Spinner Memorial Part 7: "¿Gracias, Por Nada?"

A funny thing happened after the previous post, one month ago. That same week, the release date of DOOM PATROL #11 had been moved from April 4th to 11th, as noted in the post. The following week, when all the new scheduling adjustments were announced, I was told that its date had been moved from April 18th to 25th-- without having been moved from the 11th to the 18th. The rest of the month has been been far more straightforward:

• April 4th-- SHADE THE CHANGING WOMAN #2 ships (it was delayed two weeks in my market, I'm guessing due to distributor error)
• April 11th-- ETERNITY GIRL #2 ships
• April 18th-- CAVE CARSON HAS AN INTERSTELLAR EYE #2 ships
• April 25th-- MOTHER PANIC: GOTHAM A.D. #2 ships
• April 25th-- the trade paperback collecting BUG, THE ADVENTURES OF FORAGER ships
• April 25th-- DOOM PATROL #11 ships
• The cancellation listings for May announces that the second trade of Young Animal DOOM PATROL issues ("NADA") has been cancelled for purposes of resolicitation. This is not so shocking, since it was originally meant to include issues #7-12 until the conclusion to the story was rewritten into #11. However, neither issue #12 or "NADA" are in the current catalog for comics shipping in July and trades expected for August (mostly).

Bear in mind that Free Comic Book Day is the first Saturday in May. Check now to see if your preferred retail location is planning any sales tied to it and make your want lists ahead of time. Good luck.

The Dorothy Spinner Memorial Monthly Freakout Part 6

It was almost two years ago when the rumors of a new Doom Patrol series were confirmed, with the first new issue arriving in direct comic stores on September 14th, 2016, the first release of a whole new imprint that would be gradually built into a playground for provocative creators to make the most of peripheral DCU characters. Over the next fifteen months (from October 2016 to December 2017), Young Animal released twelve issues apiece of three new titles: CAVE CARSON HAS A CYBERNETIC EYE, SHADE THE CHANGING GIRL and MOTHER PANIC, four trades to compile the first six issues apiece of DP and those other three titles, plus the six-issue mini-series BUG: THE ADVENTURES OF FORAGER and an expanded 'director's cut' of the first Doom Patrol issue. However, they only managed to produce eight more issues of their flagship title, despite it having a head start. The three other core titles maintained monthly schedules and BUG only skipped two months, but after its third issue DOOM PATROL became approximately bi-monthly.

Since New Year's Day this year, we've seen DOOM PATROL #10 on January 24th, then a "Milk Wars" crossover special on each of the five weeks after that. During that time the second trades for each of the other three core titles were released. In the last post I noted that in addition to DP #11 being rescheduled a few more times, #12 had been officially cancelled in order to resolicit it. I also speculated that the new solicitation might be imminent since all of the pending irregularities to Young Animal's roster (the BUG mini, the trades and the crossover specials) had already shipped and only the returning monthlies and a single new mini lie ahead. I was wrong about that; neither the DC solicitations following that post nor this week's offer a new date for DP #12. But there has been news since then.

• The release of DOOM PATROL #11 was changed from March 28 to April 4
• The release of the second DP trade, "NADA", was changed from May 9 to May 23
• SHADE THE CHANGING WOMAN #1 was released on March 7
• It was officially confirmed that DP #11 was the conclusion of the "NADA" storyline, not #12, which I'm guessing most readers had already assumed
• ETERNITY GIRL #1 was released on March 14
• CAVE CARSON HAS AN INTERSTELLAR EYE #1 was released on March 21
• The release of the second DP trade, "NADA", was changed from May 23 to May 30
• The release of DOOM PATROL #11 was changed from April 4 to April 11
• MOTHER PANIC: GOTHAM A.D. #1 was released on March 28
• The first full color paperback collecting Silver Age Doom Patrol stories was solicited for a July release. These stories were previously in color in pricey hardcovers and in black and white in budget paperbacks. I'll post about the specific configuration tomorrow.

This means that, in addition to the next three issues apiece of the Young Animal titles that began this month, the only other items now pending are:

• April 11- DOOM PATROL #11
• April 25- the BUG: THE ADVENTURES OF FORAGER trade paperback
• May 30- the DOOM PATROL VOL.2 "NADA" trade paperback
• July 25- the DOOM PATROL THE SILVER AGE VOL.1 trade paperback

There might be a DP#12 in July as well, but only if it's offered in next month's batch of solicitations. Cross your fingers.

Update Lowdown 20180227

The primary distributor for DC Comics in the US is Diamond and last week they announced that the next issue of DOOM PATROL (#11) will be reaching direct market stores on March 28th. Until recently, it had been moved back to the 14th and, considering that it had originally been solicited for November 22nd, the two more weeks didn't seem like that much more to wait. After all, the crossover that was intended to follow the story in #11 is set to end tomorrow with the arrival of "Milk Wars Part 5" in the DOOM PATROL/JLA SPECIAL. The intention for the story arc in DOOM PATROL #7-12 to be a springboard leading into "Milk Wars" is a boat that has already sailed. However, the two week delay did raise eyebrows for another reason. Issue #12 was still scheduled to arrive on March 21st, which didn't seem believable when #11 was due on the 14th.

At some time during the week since #11 was bumped (again), Diamond posted their March cancellations and DOOM PATROL #12 has been listed has being cancelled for the purposes of resolicitation. Since Diamond's new catalog arrives in stores tomorrow, it is possible that the new solicitation will be in it. Consider that the decision to start from scratch rather than move the date yet again might have been made after the last round of cancellations was posted a month ago but before the new catalog was prepared for printing. For the catalog to be physically shipped to stores that receive it, that would have to be shortly before #11's new date was announced last week, which explains why they didn't bother changing both their dates together; the internal ID# Diamond currently uses for that issue will likely be deleted eventually after the new solicitation arrives.

If you've been using the downtime between DP issues to catch up on past incarnations (and good luck with that, since so few of them are in trades), you might want to pass the time between #11 and #12 (which now looks like it's coming out in May or possibly June if it's not in the new catalog tomorrow) by picking up any of the other Young Animal titles tying into "Milk Wars": Cave Carson, Shade or Mother Panic each have two trades. The second of each have come out over the past month.

Update Lowdown 20180117

The crossover special event for Young Animal and the DCU is still due to go forward next month and the trade paperback collecting them has shown up on Amazon for pre-orders anticipating a June release. Pencil that date in reeeally lightly, however, because the DOOM PATROL issues completing the second arc (and taking place before the crossover) have started drifting again. All reports are that issue #10 will ship next week (Jan. 24th) as I've mentioned previously, but #11 has been moved from February (alongside the crossover) to March 14th, a week before the most recent date for #12. That strongly implies that #12 will eventually be pushed back as well and the subsequent trade to collect the second arc will be shipping very close to the "Milk War" crossover trade. None of that will matter a year later for people picking up the trades, but comic book stores near college campuses (as in, every major city in the U.S.) are going to be mighty steamed if the target audience for a pile of new trades goes home for the summer (or graduates) the week before it arrives.