Posted in: Comics, DC Comics, Image, Marvel Comics | Tagged: Birds of Prey, dc comics, jim zub

Jim Zub On Being Fired Off Birds Of Prey Before His First Issue

In November 2012, Bleeding Cool reported that Duane Swierczynski was off the DC Birds Of Prey monthly comic book after #17 and would be replaced with a new writer. DC Comics then arranged an interview with CBR to run that would announce the new writer on the book as Jim Zubkavich with #18, then best known for his comic book Skullkickers. Something Jim was really happy about.

But on the 13th of January 2013, in another a PR-arranged conversation with CBR, Bobbie Chase and Bob Harras announced that Robert Venditti and Jim Zubkavich has already been taken off their respective new comics in the DCU before their first issues had shipped. That Jeff Lemire and Ray Fawkes would be writing Constantine and that Christy Marx was to write Birds Of Prey from #18.

Harras: Jim had a great pitch for "Birds Of Prey," but as things came together in discussion and the creative churn, we all saw what Christy was doing on "Amethyst," and we were looking at "Birds Of Prey" and internally and editorially we were thinking of taking it in a different direction. The decision was made that we were going to go in a different direction than what Jim had originally envisioned. We definitely, definitely want to continue working with Jim, but at this moment, we wanted to go in a particular direction. Bobbie started working with Jim months ago —

Chase: He's a great writer. He's a great idea guy, and I look forward to working with him again.

Harras: In the creative process, these things sometimes happen and he totally understood. Obviously, he was a bit disappointed, but he understood. We hope to work with him on another project.

That didn't happen. Yesterday, Jim Zub talked about that experience on Twitter.

I was fired off Birds of Prey (my first Big Two project) before the first issue came out because different levels of editorial were fighting about the direction of the series without my knowledge and I was pulled into a big conference call and didn't know what was going on.

That confusing phone call changed my career. The first work email I received in 2013 was being turfed from my first work for the Big Two. I was labeled as 'difficult' and had no way to fix it. Editors wanted to work with me, but were repeatedly vetoed. It crushed me.

I was certain I had no future in comics and it deeply shook my confidence. If I hadn't pitched on Samurai Jack, got the series, and had it do well I'm pretty sure I would have wrapped up Skullkickers early and bowed out of comics.

No matter how much success I've had since then at Marvel, that bizarre wobbling-crash at DC has been a gaping wound for me. Part of me still wants to prove myself over there as some way of balancing the scales in my mind over the whole thing.

And talking about his Suicide Squad story that recently appeared in They Live! Unpublished Tales From The DC Vault…

 When I mentioned that my Suicide Squad story coming out felt a bit like exorcising some old demons, that's what I meant. I'm really proud of that issue, but also have a lot of conflicting emotions wrapped up in all of it.

The whole situation felt like an emergency brake activated on my career as I dragged my way forward and slowly rebuilt my confidence. A year after the firing I finally started doing ad comic work at Marvel, then Figment, then Thunderbolts and Avengers.

One of the only silver linings to the whole thing is that I learned who my real friends in the industry were and who had only popped up on my radar because I was now a Big Two writer. When the Marvel stuff happened I was better prepared.

I am deeply thankful for the friends I had at DC or freelancing for them who went to bat for me back then even when it didn't change the end result.

In particular I need to thank Hank Kanalz who hired me to write a Legends of the Dark Knight story for DC Digital even after I told him he would get in trouble for doing it. He did it anyway and to this day it's one of the best stories I've written.

In the end, things went a different way and I'll never know what writing Birds of Prey monthly might have led to. Maybe a totally different trajectory, maybe not. In either case I'm thrilled with the books I've done since and the friends I've made in the business.

I've never spoken publicly about this before and for a long time I didn't say anything at all because I was confused and ashamed about it. But it's important for people to know that bad shit happens and it is not the final word on your creative career. It does not define you.

At this point I've written more than 7300 pages of comics and the majority of those happened after this all went down and I felt so certain I was finished. So, that's what I learned. Keep going, keep learning, and keep making stuff.

And as for the decisions that were made,

It wasn't "DC" making that decision. It was someone at the top who is no longer there.

I'm sure we can all make our guesses from the many senior executives that either left DC Comics or were made redundant last year, including both Bob Harras and Bobbie Chase. Jim also shared the positive moments as well, milestones that marked his career.

• First trade paperback launch for Skullkickers and people lined up for our convention exclusive.
• First monthly book at Marvel.
• The first time a convention covered all my expenses.
• Doing the Wayward/Sex Criminals launch signing with Zdarsky.
• Flying to New York for the Avengers Story Summit to work on No Surrender.
• Working at the D&D office for a week as a story consultant.
• Taking my wife to Paris for the French Rick and Morty VS D&D book launch.
• Realizing I could turn down projects that weren't a good fit and it wouldn't deep six my chances for future work.
• Getting the offer to take over Conan the Barbarian. Some days I still feel like I'm figuring it out. Other days I feel like a veteran of the Comic Wars.

After reporting from the trenches so long, this is a very familiar tale. There are some major talents that have been dismissed by various editorial regimes as being "difficult". Sometimes for the most spurious of reasons.

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