What's the deal with Mark Millar?

[residentholy3]

First off I am a Millar fan.
There are currently 4 titles he's writing that I am following and enjoying:
Fantastic Four
Wolverine: Old Man Logan
Kick-Ass
War Heroes.

Exactly ZERO of these books has shipped on a regular monthly schedule.
Plus I've heard similar things about Ultimates and Civil War.

Ok, so my understanding is that in general, books get delayed because of the ARTIST, but here we have 4+ Books that all share the same WRITER.
Is this just a coincidence?
Does Mark Millar just have a knack for working with these late artists?
Other thoughts?
Do you know something I don't?

[The Sword Is Drawn]

You only need to ask once. :eek:

[ozvette]

I think (important: THINK) that he just spreads hmself out too much, and focuses on the wrong things.

We hear all about the Kick Ass film, we hear all about what is happening with the Wanted DVD, but nothing is done with his comic work.

note: JRjr is NOT a slow artist, I don't know about the others so much.


I'm really over Millar, even though I am buying two of the titles listed.

[Schluffy]

*sigh*

JRJR is a marvel exclusive artist, saying that his work for marvel comes first (ASM & Mighty Avengers In recent history) Icon is a sister chain with marvel for writers to independently fund their own work, they have to finish their work with marvel without even thinking about touching the Icon Stuff Mark is technically loaning the artists when they have some free time to work, i mean come on JRJR has just finished 6 issues of ASM and hes working on another 3 more

War Heroes, same situation Tony Harris has commitments with DC comics and the monthly book Ex Machina, that book needs to ship on time and war heroes has to wait.

Bryan Hitch as we know from the Ultimate’s is a slow artist, but saying that his level of work is mind-blowing, an artist can only work to the level of quality they want to finish with. would you rather have the books ship on time but the artwork be bad?

Steve McNiven is a lot like hitch, such a high amount of quality comes at its own pace and cant be pumped out week in week out

its just a very bad co-incidence that there all Millars books

[CyberCoyote]

I don't even LIKE Millar(his comics.. I hear in real life he smells nice, though) but it's pretty evident he pumps this stuff out like vanilla soft serve at a Dairy Queen. There's just a lot of either poor management for the rest of the books' productions or overall Marvel and DC don't care as long as they get out sometime.

[rwe1138]

And he's still got Crohn's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chron%27s_disease) to deal with.

[Magneto Rocks]

Millar, like Loeb, is renowned in that he tends to work with only the best artists. Partially because Millar, like Loeb, has a reputation for treating his artists very well, so they want to work with him, and partially because it's in Marvel's interests to have their A-listers together.

So when Millar works with an artist, they're probably a huge one- McNiven, Hitch, etc. The downside of that.... is that the biggest artists are also usually the SLOWEST artists. The only exception there is JR Jr, who is a ludicrously fast beast... but as has been noted, his first commitment has to be to his mainstream Marvel books, and he's heavily overbooked.

On a nicer note, 1985 was pretty much on schedule all the way through.

[artiepants]

Millar, like Loeb, is renowned in that he tends to work with only the best artists. Partially because Millar, like Loeb, has a reputation for treating his artists very well, so they want to work with him, and partially because it's in Marvel's interests to have their A-listers together.

So when Millar works with an artist, they're probably a huge one- McNiven, Hitch, etc. The downside of that.... is that the biggest artists are also usually the SLOWEST artists. The only exception there is JR Jr, who is a ludicrously fast beast... but as has been noted, his first commitment has to be to his mainstream Marvel books, and he's heavily overbooked.
It's interesting that Bendis rarely has this problem, and when he has, he rarely seems to work with those artists again... (Cho/Finch OTTOMH)
On a nicer note, 1985 was pretty much on schedule all the way through.i'm guessing that was largely in the can before starting.

[Ex_]

Bendis is a beast. He churns multiple titles out, and his artists keep/set the pace as well. I really want Millar's stuff to hurry too.

[residentholy3]

Thanks for the insight everyone.

and, yeah sorry for this thread going up four times, my computer doesn't seen to agree with this sight.

Haha, I actually didn't care for 1985 too much.

[Herr Mike]

Even with his Hollywood doings and his Crohns', I'm sure these delays are artist related. They have JrJr on Spidey, Harris is doing Ex Machina, Hitch and McNiven are slow.

Really, FF and Wolverine are coming out quicker than I would have expected, especially considering the level of work. McNiven is really killing it on Wolvie.

[XPac]

Even with his Hollywood doings and his Crohns', I'm sure these delays are artist related. They have JrJr on Spidey, Harris is doing Ex Machina, Hitch and McNiven are slow.

Really, FF and Wolverine are coming out quicker than I would have expected, especially considering the level of work. McNiven is really killing it on Wolvie.

Yeah, I was just about to say that. FF and Wolverine aren't coming out anywhere near as slowly as I frankly expected to. That's a pleasant suprise.

I guess the nice thing about Ultimates is that it came out so slow, any other lateness on his part almost comes speedy by comparrison.

[Magneto Rocks]

It's interesting that Bendis rarely has this problem, and when he has, he rarely seems to work with those artists again... (Cho/Finch OTTOMH)

The main reason Bendis doesn't have them is because his two Avengers books have swapped artists all over the place- and he's worked with McNiven, Cho, Finch, Coipel etc, all slow artists. Ultimate Spidey is a big exception there, mainly because Bagley- along with Deadoto and JRJR, is one of the few artists capable of a monthly schedule.

[timomcshade]

yeah his delays bother me as well. I think it is just demand. He is in demand right now. Wanted 2 is in the works, movie only, Kick-Ass is shooting, War Heroes is also being developed for a movie, he is writing 2 high profile Marvel books: FF and Wolvie, two creator owned books: Kick-Ass and War Heroes AND is working on Ultimate Avengers. He has just a lot going on I think but in general the waits are worth it. "Old Man Logan" is incredible, FF has not had a bad issue, Kick-Ass is always great as is War Heroes.