Actually one of the things bothering me lately is when they announce a project by a perrennially late artist they (company, writer and artist) usually assure us that they have four or five issues done so there really shouldn't be delays.

First two come out on time but usually the lag starts to happen on the third issue, an issue that they said was done before the first was shipped. Does that make any sense at all? I mean I've been up all night and I should really crawl into bed so it might be me who is loopy but that seems bugshit crazy.

Either they have four or five issues of a six issue arc done and that's so they can ship monthly and give the artist 4 or 5 MONTHS to draw one or two comics or they are lying right from the beginning and only the first one and part of the second was actually complete before they solicited it.

Does anybody know the truth? Are they incredibly incompetent and slow or are they just lying to win back customers who might have stayed away if they knew only one and a half issues were in the drawer?

QUOTE: How are these books described in the indicia, these days? Are they called monthlies anymore?

I'm not sure but I think it depends on the title.  I'm looking at the indicia for THOR #5 and it says "Published monthly except semi-monthly in January and February..."

The splash page from ASM #206, courtesy of the DVD-ROM --

"People would start looking for the "hot" books, and the focus would become all about sales and revenues. "

I read an interview with John Buscema as he was starting his run on Wolverine, and he was saying that it was nice for once to be on the type of book that was likely to pay off royalties.

No "I'm due." No "Give me x-men or else .. " Just " I'm doing Wolverine? Great, I could use the money."

Howard, I meant I know they can do it. I don't find their late work to be of any higher standard whatsoever. Marc nearly managed bi-weekly a few times on Uncanny. Whilce's work could do without all the excess rendering of biceps or whatever. I'll even toss in that when McFarlane did the bi-weekly Spider-Man it looked pretty similar to his monthly work. While it wasn't as thight as the monthly it was still better than any issue of Spawn.

There's no way they spend 40 hours on one page unless they're insane. Obviously I'm alone in this cause I always thought Jim Lee kept degrading from Uncanny to X-Men to WildCATS. I stilll think WildCATS looks like total trash so I'm still speechless as to why people went apeshit over it. Especially once it got to Killer Instinct. There's no way you can call that progress.

Oh well, went on a rant but that stuff grinds my gears and it's affected me in a way. I always get this annoying voice in the back of my head saying if I go to fast it's bad. But I know it isn't true. Even if Silvestri rushes a monthly it still looks tons better than Mark Bagley cause Silvestri has talent. All his proteges suck no matter what time they take cause they don't have talent. And here I am, a grown person complaining about this on a message board, but that's how it is. I really need to get this off my chest I guess.

Ok, so I'll be sharpening my axe and crap now. *twitches eyes*