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[Comicscollapse, reporting from Poughkeepsie, New York]
As a word shortage threatens to halt production of comic books along the eastern seaboard, comics
publishers and creators scramble to stay in business.
"Between Kevin Smith's tanker-sized balloons in 'Green Arrow' and Chris Claremont's brick-sized bubbles in 'Extreme X-Men,'
we're facing a syllable shortage of cosmic proportions," comics publishing mediator Orville Herk explained Tuesday. "The little guys are left with—literally—nothing to say."
While Marvel has announced plans to "rotate" silent issues among its lesser books, DC plans to explore monosyllabic "themes"
in its b-list titles, including books in its controversial Vertigo line.
"Look for the 'the' issue of 'Transmetropolitan' in July," said DC sub-editor and spokesperson Ima Sleive, who added that the
company is still determining which books will feature all-"an" or –"a" dialogue.
The all-"but" issue of "Birds of Prey" is due out in June.
Credited with discovering the shortage is Oyster Bay, New York, self-publisher and creator Jamie Barbitt, whose book, "Chaos
Blast Manga-GRRL Boom," issue 5, came back from the printer with half its dialogue balloons blank.
"Whoa," said Barbitt. "Dude, I said. Dude. Change the toner."
The discovery came too late for Marvel, however, which shipped 3.5 million copies of its all-new title "Generic X-Men" with
intermittent empty balloons. But, as company spokesman Harry Fischkopf explained, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
"The blank white circles look really nice, actually," he said. "Very easy on the eyes. We're debating a reprint, but it's not
likely."
Re ti g f r Comi col a se,
Kim Kaliszewski
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