"Even if it were Moore's fault, I think we could cut him some slack: who else is capable of scripting four titles a month, one of them broken up into 3-4 separate stories, for seven or eight differen artists, and keeping the quality as high as it is?"

Apparently not Alan Moore, since he's *not* scripting four titles a month. If the books were coming out on time, THEN he'd be scripting 4 titles a month.

We geezers remember the interminable wait between the last few issues of WATCHMEN. I was thinking Alan had bit off more work than he could chew when ABC first announced it's lineup. Looks like I might have been right.

Which isn't to say the stuff isn't phenomenally great stuff when it arrives.



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"The worst thing I can imagine is to be forgotten when I'm dead."
--- some dead guy

Howard Price
Staff Writer
TheComicStore.com

>>"Even if it were Moore's fault, I think we could cut him some slack: who else is capable of scripting four titles a month, one of them broken up into 3-4 separate stories, for seven or eight differen artists, and keeping the quality as high as it is?"

Apparently not Alan Moore, since he's *not* scripting four titles a month. If the books were coming out on time, THEN he'd be scripting 4 titles a month.<<

If he writes four scripts within the space of a month and not all of them are turned into published comics at the same time, it doesn't mean he didn't write those four scripts within the space of a month. I might give your theory more credence if it weren't for the stories about him writing an issue of Swamp Thing in a day and being a full year ahead of schedule on Supreme. (Of course, by now he's more like two years ahead of schedule on that...)

[This message has been edited by Sean Medlock (edited 02-25-2000).]

My understanding was that LOEG was completely scripted before we ever saw issue one.

Re: Moore

He owns the line of books in question; if he hired artists he KNEW couldn't maintain a monthly schedule, it's still his fault.

There were two solutions--different artists, or a different announced schedule--both of which were under Moore's control.

Re: the general question of late books and who's responsible

Frankly, Mark (and Nat and others), the readers and retailers don't give a rat's ass whether Jane Artist or Joe Writer is responsible or whether either of them was asked by the publisher to take on another assignment. (The answer to that one is, of course, turn down the extra assignment if you can't handle both in a timely fashion.)

What the readers and retailers want is the books when they were promised them by the solicitations. I fail to see why so many of the modern generation of creators find that so hard to understand. Is that kind of professionalism dead in the modern comics business?

Best, Pat

Im still with Pat completely on this one. He's right!

With all due respect to everyone involved, the only one here who has exhibited any understanding of what really goes on in the trenches is (as usual) Mark.

A book can be late for a zillion reasons, and many of these involve the publishers or the editors. I've worked on Marvel books where the artist was late because the editor who was supposed to send him references had not done so, and I had to do it.

To use LEAGUE as an example, my understanding of the situation is that the book allegedly wasn't supposed to be listed by the publisher until 4 issues were completed.

Instead it was listed when issue 2 was barely finished, if at all. And that date was allegedly a full six months earlier than the earliest date initially contemplated for the 4 issues to have been done. So according to at least one party, LOEG wasn't late, the publisher was early.

Unless you know what is really going on on a project, you know nothing, and you should not start allocating blame and sanctions.

Jeez.

JM

I can just imagine Joe, or Jane, Artists reaction when, after suffering some tragedy in their lives, being told their page rates are being cut cuz they're late with some work.

I agree with JM, until you know the exact reasons for anything that happens behind the scenes, a 'punishment plan' would do no good.


Now if you want to implement something to punish those 'hot' artists that publish 1 book a year, cuz they play damn video games all the time. Geez, what do they make like $10,000 a page they can play games all day.

Not all books are late because of the creators, and not all the causes of a late book are aboveboard.

A few years back I was the inker on a short-lived series. The editor wanted a buddy of hers to ink the book instead of me, but she had a little problem. The book was creator-owned, and the writer and penciller both insisted on keeping me on as inker. So she proceeded to sit on pages as they came in from the penciller (while telling me she didn't know why he wasn't getting the work in) and then she would dump them on me at the last minute (while telling the penciller she didn't know why I wasn't getting the pages back to them on time). All of this done simply to make her buddy seem a more attractive choice as inker.

Needless to say, this played havoc with the book's release dates, and the book was cancelled in short order anyway, but this is the type of mindset you sometimes deal with in the comic industry, so don't be so quick to ascribe blame only to the creators of a late book.

Pat said: >>Re: Moore He owns the line of books in question; if he hired artists he KNEW couldn't maintain a monthly schedule, it's still his fault.<<

Alan owns the line and hired the artists? I'd be interested in where you came by this information (since it goes against everything in the contract Alan and I signed with WILDCTORM and all my subsequent experiences with ABC).




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You know, as I'm reading the messages posted here, I'm beginning to feel like the comics industry is a lot like the rest of the world. Things happen, books are late, fans and retailers either stop buying or they don't.

"Mistakes were made, others will be blamed" goes a popular saying around my workplace.

However, if I was consistently late doing my job month after month, how long do you think I would last in that job? I'm a cook at a small lunchtime restaurant at a Big 12 University. If I couldn't deliver lunch to visiting professors quickly, my restaurant would suffer, and I, likely, would be moved to another job within the system where I would have less responsibility, if I were not let go altogether.

My point is this: money has to be made when we work. Whether we feel like we are capable or not, no one should take on more work than he, she or it can handle. (When do computers crash?) There needs to be a reality check at some level with talent. Can they reasonably do however many pages each month? The creators and editors need to be honest with each other. I'm sure that it DOES happen, the perception is that it might not happen enough. The examples above prove the point that it works both ways.

I still think that miniseries should not even be announced, let alone solicited, until the work is more than halfway done. Publishers are guilty on that one, sometimes, again, as noted above.

So I guess it's true in every sort of job, if mistakes are made, others WILL be blamed by people, whether they know the situation or not. The perception is that if it's late, the star talent has to take the responsibility. They get the glory if it ships on time, right? Right or wrong, perception is all.

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Jason Arnett
Jackleg Writer
jack_leg@hotmail.com