Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, IDW | Tagged: regine sawyer, Will Robson

Why IDW Cancelled Creator-Owned Comics Before They Were Even Announced

IDW have been informing a number of comic book creators that their greenlit creator-owned comics will no longer be published there.

Will Robson is a comic book artist best known for working on titles such as Big Trouble In Little China. Great Lakes Avengers. Spider-Man/Deadpool, Spider-Ham, Secret Warriors, Spawn Kills Everyone Too, Fantastic Four, Future Foundation and more, from Marvel, Boom and Image Comics, as well as his Kickstarter-published series Outbreaks. But it looks like he was working on something new, a creator-owned series he was writing and drawing from IDW Publishing. And while it seems that it was greenlit, that light has switched from green to red…

Will Robson xeeted the news earlier today, saying, "Well. This sucks. My creator owned book with IDW just got cancelled midway through making it. I'm devastated. After spending years on the pitch I'm truly gutted. This was a huge opportunity for me as a creator & now it's gone. Guess I'm free if anyone wants to hire me… Also, to any publishers, I have retained the rights and if you're looking for a new title that's fully conceptualised, 2 and a half scripts written and 5 pages of issue 1 drawn then hit me up. 5 issues total mini. Not sure I can legally say why but I know it had nothing to do with my art or writing."

On BSky, Regine Sawyer posted "Who else received an email from IDW about their project being cancelled? Raise your hand—-> ✋🏾 Needless to say, I'm absolutely livid. Me & my co-creator worked really hard to get this project off the ground. I was in the middle of writing issue 2 yesterday when the email was sent" adding "We got all our rights back thankfully "

And in reply, Jonathan W. Gray added "Raises hand… It's slightly more complicated and less developed than that as I had scripted a GN for a historical figure and they were searching for an artist when things went kaboom."

It seems there are more of these to come as comic book creators are opening their inboxes. Alex De Campi xeeted "Comics writer & artist mutuals: I'm hearing anecdotally that a bunch of IDW Originals series are getting the chop due to policy changes at the company — I'm happy to do what I can via intros etc to help your book land at a new publisher. DM me and we'll talk. Also, ::hugs::"

Bleeding Cool reached out to IDW Publishing for comment but have been told that they will not be commenting at this time. However, after taking part in other conversations over the last few days, I have learned that "policy change" might be a bit inaccurate. And that it is more that IDW had too many titles on its books, after an overzealous acquisition period and that IDW's publishing schedule had become somewhat unwieldy. Especially given the recent reduced size of the publisher. Not just creator-owned titles, but also on the more prominent licensing end of the publisher.

So faced with around three years of material, they decided to hand the rights back to a number of creators and creative teams rather than keep them in publishing limbo for that long. But I am encouraged to look towards the Top Shelf publisher/imprint that they purchased for similar books to find a home.

Earlier this year, Bleeding Cool broke the news about San Diego-based comic book publisher  IDW laying off two-fifths of its staff. We also stated that Jamie S Rich would be the new Editor-In-Chief of IDW, that Mark Doyle and Tara McCrillis would both be Co-Publishers of IDW, with Doyle overseeing Editorial and McCrillis overseeing Marketing and Operations.

Here's more of what Will Robson's comic would have looked like… and what it still may do!

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