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Ages ago I wrote a column about Farscape. More specifically, about how Farscape was cancelled. The story basically went that yeah sure they cancelled my favourite television show, I was pretty pissed off, but at the end of the day it was just a TV programme for fuck's sake. The bottom line was that there are things far more important than a cancelled TV show to get concerned with.

And now, a long time after, I sit and write this column, on a similar topic. Two of my favourite comic books have been cancelled. Once again, I am mighty pissed off, yet for a slightly different reason. Wildcats Version 3.0 and Stormwatch: Team Achilles were two monthly comic books published by Wildstorm / DC Comics. Wildcats dealt with a team of superpowered beings (as most American comics do these days), but there was a very different angle on the standard nausea inducing spandex-fest that usually constitutes a "super" comic. Back in the early 90's when Wildcats started, it was nothing more than a cheap run of the mill X-Men rip off. A group of super-beings known as Kherubim were waging war against another race of superpowered beings called Daemonites, with predictable results. Towards the end of the 90's though, the book took a rather unexpected turn.

The "Daemonite War" which had raged for millennia was over. The Kherubim won. The focus of the book shifted from a super-team story to a post-super-team story - What becomes of soldiers after the war? This was the first inkling of the wonderful things to come. over the following years, Wildcats evolved into a serious adult title (and I don't mean fucking porn before you start - adults enjoy a variety of reading material you know). The spandex was ditched. One of the main characters was paralysed from the waist down. Characters died or retired. Explosive action gave way to character progression and shadowy politics. The book was now about a group of people trying to make the world a better place through corporate sponsorship. Wildcats showed the world just how much a trashy book could mature if given the chance. But guess what? People weren't buying it.

Stormwatch originally started at the same time as Wildcats, back in the "brown age" of the early 90's, when story was entirely secondary to art. It was a cheap avengers rip off, focussing on a team of super powered beings in the employ of the united nations. Towards the end of the '90's, Warren Ellis got his hands of the title and began steps which would transform the book into The Authority. With most of the Stormwatch team dying in a movie crossover cash-in, Stormwatch was defunct for a long time.

Defunct that is, until recently. Stormwatch was re-invented as Stormwatch: Team Achilles. The Super powered beings were replaced with (almost) average joes. Team Achilles' mission was to prevent super powered beings from gaining too much power. They were in essence, the policemen of the super being community (without being super powered themselves). This title evolved in the short time it was available from full on military insertions to undercover black-ops. Until it was cancelled (on a FUCKING CLIFFHANGER, no less). Stormwatch was another title which showed how American comics have matured in the last few years. But guess what? Yep, people weren't buying it.

There are some people in the world who believe that popularity denotes quality. If something's popular, it's fantastic ("2 million people can't be wrong" etc. etc.), conversely, if something's unpopular, it must suck ("It must be shit, I've never heard of it" etc. etc.)

Publishers only care about one thing: profit. If people are buying their shit, they're happy, and they keep churning the shit out. If nobody's buying their shit, they stop churning it out and start devising some new shit to fling at the public.

So where's this going? Well, consider this. The public at large will buy whatever's popular. things become popular by virtue of the public at large buying them. So the popular thing gets more popular, and on and on and on. All it needs is someone to tell the public: "This is fantastic, you should buy it" in the first place. That's right, Marketing. Wildcats and Stormwatch had little or no marketing. There were no posters in the street, no adverts on TV. I mean, for fuck's sake, in the UK it's hard enough to get comics in general, let alone some book that nobody's buying (yep, the stores here tend to order in copies for those who have reserved them, and leave nothing for the casual buyer).

So Wildcats and Stormwatch didn't sell, not because they sucked, but because they weren't selling in the first place (and by the time anyone did get a message out, it was too late). As a result two hugely enjoyable, mature, EVOLVED comic books have vanished from the shelves, but no doubt "Generic Spandex-Wearing Mutant Fuck-Up Force" will still sell like hotcakes (there's a movie after all).

The bottom line is this (and this is true of every fucking industry these days, not just the comics industry): There' no more fucking innovation. Innovation doesn't sell. And if it doesn't sell, it doesn't count. Shit Sticks, and as long as the public is reading with open arms, publishers will continue to fling shit their way while those pioneers who actually give a fuck about what they're creating fall by the wayside, respected by a precious few who dare to fight against the flow of dead fucking fish, but tragically overlooked by the fish themselves.

Apparently X-Force is to return with Rob Liefeld drawing it. Yip de fucking do.