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Over on his Tumblr, Neil Gaiman has ‘fessed up that it was his grueling tour for his new novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane—which took him across the US and back again for a two-month period—which was to blame:

Sure. I understand your disappointment and sympathise. We’re both really sorry about the delay. It’s unprofessional, and is mostly due to the giant signing tour I was on from June, and me not getting script written on the tour, with knock-on effects. We’re hoping it’ll be the only delay though.


The delay has incensed the internet and doubtless left people at DC feeling sad. However, can anyone doubt that the second issue will still sell pretty well?

19 COMMENTS

  1. I don’t think the delay in comic’s release is much of a surprise anymore. In fact, the Outhouse, which loves to track the follies of this comic’s publisher, actually decided that it would not reset its Has DC Done Something Stupid Today counter over it. We’ve become enured.

  2. I guess people don’t remember how the regular “Sandman” monthly comic wasn’t often monthly after a while? Or am I showing off exactly how old I am now?

  3. “However, can anyone doubt that the second issue will till sell pretty well?”

    Well….

    We sold triple digits of #1 in the first 72 hours, but a substantial portion of that were to “I haven’t bought a comic in 10+ years!” people.

    It was always a gamble that Civies (and Lapsed — which are kind of Uber-Civies, because they’ve already rejected the excesses of the periodical market in most cases) could stomach a bi-monthly schedule in the first place (they’ve, largely, got better things to do than to try and track the output), but Neil’s Social Media footprint will mitigate a *certain* portion of that. (though less, I think, than Any Of Us hope for)

    [God, Brian, can you make more parentheticals?]

    [Yes!]

    I think the bigger question is will DC continue to support #2 with full returnablilty and 100% co-op advertising? THAT will move the needle more than anything….. and probably more than anything that DCE can do with any superhero property, in terms of moving civies back into rotation, in my very considered opinion.

    At the end of the day, it is probably a negative for “The Comics Market” that SANDMAN: OVERTURE isn’t shipping on-time and/or monthly — I was hoping for a great deal of conversion between S:O and (say) SAGA, but most of the conversational oxygen is naturally going to turn to “Oh, we’re sorry, it’s late”, rather than “Hey, here’s another completely awesome comic that you can buy!”

    -B

  4. My two thoughts:

    !) Why did DC put it on the schedule when they already knew it was running late?
    2) Most of the people who are Sandman fans are going to buy this as a collected edition anyway, so they aren’t going to be “upset”, just waiting longer.

  5. Well, and here was I expecting all the delays to be on the back end of the project when Gaiman realises he’s running out of room and starts writing extra issues and double issues…

  6. Why didn’t DC just wait until most of the series was “in the can” before releasing it?

    More incompetance…

  7. Its a pity DC wasn’t more upfront about this–of course thinking issue # 2 is coming out in 60 days is a good incentive to buying #1. Guess I’ll take my time reading it.

  8. I’m guessing all these people asking why DC published the first issue in October instead of waiting until they had the whole thing in the can are unaware of such concepts as business quarterly reports. The idea that a company would sit on something that was going to make them money just so someone named “Snikt Snakt” would have a smoother reading experience isn’t very likely . The series itself will probably lose some sales momentum, but Vertigo knows that the lions’ share of the money to be made from this title will be in the collected editions, so getting to launch a top-ten title in their 20th anniversary year (and being able to claim those sales in the fourth quarter earnings) trumps.
    That’s not to say that this is good or acceptable. I just take issue with the idea that DC/Vertigo are incompetent. They clearly knew exactly what they were doing.

  9. I just take issue with the idea that DC/Vertigo are incompetent. They clearly knew exactly what they were doing.

    I certainly don’t think DC is incompetent. I think they increased sales on #1 by not letting us know beforehand that #2 will be a loooooooooooooong time coming.

  10. “The idea that a company would sit on something that was going to make them money just so someone named “Snikt Snakt” would have a smoother reading experience isn’t very likely . ”

    ROTFLOL

    thanks for the good laugh…

  11. Yes, very unprofessional… but I do appreciate Gaiman’s honesty about why the book is going to be late.

  12. More time to read his new novel. “Yea, sorry I didn’t get the second issue done on time, but here read my smashing new novel instead.” (Not an actual quote) .

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