Waiting Too Long For The Trade

Well, that didn't last long. After going on and on about giving up pre-ordering, I just placed a new order through DCBS. In my defense, though, it was mainly motivated by the fact that I'd just received a couple credits to my account (thanks to Dark Horse's "we're printing this - no, wait, we aren't" publishing policy (more below)). Since several manga series I follow all had new volumes coming out that month, I decided what the heck and submitted an order. (I'm also lucky I qualified my original statement as "I've decided to (more or less) stop pre-ordering" so I don't seem completely wishy-washy.)

Which leads me to my Cheers & Jeers section on pre-ordering:

Jeers! to Dark Horse for being uncertain of exactly which books they're publishing when. This time they cancelled Club 9 Volume 4, which was originally solicited back in August, but it's certainly not the first time they've pulled this kind of stunt. They solicited then cancelled Castle Waiting: The Lucky Road, and they did the same with Club 9 Volume 3 before it was finally resolicited. And when they aren't soliciting and cancelling (and hopefully resoliciting), they're simply horribly late with many of their books. Brian Hibbs points out that Dark Horse's BMW The Hire #4 was nine months late. Christopher Butcher described how Dark Horse's late-shipping habits impact potential retailer sales. And looking over my ordered-but-unshipped items at DCBS, I see that New Recruits, originally solicited back in June (which means it should have shipped some time in August), is now listed on Dark Horse's site with a publication date of January 04, 2006. All of which makes me wonder how Dark Horse plans their publishing schedule.

Cheers! to DCBS for being such a pleasure to work with. Not only did they let me submit my November order late, but they also let me add an item from October's order form at the original discount of half-off! (Yes, it was Essential Spider-Woman; but, no, I'm not a fan just because she could give Wonder Woman a run for her money as "Super-Heroine most likely to be chained up at some point in the story." Although that certainly doesn't hurt her appeal either.) So even though I'm not going to be doing the monthly pre-ordering grind anymore, I'll still use DCBS if it turns out that a number of books I would buy anyway are all coming out in the same month. I'll just make sure none of the books I pre-order are from Dark Horse because I don't want to play the game of tracking when (or if) they're really going to publish what I ordered.

All right, enough about pre-ordering. Here's your Strangely Sexual Silver Age Scene of the day:

"I suppose after being exhausted by our all-night 'team-up' The Flash might actually find your boring 'nurturing' a welcome change of pace!"

[from Justice League of America #92, reprinted in Crisis on Multiple Earths Volume 3]