Basement X

After the latest walk-offs from DC, someone compiled a timeline showing how DC has been driving away it's artists since this whole shebang with the new 52 started.

http://guttersandpanels.com/gutters-and ... departures

It's a wonderfully streamlined view of a trainwreck

Great read, a few things I forgot or didn't know about (never even heard of Insurgent, great job advertising that, DC). It's not updated to include Brian Wood leaving Supergirl.

Wood was on Supergirl? I didn't know that. I would have actually read that again.

There were plans for him to helm the title once it was rebooted in 2011, he had worked out a year's worth of plot points and even a few scripts finished, yet they decided to go with someone else instead of him without really telling him. He can't describe what happened but said that he did not turn down the job, which leads everyone to believe he was fired after doing all that work.

Ah ok. So he didnt actually write a published Superhirl title. I still would have read it if he had. I loved the book pre-New 52 but the direction it looked to be going post pushed me away.

But I left Batwoman when Rucka was no longer attached, and the 2nd arc was too jumbled to follow. I don't think I even finished the first year on it sadly.

Wood was supposed the writer of the New52 Supergirl.

Wood's Northlanders title was also cancelled despite maintaining strong sales numbers.

What's especially dissapointing about this entire ordeal is that Jim Lee laid he blame squarely at the feet of the creators & artists who either left or were fired from the titles without acknowledging any responsibility, however small, on DC's part.

8/1/2013 - DC heads Dan Didio and Jim Lee address the editorial troubles. "I think it’s actually been a little bit less in the last decade than it’s ever been," Didio said, which dodges the question of just what the heck is going on over there right now. Jim Lee is more direct, but throws creatives under the bus a little for not being able to properly collaborate, "To me it’s the normal course of business in that not everyone’s going to agree creatively what to do with a book. The company has to reserve the right to control the destiny and the futures of the characters, and the creators have to decide if they’re willing to work in an environment where they’re telling their story but in the framework of a universe that has continuity and you have to work with all of these other different creators and editors that would want to control the directions of the characters." This doesn't explain how these same creatives are able to collaborate as work-for-hire elsewhere.

The company does reserve the right to dictate the direction of the characters and creators and editors must always find a way to collaborate but many of the creators cite specific grievances against DC such as unfulfilled or broken promises and numerous last minute decisions and changes that fly in the face of reason and logic and were difficult to execute given the short deadline. And the last line says it best: how is it that these problems are so prevalent at DC but not elsewhere.

And Didio is talking out of his ass when he says the editorial problems faced this past decade were smaller. Most of these editorial problems aren't from this decade; they're from the last 2 years.

I definitely do see Lee's point on the character's being the final property of the company rather than creators, but it's exactly as you said: Why is this such a big issue at DC suddenly, and not Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, or anywhere else? Out of no where, massive creator exits, complaints, and all out arguments have erupted from (now former) DC Creative employees. Why isn't this going on to the same extent at other companies? Are Image and Marvel making their talent happier than DC? Or are those companies just better at hiding their creator-editorial disagreements to avoid public discourse?

It definitely seems like DC is just having more trouble with this than anyone else. Perhaps due to the entire line-wide relaunch being planned (most likely) behind the backs of most creators who were eventually involved until the last minute possible, forcing many to go in directions they were unaware of or unwilling to do so. Maybe if creators had a greater input in the original process things could have been different.