Seriously Dynamite....

[Scott M Davis]

Thats the problem with licensed properties. If you can't bring in enough to justify the license fee, you might has well cancel the title. Also, alot of the time, you need to get the story and art approved by the property holders which can lead to massive delays.

You take the good with the bad. Cancellations is just a part of comics, it sucks but unless you are buying 100+ copies, all titles run the risk of it.

[manga4life]

Thanks Simon, for bringing a voice of sanity to what amounts to a bunch of crybaby whining. Nobody likes it, people, but for god's sake, let's act like grown-up adults.

I don't see "crybaby whining" more so than I see heart broken readers who have poured their hard earned cash into a publisher who expects books to sell with no name creative teams attached to them without promoting the books post launch. Again, I've blogged about Dynamite to my many, many readers and I've sung their praises for so long but eventually you have to pull back the curtain and see things for what they are.

Being a part of the Dynamite Defense League (DDL) eventually wears out when you realize that things are not handled as properly as they should be. I still love and support Dynamite, but even my patients is wearing thin and its only a matter of time before the feeling is lost.

[manga4life]

For Simon,

You can launch titles at $1 with great art and a good story all you want, you can even promote the hell out of it, but if you have Joe Shmo and Dick Nobody as the creative team than hardly anyone is going to care. Sure, you'll grab some readers from the fans of the property the book is based upon, and you'll probably grab some Dynamite hardcore fans as well as a few random readers or two but you will never reach a wider audience unless you have a known talent in it. That's why advertising and keeping the property in the limelight is an absolute must.

[pulpfan]

I don't get this complaint. I mean, I understand why this sucks, but I don't understand why you would complaint with Dynamite. If the book sells the book keeps being published. If it doesn't, they can't keep it going by taking money from their own pocket. I used to love Project SuperPowers and Black Terror, but if it wasn't selling enough there's not much I can say. I can't ask someone to spend money so that I can be entertained.

[Scott M Davis]

I don't get this complaint. I mean, I understand why this sucks, but I don't understand why you would complaint with Dynamite. If the book sells the book keeps being published. If it doesn't, they can't keep it going by taking money from their own pocket. I used to love Project SuperPowers and Black Terror, but if it wasn't selling enough there's not much I can say. I can ask someone to spend money so that I can be entertained.

stop making sense.

[positronic]

Life is not fair. You don't always get what you want. That goes for Dynamite as a company, and the readers of those Dynamite titles that just aren't clicking with enough buyers to warrant continuing. Would Dynamite love to see the books they start continue? Assuredly. And so would the readers of those titles that are no longer with us. So really, Dynamite the company and Dynamite fans want EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

So enough with the finger-pointing and "THEY this, THEY that"... Dynamite isn't doing anything to spite its readers, they are doing what they need to do to survive as a company. Nick B. MUST like all these pulp, radio, golden age comic book and comic strip characters, because regardless of the number of books that fail to find an audience, he keeps starting new ones. If he didn't care about this kind of stuff, he'd just toss in the towel and say, "I guess what the world really wants is more books with zombies"... or whatever other popular trend-jumping genre is out there.

Other than pure venting of frustration, I really don't see what purpose these dire pronouncements of "I'm going to quit reading Dynamite" serve. All it serves is to further spread negativity. If you're going to quit, then quit. If there's no ENTERTAINMENT for you any more in Dynamite Entertainment, then go wherever it is that you ARE being entertained. Just go and stop moaning about it or telling us how much better some other company is. No judgments, you are entitled to get your entertainment wherever you feel you can find it. Frankly, it bugs me that I perceive a sort of "ultimatum" aspect to these comments, or a "and if you're smart, you'll quit too" sort of vibe. As if to start some kind of rebellion, and that alone would change the plain fact that the books aren't selling well enough to continue. No, it's more like sowing all this negativity is likely to further hurt sales of these kinds of books. So thanks for that.

If you feel the books are failing where they might otherwise succeed, because Dynamite is failing to deliver quality writing and artwork, then you have a legitimate gripe and something that you can pin the blame on Dynamite for, and not the comic book consuming public. And I wouldn't disagree with that assessment 100% of the time. Some (but only SOME) of the cancelled titles mentioned by Chadster were, I felt, lacking in that department, and so I can see why they failed to catch on -- but this is not the sense I got from his post. No, I get the sense that he was perfectly happy with all those titles as they were; he is blaming Dynamite for not "marketing" those books into the hand of retailers and readers. Which I think is totally off-base.

[Guest]

Thanks Simon, for bringing a voice of sanity to what amounts to a bunch of crybaby whining. Nobody likes it, people, but for god's sake, let's act like grown-up adults.

Simon's kinda great at bringing some clarity to a discussion.

I would add, too, that the end of Flash Gordon: Zeitgeist was not a case of Dynamite saying "We're pulling the plug." I don't remember exactly what issue I was scripting, but I tracked the numbers a bit, and saw the disappointing trend, and knew that there was some desire from DE to do additional books with the King Features characters. I had a very long talk with the book's editor, and pointed out that --as both a fan and a retailer (my wife owns a rather large comic shop in Western Wa.) -- the overabundance of titles on lines like Green Hornet was definitely problematic, and I was concerned that, if multiple titles were competing for your attention, we'd be slowly cutting the throats of ALL of those books, and we decided on issue #10 as an endpoint and built our story accordingly. If we were going to go, then we should go on our own terms, and do our best to go out strong.

