As reported by Comics Should Be Good, writer/artist David Lapham has announced the impending cancellation of DC/Vertigo’s brilliant Young Liars title with August’s #18. On Jason Aaron’s Standard Attrition message board, Lapham told fans, “Got word yesterday. 18 will be the last. There will be plenty of mind blowing shit in every issue till the last.”
Regular readers know that Blog@ usually carries a Q&A feature with Lapham on the title right after new issues hit monthly; that feature will resume on Monday with a look at last week’s Young Liars #14 and follow through to the end. The delay is unrelated to cancellation. In this week’s podcast, Lapham addressed the notion of cancellation, saying that he had a plan in place so that “if DC came to me and asked, ‘What’s the minimum that you need?’…” he had an ending in mind. On the message board, though, he said, “I’m not going to try and force my ‘ultimate’ ending in there but we will have an end, and as this is a series of endings, I can hold out hope that one day I may see it through to the end I had intended be the end, end.”
Ironically with all the talk of endings, Lapham shares real estate on the Standard Attrition site with Brian Azzarello, of the recently-concluded 100 Bullets fame. With the departure of these titles, I’m no longer reading any Vertigo books on a monthly basis (though I do buy Scalped and Fables in trade).
April 17th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Awww, darn it.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:05 am
yay!! bad news
April 17th, 2009 at 9:33 am
That’s really disappointing. I normally buy my Vertigo books in trades (for ideal bus-reading), but this was one I really wanted to support every month so I’ve been buying the issues as well as trades. It was a great comic that I’ll really miss. I hope that David Lapham is very proud of this book, I thought it was really great.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:53 am
I am totally gutted about this. YOUNG LIARS is exactly the sort of thing that I look for from an imprint like Vertigo. In fact, the way books like this tend to flounder in the current market is exactly why I think the model for periodicals will have to change. I know a few people who dropped YL from their pull list pretty early and only jumped back on when I virtually forced them to sit down on my couch and read the first six issues in a row. It’s not a bite-size style book, it has its own internal rhythms and consistancies and their easy to over look when reading at a rate of 22 pgs every four weeks.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Damn. “they’re” not “their”. You know what I mean.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:57 am
wow, it seems like vertigo just can’t keep things together. Trades are the way I usually buy things. I’m not a teen anymore, I can’t afford constant subscriptions a month.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
That’s unfortunate. I’ve really been enjoying YL.
On the bright side…
Lapham should now have a bit of spare time to work on Stray Bullets!
April 17th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
marcus, unfortunately I don’t think it’s ever been a strictly time concern that keeps him from SB. You’ve got to get paid, too!
April 17th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
i’m sadden by the news. enjoyed the series quite a bit.
April 18th, 2009 at 6:55 am
I’m sorry to see this happen but I’m also kind of disappointed that whenever a worthwhile series (especially a Vertigo or Vertigo-style series) ends, there is blame that fans failed to support it on a monthly, single-issue level. Most Vertigo titles read better as trades, were written for the trade, and are purchased by adults in bookstores who prefer trades and have little to no interest in the superhero-dominated direct market. Why is it that the success or failure of any Vertigo series is contingent upon its success in a market it’s not designed for? Isn’t there a failure on the part of publishers to integrate themselves into a market more friendly to this type of material? Should readers shoulder the entire blame for a series like this (or LOVELESS, just to give another example) dying prematurely?
I guess what I’m asking, and sorry if I’m on a tangent, is why I or any other fan should feel sorry for not supporting the single-issue floppy format when so many creators are interested in creating material better suited to long-form editions and so many readers are interested in reading material in this format as well? Not that it’s a problem on this thread specifically but there are frequently cries of “God, this was so brilliant and would have lived if monthly sales were higher… you idiots waiting for the trade really screwed up everything” out on the internet. Why not lay more blame on the publisher and their absurd relationship with the direct market?
Sorry to digress.
April 18th, 2009 at 7:14 am
Or, now that I think about it, am I wrong entirely? Does DC take trade paperback/bookstore sales into account when making determinations about cancellation? Because they ought to. In fact, they should just go direct to OGN with a lot of the Vertigo material because it’s a waste to expect the spandex-only crowd to be interested in a series like this.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:48 pm
D.Peace makes some good points, I just wish that Vertigo would do more seasons / a set issues of issues instead of ongoing series, that way series would get finished without feel rushed.