Lateness Can Really Put A Cramp In A Comic’s Momentum
The recent release of Peter Panzerfaust #24 and Bitch Planet #9 has got me thinking about the one sure fire thing, guaranteed to make me drop a comic from my pull list: lateness.
I never dropped Peter Panzerfaust. I really like the book; which is the story of Peter Pan with the setting changed to World War Two, but it did make me drop Kurtis J. Wiebe. Wiebe is the writer of Peter Panzerfaust, Rat Queens and Pisces from Image and Bounty from Dark Horse. I name these four comics specifically because they represent the timeline of my resentment to this writer.
Panzerfaust come out in 2012 and I ordered it because I wanted to read a war comic. It took me way too long to clue in to the pun that gives the book it’s title, but the book itself is very straight faced about it’s approach to the story. In 2013 Wiebe came out with Rat Queens, a high fantasy book about a team of all women adventurers dealing with problems both personal and monstrous; sometimes both. I loved that book. It was funny, had an amazing balance between the personal and physical battles the characters had to deal with and had great art. Not long after Rat Queens debuted both it and Panzerfaust started running into shipping delays.
With Rat Queens, the artist, Roc Upchuch, ran into legal issues involving spousal abuse, which put the book on hold. Why this would hold up the publication of Panzerfaust I couldn’t tell you and most of this information wasn’t forth coming either. I didn’t know about the allegations involving Upchuch for months after Rat Queens failed to make it’s deadline. So, Rat Queens was late, Panzerfaust was late and Wiebe announced a new sci-fi book, Pisces. I can’t tell you what Pisces is about because at that time all I was seeing was Wiebe put books out, but not finishing anything; which was especially galling with Panzerfaust because they had announced that it was ending with 25, but it’s been at least a year between when 24 should have come out and we’re still waiting for the final issue. Earlier this year Wiebe announced another new book, Bounty, a sci-fi story about female bounty hunters, but as of now my rule is I don’t order another Wiebe book until either Panzerfaust or Rat Queens ends.
Bitch Planet is a sci-fi, women in prison comic from Kelly Sue DeConnick, first released 2014. When it was first being advertized they were billing it as a feminist exploitation comic, which was all I needed to hear to add it to my pull. The first two issues arrived on time, but then the third issue was several months late. When I finally got to sit down to read it there was an essay explaining why the book was late and while I didn’t agree with why the book should have been late, she wants her book to be a certain way. I can dig it, but I’m not sure a single issue of that book since issue two has shipped on time. I dropped it with issue ten; I might come back to it if the issues I haven’t gotten to read prove to me that it’s worth going back and even then I would restrict myself to the trade collection so that I don’t have these starts and stops to the story.
These people have personal lives, they have families and friends that they want to spend time with and need to care for. They are human beings that have to eat and sleep and get sick and hurt and arrested. On that front Image Comics needs to inform the public better about why some comics are late and others aren’t. And doing these articles taught me that words don’t come to you just because you’ve got the computer on, but that doesn’t mean you don’t bite down and get it done.
