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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 1, 2019 21:06:56 GMT -5
What do people here consider to be a quick cancellation (or maybe a short run)?
Is it less than a dozen issues? Less than six? More than that, but less than two years?
Chime in. And yes there is a reason behind my asking...but I plan a lot of things that never come to fruition...so it may just be a matter of interest in what people think.
And to answer my own question...right now I lean toward less than 12 issues...but I'm open to my mind being changed.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Mar 1, 2019 21:36:14 GMT -5
I consider any planned ongoing series that ends in 12 issues or fewer to be a quick cancellation.
I figure that most series pitches cover the first 6-12 issues (roughly 1-2 story arcs), so anything cancelled before the first year is finished (whether the books are released or not) or as that initial set of stories runs out is fast.
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Post by spoon on Mar 1, 2019 22:16:46 GMT -5
It's really amorphous. I think of "quick cancellation" as longer, like two years, or maybe even anything under 30 issues. To me it evokes my personal enjoyment of a title and my disappointment that ended when I felt there would good stories to tell. So there are series that have run for 20 or 30 issues that I think of as cancelled well too quickly. It's really relative to my disappointment about how briefly it lasted.
The phrase "short run" makes me think more in objective terms of number of issues separate from "not enough issues for me." I associate that with something that could fit in single TPB that's not that thick, like the 9 issue Joker series from the 1970s. So I'd say a short run is less than 10 issues.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Mar 1, 2019 22:49:57 GMT -5
 Someone had to. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Mar 1, 2019 22:51:43 GMT -5
To answer more seriously, I think a publisher's perceived attitude towards the book factors in here. Some books look like total risks that you don't expect to last four issues. Others are launched with much hype and gusto, and if those books don't last five years, it seems abrupt.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2019 0:11:59 GMT -5
I usually put the over/under at 15 issues for older books, less for current books, mostly because it took longer for publishers to get sales reports before the direct market dominated the way comics were sold than they do now when Diamond releases the numbers within a month.
Books like Night Force lasted 14 issues before they had enough sales data to cancel it, but I still think of it as a quick cancellation, but on the outer edge of it, though a few that ran a little longer, Kirby's Eternals and The Demon, I also see as a quick cancellations. During the Bronze Age books that got the axe quickly also seemed to have rotating creative teams as no one wanted to stay on the book (which may have contributed to the poor sales and the quick hook)-here Ia m thinking of books like Skull the Slayer that has what 3 "regular" creative teams in 8 issues.
As we move into the modern period of the direct market, I think anythingthat lasts less than a year is a quick cancellation, and these seem much more based on poor preorders since print runs are set to preorders and that puts a cap on how well a series can do. Preorders are a self-fulfilling prophecy that limit how well a book can do on the actual shelves when audiences can interact with it, so decisions happen in a much smaller window than they used to, when you had to wait for sales reports and returns to actually know how well a book was doing.
-M
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 2, 2019 0:45:34 GMT -5
Anything that didn't have a notice that it was being discontinued in the letters page (like most of the DC Implosion), anything that was announced as an ongoing series, that suddenly bears the notice of being a limited series, after 3 issues (a more modern trend), anything that lasts under one year; definitely anything 6 issues or less, anything that had at least 3 creator changes in under a year, anything announced in a house ad that never sees the light of day or lasts less than 6 issues, anything that got pulped, anything that got dropped from Image in the wake of Diamond and Capital threatening fines if the books didn't come out within the solicitation window, everything at Defiant.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 2, 2019 10:22:22 GMT -5
I think what a quick cancellation is has changed over time... back in the day, when most series that intended to be ongoing indefinitely, I'd say anything under 20 issues was quick if a single creative team stuck with it. Others (where perhaps it was more of a concept that rotated through different writing).. the writing on the wall was usually clear right away they'd last less (most of these are non-superhero stuff.. or stuff that takes a superheroic character into another Genre.. stuff like Skull the Slayer, Starfire, etc).
Nowadays, when things are planned in story arcs.. I'd say 12 issues or less is a quick hook... Most of the time it seems they give the writer one story line, and check trade sales, then decide. Sometimes if things go REALLY poorly at release they'll not even go that far, and retroactively make it a 'miniseries' of just the 1st arc.
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Post by String on Mar 2, 2019 11:53:38 GMT -5
For me, it depends on your point of view.
Quick cancellation implies to me that the title simply didn't perform up to the publisher's expectations (lofty or not) and that fan response was turning negative towards it. Thus, any title that lasts 12 issues or less would fall in this category for me.
On the other hand, short run implies that the title had some measure of quick success and/or popularity but was beginning to flounder for whatever reason. Books that were heavily hyped by publishers, initial creative teams that were popular among fans, character line-up or rosters, etc, they started off strong yet over the months, sales became steady or lowered but not enough for outright cancellation but there weren't any signs that sales may improve over time. Thus, any title that lasts 24 issues or less, maybe even 30 issues or less would fall into this category for me.
For example, Atari Force was a short run, Team America was a quick cancellation.
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 2, 2019 12:08:31 GMT -5
Quick is under 10 issues. I still don’t know what kept Dazzler and Rom going ...
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Post by rberman on Mar 2, 2019 12:10:55 GMT -5
Quick is under 10 issues. I still don’t know what kept Dazzler and Rom going ... ROM had a mix of action and "Am I man or machine???" pathos and soap operatics and space operatics going for it. Beats me on Dazzler; maybe they were just unwilling for it to be a failure when it was such a high profile project? |
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 2, 2019 12:12:41 GMT -5
They were the same book with the guest star of the month theme except Dazzler was better looking.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 2, 2019 13:10:52 GMT -5
They were the same book with the guest star of the month theme except Dazzler was better looking. No, they weren't. At all. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 3, 2019 2:00:46 GMT -5
8-9 issues. 10 is a decent run.
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Post by berkley on Mar 3, 2019 2:15:11 GMT -5
My feelings on the question are pretty hazy. "Quick" in this context implies to me abrupt or unexpected, so yeah, less than 12 issues, assuming a year for a monthly series to be the standard for giving a series a chance to find its feet creatively (and, I suppose, its audience, commercially, though that angle isn't as interesting to me).
12-24 issues is a grey area, in my view - still pretty early, but you'd think that the creators probably should have had time to iron out the bugs somewhere in there.
That's my immediate response but I'll have to think about it a little more. A lot of my favourite Marvel and DC series in the 70s had short runs because they were often experiments that stepped outside the usual standards in some way, so I have lots of examples to consider.
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