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PIPELINE COMMENTARY AND REVIEW SPECIAL EDITION:
CRISIS IN CRISIS!
02 December 1998
by Augie De Blieck Jr.
http://www.nic.com/~augie/pipeline
NEWSFLASH: Release of DC's CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS
deluxe hardcover reprint collection has been delayed for a period of
10 weeks, due to an error on one single solitary page.
Dollar to a donut Lobo is on that page. . .
Mark Waid and Grant Morrison are busy trying to explain how this
only happened on Earth2 and that the hardcover compilation really
did come out.
In light of this news, DC has changed its company motto to "DC: We
Only Misprint the Best."
Other suggestions included:
* "DC: First, we Amalgamated the run into trash, now it's up to a
full-scale Crisis!"
* "DC: We don't need to publish Groo! We make our own mulch!"
* "DC: We throw away better crap than Marvel could ever hope to
successfully publish!"
* "Save the environment! Keep DC from attempting to print
anything!"
Marvel couldn't be reached for comment, since they were too busy
expertly publishing both X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN in the same week
for the second month in a row.
When questioned about their publishing schedule, a high-level editor
at Marvel said, "Schedule? What's that?" It should be noted, of
course, that that editor is a relative rookie, having only been
hired since the last change of Marvel management, roughly 20 minutes
ago.
Said Marvel editor returned our phone call from Pipeline Central,
but only because we accepted the charges. When he pointed out that
he was "in the dark" on several other key Marvel matters, we believe
he was speaking literally. Electricity usage is frowned upon at
Marvel, after all.
It has also been suggested that DC's famed bullet logo is being
revised to more accurately reflect the current mood at the Time
Warner child's main offices. Included now on the bullet logo
will match the ballistic markings from the barrel of the gun aimed
at the printer. When reached for comment, a local mail carrier was
said to be distraught of the news of the DC firings, particularly
since he wasn't in on the gunplay.
Alex Ross and George Perez issued this joint statement, "I WORKED
$&%^(&*#^ friggin' straight &^*%(& hours on that &*^%(*&^ cover to
get it in on time, and now they pull the book because of one bloody
page?!? ^&%(&*% 'em!"
Alex Ross was said to be plotting his revenge. He's taken a job at
the local Canadian printing plant, hoping to be able to sabotage the
print run on DC's KINGDOM event.
George Perez is said to be liking the odds of the Avengers over the
Justice League in any potential company crossover project. Not that
he's bitter or anything. After all, he's drawn every member ever
associated with each team. DC wishes it to be noted, though, that
it took him a full issue of Avengers to do so, while it only took 10
square feet for the JLA.
Perez and Ross then turned towards their next project: Covers for
Marvel's planned SECRET WARS and INFINITY GUANTLET TPBs. They plan
to have them done by the weekend.
Local comic shops which did receive the misprints planned on
reselling them for big bucks as collector's items, until someone
pointed out to them that it was already over-priced and
under-desired. Under such fierce criticism, one comic shop started
to reletter its copies, hoping to insult every ethnic minority by
inserting racial slurs in place of other nouns.
Marvel wished to point out that they did it first, of course. Their
press release was issued on four different letterheads. Reporters
were told to "Collect all four!"
Two hours later, John Byrne rewrote those press releases to keep
them in line with the New Marvel continuity.
Joe Kelly started to rewrite the press releases with Steven Seagle,
but quickly left over creative differences.
DC released its own press release, as originally written by Mark
Waid, Tom Peyer, Grant Morrison, and Mark Millar. Mike Carlin then
nixed the pieces saying that Big Name Writers do not write press
releases. Neither Dan Jurgens nor Jerry Ordway accepted Carlin's
offer, then, to write the releases. So it was left to Ron Marz, who
botched it so horribly, nobody could figure out what it meant. When
reached for comment, Marz just commented that he transcribed a
phone call from Grant Morrison, who gave him all the info.
The only legible thing from DC was that they figured after all the
money they threw at WildStorm, this was but a drop in the tank.
Jim Lee had no comment. Well, he did, but that had a typo, and we
were forced to delete every copy of that e-mail.
-Augie
P.S. Yes, this is filled with WAY too many inside references or
just plain obscure jokes. If you don't get them all, I'm not
explaining them. I just feel better having gotten this out of my
system. Thanks.
P.P.S. It has since been learned that DC did not trash the entire
printing. Nope, they did something which will please the collectors
even more: They've decided to print the page (which was actually
MISSING, not misprinted) and "tip it in" to the book. In other
words, CRISIS will be collected in a beautiful hardcover collection,
but with one page sticking out. How incredibly asinine is this? To
make it up to their dear readers, they're including a coupon for a
free copy of a poster based on the cover to CRISIS #1. The
purchaser must fill out the coupon and return it to their comics
shop, wherein they'll get their poster within two weeks.
DC will use that demographic data you so happily provide in the
hopes of getting ANYTHING out of your $100 investment in compiling a
mailing list of certified fools, like myself, that'll buy anything
no matter the cost or quality.
The person responsible for this should be fired. Directly after
that, of course, I have no doubts that he'd find gainful employment
at the White House in hiding and delaying documents. ("Mr.
President! The missing files that were subpoenaed five weeks ago
just showed up in the White House library! I'll tip those in with
the rest of the report later. The Judiciary Committee will never
notice.")
He's the kinda guy who puts together the Sunday papers and leaves
out the sports page in the one you happen to pick up. Not to worry
-- I'm sure the paper would happily tip it in next time, along with
a coupon good for a free reprint of the front page in a couple of
weeks.
You don't mind waiting, do you? Of course not. You're the schmuck
who's getting his Christmas present 10 weeks late so that DC can
stick a page in the middle of your book that they
over-friggin-looked the first time.
Maybe Ted Turner is right. Maybe DC doesn't know how to tend to
their properties. For heaven's sakes, it looks like their learning
lessons from Gladstone, of all publishers! Should we be expecting a
coverless reprinting of CRISIS next?
P.P.P.S. (Yes, this is getting ridiculous.) It turns out that
"tipped-in" means glued-in, so the page won't be hanging loose.
Also, the poster giveaway is of CRISIS #1, and not of the Perez/Ross
cover.
And the editor did get fired.
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