I am surprised to hear that Todd McFarlane is considered a slow producer.  I remember back in the day he was putting out issues of Spider-Man on a bi-weekly basis.

Actually, Stephen, I think you made a pretty good point since this thread is partly about how seriously the publishers treat their own deadlines and how that translates to the talent.

If your employer doesn't seem to care about the deadline, and doesn't even respect their own deadlines (and in that specific case it is about respecting the retailers and the customers who ordered it and are waiting for it come in. Especially on such a big ticket, expensive comic book), but then turns to you and cracks the whip to get you to respect the deadline are you going to take that employer seriously? The whole attitude expressed by missing a deadline on something that was already done and should have been ready to go is certainly part of the problem.

If the editors and publishers don't care then is it any surprise that attitude filters down to the writers and artists?

Take Neal as a good example. His BATMAN run is considered one of the best in the history of the book -- but not only did he not do long consecutive issue runs, he worked at a time when BATMAN was on that odd schedule so many books had, where certain months were skipped each year. (Basically, twice-quarterly, tho BATMAN used to come out around 10 times per year.) These were not books that missed shipping, this was the actual schedule (and one to which I often think we should return!)

3 months? {pfft} I can think of delays where children could have been conceived, born and nearly put in preschools during the time period involved.

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Good point. Long delays are now quite frequent...