Any body out there have any favourite short lived titles? A title that you thought had potential but the rest of the comic buying universe disagreed, resulting in it's untimely cancellation. Or a title that ran for a special or limited series but no more than that.
Two of mine for starters ~ Sam & Max Freelance Police, and Big Guy & Rusty the Boy Robot (both of which had quite decent animation series based on them).
I miss Bloodhound (DC Comics). Kind of a DC Punisher but with a dash of super powers. It was pretty savage stuff for a mainstream title. But it withered. Alas.
I miss Reign of The Zodiac (DC/Vertigo). This suffered from having to create its dense and complex “world” in monthly chunks. Given time and room to breathe this had the potential to be a classic. Or it could have turned into a nerdy nightmare. Always hard to tell with Science-Fantasy.
I miss Trigger (DC/Vertigo). It was a cracker with sublime artwork. But like ROTZ its own density and complexity drove people away. That and the fact it was named after a character in Only Fools And Horses. (No, I don’t just like it because a character fond of the odd spot of oral relief was called Chaykin).
I miss All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder. Following harsh critical reception this ended too soon. What? It’s still going? Get out!
Of course it is quite possible that I am wrong and these were astonishingly bad comics and died a just death. Actually that’s very probable indeed.
I bloody-well hope All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder is still going ...
I also loved NYX, well, the first 3 issues anyway. Then it slipped in almost every way. They lost Middleton and all concept of timing ... That could have been a fantastic comic.
(There’s a few isn’t there? Do you think I have the anti-Midas touch?)
Aztek/Aztech (sp?) (DC Comics) Morrison/Millar co-production. Not their best work, but good. (Just think if it had been super successful we might never have had Civil War. Or Seven Soldiers. Agh! Could I lose Seven Soldiers to save the world from Civil War? Thankfully it’s a decision I need never make. Phew. Dodged another bullet.)
Anarky (DC Comics) The Batman villain/anti-hero gets his own comic. Grant & Breyfogle go mad crazy bonkers. I have no idea if this was ‘good’ but I would have liked to see where it went. For a guy with the worst costume in comics (not the design, just where his head..oh, never mind) this was unreasonably entertaining and cerebral.
Blood of The Demon – because I need at least one John Byrne book a month, otherwise the world seems a bit off-kilter. And I ‘d rather he did this one than:
Doom Patrol – Not just because I could never decide if Byrne was using a highly advanced narrative technique I was previously unaware of or whether he had just lost his freakin’ mind. No. also because whoever writes & draws ‘em. The Doom Patrol have officially The Best Team Name In Comics. Say it out loud: Dooooooooom Paaaaatrooooooool! See. Didn’t doing that make you smile?
Marvel Boy (Marvel Comics) We want the sequel. We were promised the sequel. Where is the sequel? Marvel take the 2nd best living comics writer and just…well..waste him. Good work Marvel. Well done.
J'suis Legion. Not actually cancelled but there's only been one issue and it came out years ago. John (Astonishing X-Men/Planetary) Cassaday doing the best work of his career, 20 panels per page, no adverts. Make mine French.
The biggest loss to comics for me was Helfer/Baker's The Shadow, which ended before the story did. We were promised a Special to tie it all up but by now that's as likely Ambush Bug and The Punisher teaming up. It must be twenty years now.
The biggest case of comic book blue balls I've ever had. Still have. Ow!
The Shadow; what a great character. Bring him back now. Now, I say. But then I would wouldn't I.
Baker's Shadow isn't a patch on that drawn by Kaluta. And I enjoyed The Shadow film but have never been able to sit through The Phantom. But the best of the pulp adaptations ~ Doc Savage by a mile. And Welles did the best radio interpretation of the Shadow (I've got a hell of a great OTR collection).
36,000 shows and counting. I'll never get round to listening to them all, but it's great to have them on my Zen as an alternative to the likes of Zep, Foo Fighters, the Monkees et al. Sometimes take it with me on holiday as an alternative to reading.
I think there's a new edition of Fun With Milk and Cheese out soon. It's great. It's about a Milk carton of hate and a Cheese wedge of spite. In each story they select a person, or group of people, at random and beat them up while using the worst puns relating to that person, or group. My favorite is Darth Vader Overdrive.
Ha, I remember Milk and Cheese, were they the somewhat angry/abusive characters made of Milk & Cheese, I think I have an issue knocking about somewhere. Also I can't believe that there was a Sam & Max comic? I would have loved that.
there was a man-thing miniseries a couple of years ago i think it ran for three issues, it was supposed to be like a prequel for the film which hasn't happened, man-thing is a great character but never had a long running series
Sam & Max ran I think for 4 issues from different publishers ~2 from Epic, Comico & Fishwrap. Stecve Purcell produced four comics worth tracking down. Thoroughly enjoyable. Have you tried the new online game?
for me it was the TMNT comic that ran along side the new animated show ... that comic was so good everything about it was nice and slick. They always cancel things I love. Same with Outthere even though it went up to twenty something issues... did anyone else read it? it was published by cliffhanger. I heard something about them going bust is that true?
Outlaw Nation was one of the most interesting titles publised by DC's Vertigo imprint, and was cancelled just as it was getting really interesting. the sad thing is that the writer, Jamie Delano (who was the first writer to work on Hellblazer) has had hardly any new work published since.
Automatic Kafka last 9 issues. Joe Casey and Ashley Wood turn up in the final issue to tell Automatic Kafka that, sadly, he is a fictonal comic character and, even worse, he has been cancelled. They then acknowledge that they have been ripping off/heavily influenced by Grant Morrison's Animal Man stories and give thanks to Jim Lee for publishing such a bizarre superhero comic, then all three (Casey, Wood, Kafka) wave goodbye to the reader. The previous 8 issue were also pure gold.
Thought of another one ~ Herobear And the Kid by Mike Kunkel. I remember reading the advance press for this comic and going into Forbidden Planet in Leeds and asking if they were going to stock the first issue, the response been derisory.