Now, it is equally likely that Dynamite had decided to kill the book, and my suggestion to pick our end point was just a coincidence -- I can't speak to that with any authority -- but the intention on my end was not to make the readers pile onto a number of titles, to be both gentler on your wallets and kinder to the properties themselves (which, I can assure you, we all love unreservedly).

I'm sad to leave Flash behind, but the intention and sincere hope is that the ending of Zeitgeist is just a launch pad to the next cool thing.

These are not, as they've been characterized, "wounds" being inflicted, guys. It may be disappointing, but it's not going to send you to the emergency room. Find your calm.

[Chadster]

I'm serious. If The Spider ends up cancelled I will be done. I'm following Dynamite on Twitter and the outsource of love for The Spider toward Dynamite when they asked who everyone though was the best 3 titles published by them were, almost everyone said the Spider. There IS a following that can't and wont be denied.

Do.....not.....cancel. If Spider see's cancellation than I will take my business elsewhere. Yes, all 9 of my Dynamite titles will be let go.

[manga4life]

I won't be "done" with Dynamite if they cancel The Spider, I'll just have a really sour taste in my mouth and they'll be hanging by a thread. I too follow Dynamite on Twitter, actually, Dynamite follows me too and have re-tweeted many of my links from my blog and have held conversations with me on the site and I just went back and re-read some of their re-tweeted posts from today and there was a gazillion "We love The Spider!" tweets when they asked their fans what books they loved best.

Bottom line is this: If Dynamite ends up cancelling The Spider than they simply aren't listening to their fans, regardless of order numbers. Sometimes you have to do right by the readers, any other answer is simply null and void. This is a case of the readers demand to be satisfied and any other option is the wrong one.

[positronic]

I'm serious. If The Spider ends up cancelled I will be done. I'm following Dynamite on Twitter and the outsource of love for The Spider toward Dynamite when they asked who everyone though was the best 3 titles published by them were, almost everyone said the Spider. There IS a following that can't and wont be denied.

Do.....not.....cancel. If Spider see's cancellation than I will take my business elsewhere. Yes, all 9 of my Dynamite titles will be let go.

I'm sure that threats and ultimatums will not keep a comic book that is not earning a profit from being cancelled. Good luck finding the perfect everlasting comic book title that you seek. Perhaps Spider-Man is more up your alley.

[Scott M Davis]

Screw that noise! Cancel The Spider!! Muwhahahahaha!

kidding..

The comic is so ultra noir pulp its depressing but its effing good. Though I do have a complaint about the trade. There so many captions, and word balloons right in the spine. Spent more time trying to read those, then reading the comic.

[manga4life]

I'm sure that threats and ultimatums will not keep a comic book that is not earning a profit from being cancelled. Good luck finding the perfect everlasting comic book title that you seek. Perhaps Spider-Man is more up your alley.

He's somewhat right in this case though. The tweets came pouring in today about how fans of Dynamite love The Spider, not only today but a month back during the "#PulpComics" twitter event that Dynamite did. It shows that the readers are reading and enjoying The Spider and if the voices of the readers are screaming and shouting and Dynamite still chooses not to listen than they deserve to lose the fans they do. With all of the other cancelled titles I have not seen such an uproar of fans coming to those title's rescue, but both on here and on CBR's forums there were dozens of fans who came through with negative comments about anything that had to do with cancelling The Spider and Twitter speaks for itself. If Dynamite chooses not to listen to the cries of their readers than shame on them.

[comixfan1980]

He's somewhat right in this case though. The tweets came pouring in today about how fans of Dynamite love The Spider, not only today but a month back during the "#PulpComics" twitter event that Dynamite did. It shows that the readers are reading and enjoying The Spider and if the voices of the readers are screaming and shouting and Dynamite still chooses not to listen than they deserve to lose the fans they do. With all of the other cancelled titles I have not seen such an uproar of fans coming to those title's rescue, but both on here and on CBR's forums there were dozens of fans who came through with negative comments about anything that had to do with cancelling The Spider and Twitter speaks for itself. If Dynamite chooses not to listen to the cries of their readers than shame on them.

I do most of the work on the Dynamite Twitter and you are absolutely right. Well said! Whenever a book is facing cancellation there has been little in the way of fans being vocal about its survival, but as soon as Nick made the comments he made about The Spider It seemed like the Internet erupted with fan support for it to stay.

[Scott M Davis]

I do most of the work on the Dynamite Twitter and you are absolutely right.

Its an inside job!

[manga4life]

Its an inside job!

Well, he does work for Dynamite. I don't think Dynamite would just hand over their Twitter account to some random fan, lol. But he's right, the support for the book is there and it's found a dedicated and vocal audience that demands more, if Dynamite fails to see that or chooses not to see that than it's a direct slap in the face to everyone who spoke up.

I think Dynamite is smart enough not to do that, or at least I'd hope they'd be smart enough.