Sunday, May 20, 2007

Tentative Schedule

The dates in the brackets are Tom's order estimations for the respective books. Red titles indicate a Rise of the Defenders tie-in.

August 07 (Friday, May 18):


SHE-HULK #18, August 8.

WOLVERINE #55, August 15. The Diggle/Sudzuka issue.

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #40 , August 22.
Note: Spectacular Spider-Man continues Sensational's numbering.

FANTASTIC FOUR #549 , August 22.

UNCANNY X-MEN #489, August 29.

September 07 (Monday, May 21)

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #544 , September 5.

SHE-HULK #19, September 5.

WOLVERINE #56, September 12. Brubaker's first issue.

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #41, September 19.

FANTASTIC FOUR #550, September 19.

UNCANNY X-MEN #490, September 26.

October 07 (Tuesday, May 22)

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #545, October 3

SHE-HULK #20, October 3

WOLVERINE #57, October 10

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #42, October 17

FANTASTIC FOUR #551, October 17

UNCANNY X-MEN #491, October 24

NOTE: We have a fifth week in October. Patrick, do you want to slot in a second issue of Amazing Spider-Man this month? Philip, I don't think She-Hulk should ship twice in October. Or should we come up with a fifth week event? Could we come up with a fifth week event? Perhaps with a Halloween theme, since the books would ship on October 31?

November 07 (Wednesday, May 23)

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #546, November 7

SHE-HULK #21, November 7

WOLVERINE #58, November 14. Most likely the Lapham/Gaydos issue. Which won't tie in with Rise of the Defenders.

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #43, November 21

FANTASTIC FOUR #552, November 21

UNCANNY X-MEN #492, November 28

December 07 (Thursday, May 24)

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #547, December 5

SHE-HULK #22, December 5

WOLVERINE #59, December 12. The start of Brubaker's first multi-parter.

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #44, December 19

FANTASTIC FOUR #553, December 19

UNCANNY X-MEN #493, December 27

January 08 (Friday, May 25)

The last day of our simulation, the start of the new year and the kickoff for Balance of Power.

BALANCE OF POWER #1, January 2

Note to Sean: We should really have tie-ins to this throughout Marvel's line of books this month and the next couple of months, especially in Black Panther, Iron Man, the Avengers books and adjectiveless X-Men. Other books can mention the events of BofPow in the background to show the strong continuity of Marvel's books.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #548 (Patrick, would you or your creative teams mind making this issue or this month's Spectacular Spidey issue a BofPow tie-in?), January 2

SHE-HULK #23, January 9 (Phil, I guess this ties in as well? And I bumped this back a week to spread the Balance of Power books better across this month's weeks)

WOLVERINE #60, January 9. Part two of Brubaker's around the world multi-parter. This might be Japan or Madripoor. While this won't be a real BofPow tie-in, the ramifications of the event will be felt in the background.

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #45, January 16.

FANTASTIC FOUR #554, January 16

UNCANNY X-MEN #494, January 23

And another fifth week. Since Tom mentioned that this is the close of a fiscal quarter. Any late books must have shipped by now. And we can decide to schedule Balance of Power #2 and a couple of tie-ins (Amazing Spidey? She-Hulk?) for this week as well?

Anything I have missed?

10 comments:

Philip Schaeffer said...

No matter what She-Hulk and FF both tie directly in to Balance of Power for the duration of its run.

I'm mulling the idea that FF is where we'll have all the Sue/Namor/Reed stuff, She-Hulk will follow Shulkie, Johnny and Ben and that Balance will be less FF centric and more big picture.

I just realized something about your schedule. Tom's only been giving us numbers every other day. Hopefully those numbers reflect two months of sales, but if not we won't even get to our Rise of the Defenders books, let alone Balance of Power.

Other than that, it looks pretty good. There's that extra week in October, but none of our books would have to ship then (there's always Black Panther and Avengers etc. to fill out the Marvel racks), not to mention the fact that in real life our books might even be shipping the same weeks as one another. I think as long as we can get all six of our titles on shelves each month we'll be doing okay.

Philip Schaeffer said...

You know what Mike, when everybody's signed off on this 100%, since this really isn't that many words, you might want to post this on Tom's blog, saying something like "We've put together our ideal schedule for the publisher and ops to see if they think this is possible."

That's probably a good way to demonstrate our desire to coordinate and be organized and spread responsibility etc.

debbie said...

Now THIS is editing, not writing. Good stuff! It makes me happy to see a scope and sequence like this!!!

Michael Heide said...

Makes sense, yeah.

Sean, Patrick, what do you think?

And about the fifth week in October, do you think that a Halloween-themed event would be too much work? We could offer Horror characters without a current book their own forum. I'm thinking of characters like Morbius, Hannibal King, Werewolf by Night or Brother Voodoo. If the respective editors give their okay, we could even tie in Ghost Rider and Blade's ongoings that month.

Philip Schaeffer said...

Run with the horror thing if you'd like. I feel like there's a lot on our plates, but I suppose there's always room for one more slice of insanity...

Sean Kleefeld said...

This is excellent, Mike. Definitely should post this (or possibly an abbreviated version to keep it under your limit) to Tom's blog.

If we can get Tom to ok the "accelerated" schedule (since he said he'd only be giving numbers every OTHER day, and those are indeed single month numbers) that would definitely get us to our goal. Also, we should set that Balance of Power Guide/Atlas/Handbook for the same week as Balance #1.

As far as 5th week events, I think -- given our relative inexperience with all this -- we should leave it up to individual creators/editors. If they want to do a horror/Halloween issue, cool; if not, no big deal. Not something that we could really promote to get more sales, in any event.

Sean Kleefeld said...

Aha! The Guide/Atlas/Handbook thing? Should be titled Balance of Power Travel Guide. Still to come out on schedule with Balance of Power.

Michael Heide said...

Alright.

Patrick Cook said...

Sean, the two fifth-week events make me nervous, schedule-wise, with everything else we're planning to roll out. I'm in agreeance with Michael regarding the Halloween time frame. How about the editors on Ghost Rider and such take the lead for that month, and we grab the second fifth-weeker?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing this.