That’s exactly what happened to me in 2001 when Dark Knight Strikes Again #3 was ridiculously delayed. I hadn’t been in a comics store in years, and every time I wandered into one looking for that last issue, it still hadn’t shipped and I didn’t bother looking around for anything else because I wasn’t there for comics, I was there for DKSA.

Ryan, great elaboration! I hadn’t thought about all that, but you’re right, it’s a process, not just a single release.

And then, on top of that, you’ve got the DVD cycle to consider: If the film release is delayed, so is the regular DVD; so is the Special Edition DVD. The special edition DVDs came out shortly before the next film; if they come out at the same time, people are too busy with the next film to worry about the last one. And that’s assuming delays on the first film haven’t snowballed, making the second months late. Some of the stars have other commitments, meaning they’re not available to do re-shoots or ADR, or even promotion.

You’ve also got big problems with the toy tie-ins, and the Burger King promotions, which were all set to launch in November. Posters and commercials and trailers all need to be scrapped and re-done.

Never mind the public perception that because the film is delayed, something must be going terribly wrong; how much is that going to cut into the box office?

And then Peter Jackson says “Hey – Do you want a crappy movie in December, or a good one in March? Because the only way you’re going to see Fellowship of the Rings in December is if we replace Elijah Wood with Jason Priestly in half the scenes.”

[...] Yet more Civil War reaction: [...]

Yes, retailers should be trying to sell them something else they’d like, but there’s no obvious answer to that.

Comic publishers don’t have to worry so much about this because comics fans are so used to devoting energy into following the industry (if you follow periodical comics and don’t make yourself a checklist based on the shipping lists, you’ll quickly feel lost) so they don’t have as much of an investment in arrival dates… plus it’s not really the publisher’s imperative to communicate in-store dates to comics buyers, it’s the retailers who are most affected by their customers knowing which new books came out.

Then again, this also leaves retailers with incentive to try to convert their customers to more reliable events like 52. Thirteen weeks in, I wonder if any retailers have considered making discounted starter packs of the early issues.

As for the DC situation, they’re resolving it in the only version that will matter long term: the collection. Should we look at stapled periodicals as “beta tests” for the later, “correct” version?

James, you’re not wrong. It was Brevoort at the end of June. Here’s the post I made about it.

I don’t think Joanna’s comparison to the film industry is as far off as it appears at first blush. If I recall correctly during the ’70s and early ’80s films were sold to the distributors with a firm in theater date set before the film was completed. Releasing a film late left exhibitors in much the same situation as the comic retailers are going to be stuck in due to this delay. In order to prevent that movies would be rushed through completion, leaving us with such classic film flubs as Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The studio made a promise to their retailers and they had to keep it.

On a completely different thought. Am I wrong in remembering a post somewhere out on the comicblogoweb where a Marvel editor was taking s backhanded swipe at DC by pointing out that there were more late books from DC but the Marvel books are the ones that generate the buzz?

My guess? The studios, if they faced such a problem, would force things through, bottom line and release date first and foremost in their minds. Maybe that’s a better policy; we have to ask DC fans, who complained (and still complain) mightily about the fill-in artists and patch-jobs needed to get the last Crisis out in time. So, DC is more professional, and releases an inferior product. Marvel is less so, and sticks to what they claim is the work with more integrity. What’s the better model? Depends who you are.

For fans, it’s a wash; we wait a little longer to spend our money, and we get the artist we were promised. This isn’t about pretensions to “high art”, it’s about getting that product that Marvel said they would deliver. For the retailer, it looks like a rip-off, plain and simple. And so it turns out that the interests of the end-product consumer and mid-level dealer diverge here. Not surprising, even if unfortunate, since we occupy different levels in the food chain.

As a reader, I’d rather they wait and have the whole thing drawn by McNiven. Civil War is unlikely to be as historically important as Dark Knight or Watchmen or whatever other examples people are dredging up, but that doesn’t mean I Need-It-Now-Now-Now-At-All-Costs. It’s fluff entertainment, but that doesn’t mean I want it to look crappy.

After having jumped on the event bandwagon for a bit for nostalgia’s sake with House of M and Infinite Crisis, I’m waiting on the collection with Civil War, even though the idea behind the series appeals more to me than either of the previous two.

The extremely cynical part of me thinks that the more this kind of thing happens and the more people break their monthly habit because of it, the better off the industry will be in the long run. That’s assuming that I think people actually will vote with their money by breaking their monthly habit, which I find extremely unlikely.