This not being my first rodeo and/or not having just fallen off of a turnip truck (feel free to add your preferred antiquated expression for "I've been around a while" here), I was not surprised when it was announced that there were going to be some long delays in Marvel’s Secret Wars (see "Marvel Delays Hit Collections, 'Secret Wars'"). This sort of thing (what was once known as "The Dreaded Deadline Doom") has, unfortunately, become standard operating procedure for the publisher when it comes to their major events. But what I don't think I'll ever fully get used to is when a mainstream media publication like The Hollywood Reporter takes notice of something which once was the exclusive province of The Comic Book Reader.*
Stories about movies, toys, cartoons based on comics, sure, but when news about comic book publishing makes the trades there's still a bit of mental whiplash. On June 14 there was a piece by Graeme McMillan: "When Titans Miss Deadlines: What Marvel's 'Secret Wars' Schedule Slip Really Means." It does a pretty good job of unpacking the situation for non-comic readers and retailers, that being the fourth, fifth and sixth issues of Secret Wars will be late two, five and three weeks, respectively. Plus 73 (!) upcoming ancillary tie-in titles will be missing their ship dates.
As to what it "Really Means," retailers Joshua Christiansen, marketing managing for retail chain Things From Another World and Colin McMahon of Pittsburgh Comics were interviewed and both pretty much agree that most likely these delays won't affect sales. And not surprisingly I concur. This is going to frustrate retailers and disappoint fans (and you can include me in both categories; here's a confession, I was actually enjoying Secret Wars) but not enough for them to stop buying the comics when they finally do come out. Sadly, this is just business as usual. And it really shouldn't be.
Because this is, frankly, embarrassing. I can't think of any other form of entertainment where this kind of delay would be tolerated, but in comics, it seems to happen again and again without any kind of consequences. Not being omniscient I don't know what exactly caused these delays, though the most likely suspect is artists or writers that were unable to meet their deadlines. And I won’t presume to tell Marvel how to fix it, other than to repeat what I wrote way back in 2006 when Civil War #4 was delayed (see "Confessions Of A Comic Book Guy--Well, At Least He Said He's Sorry"). One way to avoid this kind of situation in the future would be to create a sufficiently long lead time so there would be more issues of an upcoming series in-house before the first issue comes out.
The major problem with this, of course, is they would have to pay for those extra issues and the standard argument against that would be, of course, to plead poverty. And given Marvel's checkered financial history there have been times in the past when they could have convincingly made that argument. Of course, that's a little harder to do at the moment, given that they're owned by Disney and Marvel movies are literally making millions. And failing poverty there's always economy; being late is certainly cheaper than actually doing something about it.
In any other business, this sort of failure to launch a major new brand would result, at the very least, in a shakeup of management or changes in the methods of production. And given the amount of mainstream attention this is getting I would like to think that Disney would be embarrassed enough to at least look into what happened. But somehow I doubt it. It's a lot more likely that we'll all, once again, have to accept that this is just how the American comic book industry works.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.