Great first issue JB and Gail. I enjoyed it a lot .everything about the issue was "right on"

I think it has become "kewl" to complain about my "non-linear" storytelling.

For what it's worth, my pal Brian Vaughan took a lot of heat for that during his "Swamp Thing" run, so it's not just you. 

I think people just like to complain.

John D - well, I appluade your effort.  I used to manage a retail store that dealt with periodicals, and I used to gripe on here and other boards that the only reason our business didn't carry comics was that REAL businesses don't work with pisant nickle and dimers like Diamond, who don't allow returns.*

I also used to begrudgingly admitt that a poor retailer who can't return books shouldn't have to take a chance on something that isn't going to sell.  Each copy of LabRats that sits on the shelf is money he spent that's money lost.  I mean, that's what the anit-byrne people are saying, anyway...

Untill the stupidity of that hit me - you don't walk into a comic shop on Thursday and see rows and rows of empty shelves, and then 3 copies of Doom Patrol.  No, you see racks and racks and shelves and shelves and isles of unsold books.  ALL those books are money spent that's lost, in the short term.  But in the days before the mass proliferation of TPBs, that was ok, since the whole gimmick of a comic shop was that they took that unsold unreturnable material and created a back-issue inventory, which they could even mark up and sell for higher ammounts....(even that... you ever stop to think about all the National Geographics you pick up from used book stores for a quarter, and compare that to charging $3 for an issue of New Mutants, and start to think of a goose and a golden egg?)

Now that TPBs are the standard, there is no reason for comic shops to even exist.   Except that somehow, Diamond has a monopoly on comics**, and no retailer outside of comic shops will deal with them.

I may be crazy with my love of Bruce Campbell, KISS, and Hot Dog Pie, but I'm not so nutty when I say that comics are dead.

But, if you think you can breathe life into that old corpse... well, power to you.  I'd shop at your shop.  I love coffee, I love magazines and I love John Byrne's stuff, so it sounds like my kind of place. 

Gail is playing it very smart by trying to keep all sides happy, but I think she's wrong - I think the retailers are fully to blame here.  It's no suprise that JLA, Action and now Atom will sell out - the stores aren't ordering it, because "Byrne doesn't sell", and the first time, it was understandable, but now?  At this point?  And considering how the market works?  I have no sympathy for these businessfolk.  Thier sad little bigotries are the cause here.  When the chickens come home to roost, and their stores close, I'll shed no tears for them. 

Ah, but having said that, and before retailers start dusting off the red sweaters... there are some good ones... we've heard about a few on this thread, on others, I like my guy, and John D has some good ideas.  My rant goes out to the bad ones.  If you are a retailer, before you get your panties in a knot over what I've said, stop and question if I'm actually talking about you.  If you don't let bigotry rule your orders, then don't get mad at this.  I'm not talking about you.   Unclench.  If I am talking about you... go ahead and scream back.  Don't order my book.  Do whatever.  Then, when you're spent, and you clean the mess off of your keyboard... stop and consider if your business practices are helping or hurting you.  When you deny a Byrne customer, that's money lost.   Just as much as all those copies of Infinity Crisis and 52 sitting on your shelf are money lost.  Instead of complaining, follow in John D's path, and try a new business model.  And, if you are one of the retailers I'm venting at, can you honestly tell me you love diamond?  I hate to talk of organizing here... but good retailer, bad retailer... you could all come together and strike against Diamond.  Wouldn't even hurt your sales - it's not like anyone reads the floppies anymore anyway, and you can get all your trades from INGRAM or Baker and Taylor or Bookpeople or whomever.   Something to think about.

*not entirely true - we took a few foreign mags that we basically bought, and a few others, but like... we wouldn't order Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, etc, if they weren't returnable, nor would we deal with the books, records, dvds, etc that we dealt with if they weren't returnable.

** "But Mike!", you ask, "I see Superman and Archie at Safeway [or Krogers or Albertsons, or the Pigglywiggly or Winn Dixie or whatever] all the time!  howcum?"  Because INGRAM, the leading dealer in magazines, among other things (video, too!), has a small handfull of comics they distribute - Archie, Superman, Spider-Man, X-Men and whatever is being made into a movie this season.  It's a small niche and good luck finding a real book in the mix.

You know, I remember Mike Carlin saying at the time that JB's JLA arc sales numbers were flirting with Jim Lee's Batman numbers...and I'm fairly certain that the title never returned to those numbers after JB's story was done.

MPH

"Gail is playing it very smart by trying to keep all sides happy"

Please. I'm a relatively simple person and generally say exactly what I mean. I have tremendous sympathy for the honorable job of retailing comics.

Except for whoever it was who said they wouldn't buy John's comics for customers that want them. That's just insulting.

Gail

"What was "non-linear" about GENERATIONS? As to ATOM, those are Gail's scripts. I'm just the art robot."

I think I meant GENERATIONS III.  Was that the one where the story went backwards, for lack of a better phrase?

Mike 

I'm not implying that you were being sneaky, Gail.  But what you said was smart. 

I do think there are less and less of the honorable types you're speaking of, but I suppose if you and I were to see the same glass, you'd say it's half-full and I'd say "I LICK JOHN'S BOOTS" etc and so on...

Well... the anti-Byrne people wouldn't lie, would they?

But... speaking of which.. JB, after I took over Joe's shift of sweeping your beard trimmings, I went for my daily boot licking, and couldn't help but notice that the normal sandlewood taste was replaced by a minty... almost pine taste... I tremble before your greatness and am ashamed to ask such things of my lord and master, but... whycum?

This falls under the category of "if they're going to lie about me, I may as well have fun with it..."

"My sales recently suggest otherwise, Stéphane."

JB, this is a glass half-empty approach.  Look at your projects since your return to DC.

You have knowledge of actual sales numbers were fans only have estimates.  To me, it looks like your biggest successes at DC this time around have been JLA and Action.  Is this a suprise?  No.  Jim Lee can sell boat-loads of Batman and Superman.  How many Coup D' Etats did he move? 

How many orders of Doom Patrol #1 did you have versus Arcudi's #1?  By the end of both series were sales the same?  If so, doesn't the blame lie with the fact that the characters are not popular.  When Morrison gave his Comics Journal interview, he claimed the book was always near cancellation.  This fact was even mentioned in the letter pages when the book went Mature Only.

IIRC, did you not offer DC Next Men?  When they asked for something new they green lit Lab Rats.  JB, if the average reader of comics is at least in their teens, which villain do you think people would want to read about, Sathannus or Ma Goose.  (I know she wasn't the real villain, but hopefully you can see my point.)

If you are the head of DC and Green Lantern is hot for the first time in 10 years, but you cannot put out a monthly issue, wouldn't you hire an artist with a track record of improving sales on existing characters and who can get the book out on time?  I would.

Are you competing with yourself?  Yes, you have thirty years worth of AVAILABLE work in print.  I'm guilty of this.  I wouldn't buy your Doom Patrol because of Grunt and because Cliff no longer was the character who kept living while everyone around him died.  Guess what, I still flip through the Secret Origins Annual and Superman #20 and The Tenth Circle.

Are you the hottest name in comics?  No, but you've spent five years working on third tier characters that you like.  It was just a few years ago that Walt Simonson and Frank Miller couldn't put an issue of Orion in the top 100.  A year later Frank does DK2 and was hot again.

If General Patton were alive, he'd kick you in the seat and tell you to get to work.  :)  So, get to it.