Orphaned Series/Comic Books

Examples of Orphaned Series in Comic Books include:

David Lapham has yet to complete Stray Bullets. Apparently, there is one issue of the current storyline remaining, and it is yet to be finished. He claimed that after the birth of his child he was no longer able to rely on the inconsistent revenue and heavy time investment of a self-published series and has chosen to primarily seek work-for-hire and creator-owned work at the major publishers. He has often stated a desire to finish the series, or at least the current arc, but a lack of time to do so.
During the 90s Joe Madureira started a comic called Battle Chasers, an epic fantasy story of which the first few issues hinted at a huge backstory. But it quickly started slipping from its schedule, to the point where issue 7 was released 16 months after issue 6. The editorial in issue 9 promised that #10 would be out soon, but then Joe Mad left the comic industry altogether.
Artist George Perez's creator-owned series Crimson Plague was ended after its first issue. Perez revived the series a few years later with Image Comics, only to end a second time after one new issue and a reprint of the original comic.
Marvel series NYX was slated to be an ongoing series but after numerous delays by both the writer (Joe Quesada) and the artist was declared a limited series simply to finish out the first story arc.
- Marvel has since announced a follow-up mini-series, with a different driver and artist this time around.
The comic M. Rex ended after two issues. About ten years later it received a cartoon that started to delve into the abandoned plots and more.
Sokora Refugees, a manga-inspired (in both art and story) comic, was super-popular before its abrupt end after two volumes. The comic's site, after two years in operation, stopped updating in November 2006 and died completely a few months after. The artist mentioned the author had some personal issues after a few weeks of no new strips.
- What seems to have actually happened is that the creator landed her own syndicated daily comic strip, My Cage. The demands of doing four panels a day pretty much ensures that Sokora Refugees will remain an orphan unless something happens to My Cage.
  - Well, thanks a lot, now you jinxed it.
Alan Moore's miniseries Big Numbers stopped after two issues. This was particularly frustrating due to the more literary, kitchen-sink-drama nature of the series, the audience didn't learn what direction the series was going in, how the groups of unrelated characters were going to interact, or what all the untranslated dialogue in some Indian language was about.
- The main reason why Big Numbers was canceled was that illustrator Bill Sienkiewicz left the series and he was replaced by a nineteen-year-old assistant of his named Al Columbia. Al Columbia had to replicate the gritty, photo realistic technique Sienkiewicz utilized for illustrating the previous Big Numbers issues, and he had to do so by specified deadlines. Al Columbia cracked under the pressure of such a herculean task and as a result, he not only left his Big Numbers work unfinished, but he destroyed much of his work, including two unpublished issues. Al Columbia, despite having a cult following generated by grotesque works such as The Biologic Show, remains somewhat a pariah in the comic industry.
- Moore never finished Supreme or 1963 for various reasons that aren't really his fault, either.
In the early '00s there was a quirky British comic titled Bazooka Jules, by Neil Googe, about a 16-year-old schoolgirl named Julie Glocke who gets mixed up in a plot involving aliens and super-science and gains the ability to turn into a ridiculously well-endowed Action Girl who can spontaneously pull gigantic pieces of armament out of thin air (that is to say, she has "big guns" of both kinds. *groan*). It was criticized for the underage Fan Service, but fans and critics enjoyed the humor and Googe's expressive art style. Anyway, around issue #3 (it was planned to run for six), Googe took seriously ill and someone broke into the publisher's building, stealing the material for the planned future issues, which were never recovered. Googe got better and planned a relaunch of the series with artist LeShawn Thomas, but before it got off the ground they hit some copyright issues, Thomas left to do animation work on The Boondocks, and Googe himself eventually signed an exclusive deal with DC Comics, where he now works on their Wildstorm imprint. Neil Googe has retained Julie as a sort of signature character, but as a comic, Bazooka Jules seems to be as dead as it gets at this point.
Classic fantasy comic Wormy (sort of Dungeons & Dragons meets Pogo) stopped in mid-arc when David A. Trampier dropped off the face of the earth. He became a taxi driver
The Tick (animation) comic series ended abruptly (right before a big fight with the bad guys) when author Ben Edlund decided to spend time working on the cartoon. He never made it back, and given the current success of Supernatural, it's unlikely he'll be making it back anytime soon.
- And especially given that the series has been relaunched under writer Benito Cereno.
Warren Ellis has had a habitual problem with this for various reasons ranging from personal issues, delays due to artists, and the simply unexplained. Examples include:
- Fell
- Desolation Jones
- Planetary gets off on a technicality. Fifteen issues between early 1999 and late 2001, hiatus until late 2003, and then another eleven issues between late 2003 and the end of 2006. Ellis turned in the script for the final issue, #27, in mid-2007—so technically, he finished in 2007—but another two years passed before its release. John Cassaday completed drawing the interior in April 2009, Laura Martin colored and inked by June, and Cassaday finished the cover in July. The issue hit stores on October 7, 2009, with the final collection in March 2010 (hardcover) and December 2010 (paperback). 27 issues in ten years, with the last issue alone taking three...but it was completed.
- Ellis also seems to have stalled with New Universal and Doktor Sleepless, neither of which, as of late 2010, have seen an issue in 18 months or more. It's been a suspiciously long time since the second issue in the second Anna Mercury series as well.
