It didn't make enough money.
That's it, actually. That's all. It didn't make enough money to persuade the right people, whoever they are, to keep it running. To take the risk. To let it grow. To wait - as conventional wisdom might once have dictated - for the first arc to be collected as a trade.
That's their right. That's the business, that's comics in 2020.
Doesn't mean we can't be pissed as all hell about it.
Hellblazer sold at least as well as The Dreaming, my previous book with DC's Black Label imprint, in monthly form. That was greenlit through issue #20. I stepped off that series with great sadness because the allotted hour had come. The story was told, a new project had been offered; it was time.
With Hellblazer: no. Wasn't time. Isn't time. Covid-19 arrived and set our funny, fragile little industry on fire. The margins shifted. The risk/reward relationship changed. Someone, somewhere, decided that, trade sales be damned, it's last orders at the bar. No lock-ins. No takeouts. Bones were cast, presumably an algorithm was consulted; that's that.
I've had books cancelled before, of course. It's part of the game, especially with franchise characters. You go into it with your eyes open. You make sure you ask up front how many issues you'll get, minimum, and you plan your ending so it can be deployed at any point. That's not a relaxing way to tell stories, but it works. Mostly. Sometimes it even results in art.
Frankly, I've been lucky. Whenever the axe has fallen in the past I've tended to be on the verge of itchy feet anyway. New ideas, new worlds, new stories. I like endings. Whenever I've received the instruction to wrap-up, it's felt Right. Or at least: it's never broken me.
THIS HAS.
www.resetera.com
