The Waiting Game
We all know that comics can manipulate a reader's perception of time. The space between panels can be a split-second, a pregnant pause, or a jump of years. However, the spaces between issues can also affect the reader. Storylines are collected so frequently these days, it's hard sometimes to imagine waiting a month or more between installments, or the opportunities those waits provide.
In 1982, DC launched the first "maxi-series" with Camelot 3000 #1 (cover date December 1982). It was a 12-issue tale of King Arthur returning in the time of England's greatest need, which happened to be an alien invasion. The first five issues were on schedule, but slowly, things started to get off-track. #6 was two months late, and #9 was cover-dated December 1983, a month after the maxi-series should have ended. #10 came out three months after that (March 1984), and #11 four months after #10 (July 1984). The concluding chapter was cover-dated April 1985 -- two years and three months after #1! (If that's a record, it's since been shattered by the 3-plus years between issues of Spider-Man/Black Cat.)
I wasn't following Camelot 3000 as it came out, but I did start collecting it not long after it finally ended. Tracking down every issue, and reading and re-reading each one in hopes of picking up some new nuance or some clue to the story's further developments, was exciting in and of itself, because to me it might as well have been new. Same with Thriller, a short-lived DC series which itself only lasted 12 issues. The payoff wasn't nearly as satisfying, but by that time just finding that elusive 12th issue was satisfaction enough.
The Dark Knight also had a sporadic publishing history. The first issue was published in the spring of 1986, and the second was pretty much on schedule a month later -- but the third came out in July (around the same time as Batman #400, if memory serves) and the fourth in late August or early September. (I specifically remember reading DK #4 after coming home from one of my rare high-school-era dates.) Likewise, Watchmen #1 was published in late May/early June 1986 (around the same time, if not the same week, as Byrne's Man of Steel #1), but it took over a year to put out twelve issues, with #12 coming out in August 1987.
Both Dark Knight and Watchmen inspired multiple readings and intense scrutiny, which helped pass the time between issues. Watchmen especially was so intricate and self-referential that I daresay all the clues to the mystery are presented before the reader is aware of it. My own lightbulb went off at the beginning of issue #8. I can't imagine reading Watchmen only as a collection, without all the deductions and extrapolations those fourteen months allowed.
Sometimes it doesn't work out that way, though. Crisis on Infinite Earths and The New Frontier didn't "play fair" with the reader by planting the seeds of their resolutions early on -- or if they did, I sure missed them. Still, both had excellent pacing. I remember thinking at the end of Crisis #10, "If that stupid 'Monitor Tapes' thing wasn't in there, we would have seen whether the Spectre beat the Anti-Monitor!"
Often, I'm not too proud to admit, I get it wrong. I examined "Hush" with a fine-tooth comb and concluded authoritatively that Professor Hugo Strange was the mastermind. Similarly (not to pick on another Jim Lee project) I saw motifs in the first 11 chapters of "For Tomorrow" that Brian Azzarello chose not to explore in the conclusion.
Regardless, the fun isn't always in getting it right. (We don't want our stories too predictable, after all.) The fun is in exercising our imaginations during these intervals. It's a tremendous thrill, being swept into a fictional universe every week -- but a good story can also make the waiting worthwhile.
In 1982, DC launched the first "maxi-series" with Camelot 3000 #1 (cover date December 1982). It was a 12-issue tale of King Arthur returning in the time of England's greatest need, which happened to be an alien invasion. The first five issues were on schedule, but slowly, things started to get off-track. #6 was two months late, and #9 was cover-dated December 1983, a month after the maxi-series should have ended. #10 came out three months after that (March 1984), and #11 four months after #10 (July 1984). The concluding chapter was cover-dated April 1985 -- two years and three months after #1! (If that's a record, it's since been shattered by the 3-plus years between issues of Spider-Man/Black Cat.)
I wasn't following Camelot 3000 as it came out, but I did start collecting it not long after it finally ended. Tracking down every issue, and reading and re-reading each one in hopes of picking up some new nuance or some clue to the story's further developments, was exciting in and of itself, because to me it might as well have been new. Same with Thriller, a short-lived DC series which itself only lasted 12 issues. The payoff wasn't nearly as satisfying, but by that time just finding that elusive 12th issue was satisfaction enough.
The Dark Knight also had a sporadic publishing history. The first issue was published in the spring of 1986, and the second was pretty much on schedule a month later -- but the third came out in July (around the same time as Batman #400, if memory serves) and the fourth in late August or early September. (I specifically remember reading DK #4 after coming home from one of my rare high-school-era dates.) Likewise, Watchmen #1 was published in late May/early June 1986 (around the same time, if not the same week, as Byrne's Man of Steel #1), but it took over a year to put out twelve issues, with #12 coming out in August 1987.
Both Dark Knight and Watchmen inspired multiple readings and intense scrutiny, which helped pass the time between issues. Watchmen especially was so intricate and self-referential that I daresay all the clues to the mystery are presented before the reader is aware of it. My own lightbulb went off at the beginning of issue #8. I can't imagine reading Watchmen only as a collection, without all the deductions and extrapolations those fourteen months allowed.
Sometimes it doesn't work out that way, though. Crisis on Infinite Earths and The New Frontier didn't "play fair" with the reader by planting the seeds of their resolutions early on -- or if they did, I sure missed them. Still, both had excellent pacing. I remember thinking at the end of Crisis #10, "If that stupid 'Monitor Tapes' thing wasn't in there, we would have seen whether the Spectre beat the Anti-Monitor!"
Often, I'm not too proud to admit, I get it wrong. I examined "Hush" with a fine-tooth comb and concluded authoritatively that Professor Hugo Strange was the mastermind. Similarly (not to pick on another Jim Lee project) I saw motifs in the first 11 chapters of "For Tomorrow" that Brian Azzarello chose not to explore in the conclusion.
Regardless, the fun isn't always in getting it right. (We don't want our stories too predictable, after all.) The fun is in exercising our imaginations during these intervals. It's a tremendous thrill, being swept into a fictional universe every week -- but a good story can also make the waiting worthwhile.
posted by Tom Bondurant @ 3:35 PM
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