Thursday, December 19, 2013

365 Comics...348: Secret #4 (2013)

On the fourth day of Christmas, my comics gave to me...

four head scratches.

I'm a Hickman fan from day one (though not a fanatic, I'm trade waiting on all the Avengers and Infinity stuff, but the trades aren't very forthcoming) but Secret is really trying my patience.  Not because the story isn't good, but because of the painfully uncertain release schedule (#1 - April 2012, #2 - May 2012, #3 - August 2013, #4 - December 2013), which makes it very difficult to read issue-by-issue.  It seems evident that Hickman wrote it as a serialized book to start, and it has many little elements in play that mean less (or nothing at all) when you don't remember the set-up.  I know from experience that Hickman is committed to his artists when working on a series, and Bodenheim's work is quite attractive, well suited to this type of corporate/espionage book (if they ever did a Person of Interest comic, call him... he could do a mean Jim Caviezel) but the timeliness is impacting the readability of the series.  Am I unfairly blaming Bodenheim though?  Could be Hickman's just so busy that his scripts have fallen behind.

I've stated before that my preference always will be to have a strong consistency of creative vision so I'm not begrudging either Hickman or Bodenheim for not being able to maintain a monthly schedule or for having personal issues or whatever it is that causes over a year of delays, but perhaps setting a quarterly schedule, just so the reader can anticipate the next issue might be something doable for both of them?

Or perhaps just finishing the book for the trade might be the best option.  I'd shell out for the whole trade, even though I've already bought the first four issues.

Frustrated.

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