DC Comics announced the signing of writer Gail Simone to an exclusive contract.  Simone, who has had a very successful run on Birds of Prey, will finish up her commitments to Bongo comics, but will not take on any additional work for publishers other than DC.  In addition to Birds of Prey she will be doing other projects for DC including a stint on JLA and a chance to write an as yet unnamed major DC book.  The signing of Simone indicates that DC EIC Dan Didio is not varying from his strategy of signing top talent to exclusive contracts.  While Simone does not have the extensive credits of some of DC's other signees, she is definitely an up and comer with loads of potential.

Meanwhile veteran scribe Warren Ellis, who was one of the first writers to go exclusive with DC, has delivered the final installment of his 1100-page exclusive deal with DC.  Ellis was offered an extension, but deferred a decision for six months, opting for free agency, at least at this time.  Ellis has a number of projects with DC that will come out over the next year including eight issues of a new main line DC title, two scripts for Desolation Jones, as well as Planetary #21.  In an email message explaining his move to free agency, Ellis praised DC as 'the only New York publisher I'm interested in work with, because they're the only ones supporting original creator-owned work.'  But missing recent opportunities to work with international comic creators of the caliber of Jacques Tardi and Suehiro Maruo obviously pushed Ellis in the direction of maintaining his independence.