  - New Universal was stalled because he lost a whole bunch of his scripts when his computer crashed. Not sure about the later.
- Ministry of Space had the appearance of this for a while as the delay between the (delayed) issue two and three eventually stretched to three years before it was finally released.
Pretty much everything by Rob Liefeld after he and the other Image founders left Marvel. He's become notorious for starting new comic titles (or revamping the existing ones) only to abandon his plans part way through. The list of mishandled crossovers alone can make a significant portion of this list. Most notoriously, He's gone SIXTY TWO MONTHS between issues of a Youngbloods limited series.
Mike Baron's Sonic Disruptors (a DC limited series from the late 80s) ended on a cliffhanger after seven of an originally-announced twelve issues, with no explanation given at the time. Eventually Baron admitted he had been making it up as he went along and simply realized he had no idea where the story was going. It may be just as well; after an excellent first issue, it got So Okay It's Average fast.
Xenozoic Tales started in 1987 as a bimonthly, but the artist's increasingly detailed drawings necessitated a gap before issue 4 and a reschedule to come out once every three months. This reschedule lasted only three issues before hitting another gap and ceasing to have a regular schedule beyond "when we get it ready." Space between issues got increasingly long, with only two issues released in 1989. The series had one issue a year each April for the next three years, then skipped 1993 entirely. Issue 13 came out in 1994 and issue 14 came out in 1996. There have been no issues since, though the author/artist has been known to claim in interviews that he will get back to it. Should we hold our collective breath?
Six Words; Kevin Smith's Daredevil/Bulleye: The Target.
Scud the Disposable Assassin was this for ten years, due to Creator Breakdown. It was finished up, working this into the plot as a Time Skip.
Unicorn Isle was a fantasy comic by Lee Marrs, c.1987, originally slated to run for 12 issues but cancelled after only 5 for unknown reasons.
Archie Comics once made a comic based on NiGHTS Into Dreams and had made the initial three issue mini-series into a ongoing series in the same vein that the Knuckles The Echidna ongoing spun out of its second mini-series. However, after its second three issues, they put the series on indefinite hiatus and classified issues 4-6 as a second mini-series.
When Seven Seas Entertainment was first starting out and before they began to publish licensed manga, they released several original titles in the manga style. Having vastly misread the market for such titles (as well as the rapid decline of the publishing market since the company's founding), several of these series were cancelled due to low sales, while some others were stopped short due to other issues. Seven Seas has since largely switched to either one-volume releases (with sequels as sales demand), printed versions of original web series that have a high enough readership (such as Aoi House), or licensed series. Some of the casualties:
- Seven Seas debuted with four OEL series, Amazing Agent Luna, No Man's Land, Last Hope, and Blade for Barter. Blade for Barter was cancelled after a single volume (with the conclusion to the cliffhanger published online to make it up to people who actually bought the first volume). Last Hope ran for two volumes with a third teased but then hit a wall when a contractual dispute arose between the publisher and the author that eventually led to the series being cancelled due to market concerns. No Man's Land was originally heavily publicized and also had a flash series started, but both the books and flash series were scrapped originally due to the artist and author having too many other commitments, and have been essentially cancelled due the company's concerns over the declining publishing market.
- The Outcast sold well and the publisher intended to continue with it, but the author abruptly left it midway through the second volume for other commitments.
- Both Unearthly and Captain Nemo never moved past their first volumes due to the author, who also runs the company, being forced to stop writing in order to run the company instead.
- Ravenskull had a teaser for a second volume, but never moved past one. The artist was juggling multiple projects at the time, which led to delays before the second volume was quietly cancelled. No reason was ever given, though looking at Seven Seas response to other properties that have languished in development hell, its probably a safe bet this one won't be returning either.
- Seven Seas have several manga and light novels they've licensed, and then never released, such as Ryohgo Narita's Vamp. The kicker is that a few of them are fully translated and ready to be printed, but SSE are reluctant to release them due to market concerns (in the case of Vamp!, they're worried that the series won't appeal to the Twilight crowd... which it wouldn't, but they're looking in the wrong place. I doubt those fans would be interested in a novel series featuring a vampire t-rex).
Bill Willingham's Coventry went for two issues before it was discontinued. Willingham later wrote two short novels in the same universe. Arguably, his later series Fables may be a continuation of the Coventry universe, so perhaps it was not entirely orphaned.
In the mid 90's, three different companies produced comics based on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The first company, Gladestone, published two mini-series set in Season Two before passing it to Marvel. Marvel did an adaptation to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and started two series set in Season Three (one with the Rangers in morphed state and a flip book with the team in Ninja form coupled with stories based on VR Troopers). Only six issues of those were made before it was passed over to Awesome Comics where only one issue of a Power Rangers Zeo comic and an ad talking about a crossover between the Zeo team and Youngblood was made.
- Moral of the story - don't make comics set in an ever-changing continuity.

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