Random Happenstance

The Lilac City Comicon has once again come and gone, and this year we picked up 176 books and a handmade stuffed Nightcrawler! I am not even sure how much he cost, I may have just thrown my wallet and run away with him...but I do believe I had her card from last year, so check out Kelly Lundblad at Etsy. (EDIT: That link did not appear to take; I'll keep looking.)

But, why not check out one of those comics today? We'll start with a real oddity: from December 2009, Ambush Bug: Year None #7, "Whatever Happened to Ambush Bug: Year None #6?" Plot and pencils by Keith Giffen, script by Robert Loren Fleming, inks by Al Milgrom; story and art Art Baltazar, script by Franco Aureliani.

This is one of those comics where the behind-the-scenes may be more interesting than the actual comic; or perhaps from the comic that we got: this was a six-issue mini-series, the first issue of which came out July 2008, and it came out regularly up to the fifth issue January 2009...then a long and not-entirely-explained delay. Ambush Bug: Year None #6 was solicited with a Darwyn Cooke cover that would never see print--well, not really. The series would skip #6, and return with #7, featuring the Bug tied up over a pile of Ambush Bug: Year None #6, with Cooke's cover, asking for a match.

The short answer probably is, Dan Didio probably got sick of Giffen and company's nonsense, or that one or more jokes hit too close to home. Since earlier issues featured Didio as a character, and the first issue had Ambush Bug trying to buy a new refrigerator without a dead girl in it ("It's a standard feature.") I have to wonder where they crossed the line. Baltazar and Franco were Eisner winners, and may have been brought in to fill enough pages to salvage some of the book so they could publish a last issue and get people to quit asking about it. (More people probably asked about it than read it, this is Ambush Bug we're talking about.)

The series ends about the only way it could: with Ambush Bug banished once again from the DC Universe. He wouldn't be gone long, though: Giffen would bring him back during his Doom Patrol run: Didio did not seem to hold a grudge against Giffen or the Bug, and Ambush Bug would be a mascot-like character in the New 52 "Channel 52" ads. I still have to wonder what the original #6 looked like, but some of the jokes were probably of the moment anyway.