As more and more details about the DC relaunch leak out, one of the things that’s emerging is how unevenly the creative teams for the book seem to have been selected. Both Fabian Nicieza and Scott Lobdell have talked about being taken out for lunch and offered books by Jim Lee and Bob Harras, but other creators were seemingly asked to write titles, not necessarily knowing that other creators were being asked the very same thing for the very same books (Apparently, having previously worked for Harras is a good thing in the new DC). But if that already seems a little unfair, Kelly Sue DeConnick sheds a little more light on the pitch process, blogging about DC’s requests for her to pitch:
The first was to pitch on an ongoing. I declined because I was hip deep in work at the time and the turnaround they needed was just impossible for me. (I can’t remember exactly, but I think it was a day or two for the pitch and then a week and half for the first script–which would have been doable if I could have dropped everything and started immediately, but I had Castle pages due, another project you don’t know about yet, and Supergirl still on my plate!)
A day or two for the pitch? A week and a half for the first script? Assuming that DeConnick wasn’t an especially late invite to the whole process – which is, admittedly, a potential jump – that’s an amazingly short amount of time to get things done. Cue sinking feeling about just how well-planned the reborn DCU will end up being…
June 14th, 2011 at 6:50 am
I’m afraid you’ve nailed it re: well-planned. I think this stinks of throw shlop against the wall and seeing what sticks.
I’m sure DC’s rationale is they had to keep things quiet before the announcements and that meant a lot of sneaky-type planning – but rushing together concepts like this doesn’t bode well.
If anything it reduces the total buy-in creators need to have when taking on a character not of their own making. Editorial edict has been the DC way for a long time now – hence their sales #. Maybe someone should learn to let go of THAT concept instead of just erasing continuity every-now-n-then just so more editors can monkey around with things to prove their usefulness.