if Peter David is such a good writer...

...why do his books get cancelled?

I know that quality and quantity are almost always mutually

Given that you already knew that your theory breaks down, why did you bother posting it?

Actually, I think this tells us more about editorial decisions and market reality.

Peter David does have a few flaws where marketability is concerned, but that is not really the issue; these days, 80 issues on any title are a memorable run and worth of applause. That is more than Marvel managed to get on Gruenwald's Quasar or Thunderbolts (which _should_ have been cancelled rather than shamelessly 'reinvented'. If anything, he is an incredibly high market success.

Sadly, that is no longer a determining factor in a book's viability. The market for comic books has shrank so much and the number of titles increased to the point where there are possibly more people commenting books here on Usenet than actually reading them.

Part of the reason why the 'Priest curse' seems to be rubbing off on Peter David is that they are, in fact, similar writers on some respects and face some of the same challenges - they write superb stories that tend to rely a bit too much on past continuity and at times become inaccessible. If the book you are writing has a title that begins with the letter X, that is a virtue of sorts. If not, you have to be very good indeed to succeed, because you are effectivelly writing mostly for current and past readers, running the risk of alienating a few of them on every major change, and basically praying that word of mouth becomes good enough for your book to be chosen over about 200 others by those willing to try a new book.

The end result is that their fates are strongly correlated to the welfare of the industry as a whole; there is however a stronger inertia to their books than to most, because the end product is so reliable and above average. People who dig Priest's and David's books usually really dig them, and will follow them from one book to another. But even that is not always enough in todays's market.

Best, Luis.

Name one comic book writer who has never had a comic book cancelled due to low sales.

Peter David's problem is that always writes titles with more obscure characters (Supergirl, Captain Marvel, etc.). He takes those titles much farther than most writers ever could but the fact is that most fans buy comics with more popular characters such as Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, JLA, X-Men, Wolverine, etc. If Peter David would write a title with one of those characters he could likely stay on the book as long as he did with The Hulk, or longer.

Alan Moore. Neil Gaiman. Dave Sim (well it helps if you self publish)

Neither. It tells us about the (lack of) popularity of the *characters* in question, and it would probably have gone even worse if somebody else had written them. PAD isn't the problem.

- Tue

How about Big Numbers?

And Supreme?

Don't forget Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spiderman which Peter David wrote for a while. He also wrote some Star Trek comics for DC and some movie scripts. (Scanners?) And he was on X-Factor for about twenty issues before deciding that it was too much of a hassle.

Well, Claremont had titles tank too. Ms. Marvel. Iron Fist. Spiderwoman. Doctor Strange. They never had big sales even though Claremont was the writer. On the other hand, Claremont's big successes were X-Men, the New Mutants and Wolverine, all of which were variations on a theme. Perhaps PAD hasn't found his niche yet. This new Captain Marvel may turn out to be a success

It's sad to say that there is an inverse relationship between the quality of the writing and the success of a book. IMHO the best thing Stan Lee ever wrote was the original Silver Surfer, which lasted 18 issues. My personal favorite writer is Jim Starlin, who had Captain Marvel, Warlock, etc. cancelled. We could go on-and-on with examples like this. Whether a book is cancelled or not is due not to the writer, but the

I didn't realize Supergirl was an 'obscure character'.