupid.

Last question concerns the format of Earth One, which JMS reports will come out as a hardcover, then individual issues, then be collected again. Fan: "That's extremely confusing." "To both of us," JMS said with a chuckle.

I don't know. I was impressed that they were going to try this OGN thing for awhile, with their most marketable characters in an interesting project. But if they're ready to bail out on it before it has even hit shelves, that says more negative about DC as a publisher than the initial plan said positively about them.

Samaritan X?

Wow...JMS just seems to be mixed up in all kinds of questionable decisions lately.

I love the idea of original graphic novels. I was one of the first to buy Son of the Demon at my local comic shop back in the day. I love this sort of thing.

But one of your few forays into in-continuity OGNs is...about a Gotham hospital?

This is the kind of project with a severely limited initial audience that seems destined to have a poor sales performance and lead to corporate thinking of "well, we tried an in-continuity OGN and it failed, so no point in trying it again" while completely disregarding the fact that you picked a project with very limited initial appeal.

I get that it might be critically acclaimed and generate further printing and extended sales. But it seems silly to put out a project like this in a format that you don't regularly do a lot of business with when initial sales expectations have to be low. Putting out a project where you have to hope that word of mouth starts to grow the sales seems like something you do AFTER you become a little more comfortable producing OGNs on a regular basis.

I'd love to see more OGNs. I'm disappointed in this announcement because history tells me that this isn't going to sell in large numbers out of the gate and will likely be used to dismiss calls for more in-continuity OGN projects in the future.