It’s been a long wait since issue 3, but Flash: Rebirth #4 is not only on DC’s schedule for August 26, it’s on Diamond’s upcoming releases list for comics shipping next week. It’s very rare for a book to slip once it’s made it to that list, though it does happen from time to time. (Hey, Dabel Bros.! Where’s Robert Jordan’s New Spring #7!) *ahem!*
Here’s the current schedule:
| Issue | Orig. Date | Actual Date | Gap | Delay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flash: Rebirth #1 | April 1 | April 1 | 3 months* | On time |
| Flash: Rebirth #2 | May 6 | May 6 | 5 weeks | On time |
| Flash: Rebirth #3 | June 10 | June 10 | 5 weeks | On time |
| Flash: Rebirth #4 | July 22 | Aug. 26 | 11 weeks | 5 weeks |
| Flash: Rebirth #5 | Aug. 26 | Oct. 14** | 7 weeks | 7 weeks |
| Flash: Rebirth #6 | Sep. 30 | Nov. 25** | 6 weeks | 8 weeks |
*Since Flash v.2 #247
**Well, currently-scheduled date, anyway.
I wonder if Ethan Van Sciver will be able to finish the books for those dates.
At this point he shouldn’t be involved with any book that pretends to have a regular Schedule or should be asked to complete all his work before the book is solicited.
I’m pretty sure will see 3 or more inkers for the last couple of issues which sucks, if the book is late already, they might as well take a few extra weeks to finish it right.
The downside of waiting until it’s done before soliciting anything is that we’d have waited even longer for Rebirth to *start.*
At this point, I guess the question is: if EVS can’t make the deadlines, will DC treat this the way it treated Final Crisis (sacrifice quality to meet deadlines), or the way it treated Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds (sacrifice deadlines to preserve quality)?
They do still have a little leeway left. If they schedule Blackest Night: Flash for late December, that gives them almost a month if they need more time for Flash: Rebirth before it starts holding back other books.
Well, since I want a big Fat HC of this series on my Bookshelf, I’d really like them to wait for EVS and PR to finish the book.
Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time that DC’s publishes spoilers of another book due to schedule problems.
At least we know that Johns is going to Work with Scott Kolins on his next project and Kolins can meet the deadlines without breaking a sweat.
I’m hoping they can keep the creative team intact, as well. Really, once issue #6 is out, the scheduling will cease to matter. The consistency and quality of the art, on the other hand, will matter to anyone who re-reads it, buys the hardcover, buys the trade, checks it out from a library, borrows it from a friend, etc.
(I’ve really got to finish a draft post about pacing that I’ve been working on since #3 came out.)
Also, forgive my ignorance, but…PR? I’m totally blanking on the initials.
I may have made a little mistake there. I simply assumed that Prentiss Rollins was the inker of this book, but I could find his name on the credits 😀
Actually, there is no inker credited so I have to assume that EVS is inking his own work.
Flash: Rebirth, fortunately, isn’t a flagship event; it’s more akin to LO3W than FC. And its precedent, the similarly tardy GL:R, has been hugely successfuly in trades, even earning an Absolute. I’d be surprised if DC sacrificed quality over timeliness.
If need be, BN:F will be pushed back. Kolins, God bless him, is a workhorse and those *measly three* issues could be released faster to catch up. Conversely, I’ve never known a DC event to publish on schedule, and though he did well with Sinestro Corps (iirc), Ivan Reis has a similarly poor record. In total, I would guess there’s three, four months leeway–plenty of lead time for M. Van Sciver–and that’s assuming BN:F is too spoiltastic to release with overlap.
Are we all optimistic now? Well, I tried. 🙂
If I’d had to guess, I’d say that Reis could probably draw 10 issues in a year, while EVS could probably only draw about 6.
I like Reis better though, I actually like him better that the one that i think is his most direct inspiration, Brian Hitch (and we all know that means that Alan Davis is God).
So that’s why different inkers, eh? Wow – never thought it was to keep up with the street dates.
Yeah, they can divide the pages up and have 3 inkers working on a book at the same time.
That’s what happened with the book when Bilson & DeMeo started their run and Ken Lashly couldn’t keep up…
Man, I need them to not do this to me when it comes to Barry. Let something else get delayed.
New Spring #7 Came out today.
I could swear it wasn’t on there when I checked on Monday, but hey, I’m not complaining! Even if it does mean a second trip to the store this week. (Now if they can just finish this miniseries before the business deals collapse again.)
Back when New Spring was being published through Red Eagle a few years ago, I’d see it on the upcoming list two weeks in a row, then not show up on the new-releases list. Occasionally it would show up on the new releases without having been on the previous week’s upcoming list.
Come to think of it, that’s how I started checking Diamond every week: looking to see if New Spring was actually coming out!