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I just read that Outlaw Nation is being cancelled. I am not happy about this.
Now, I don't have the same kind of displeasure at this that I had with the cancellation of Orion (see the Critical Mass installment of this column), because honestly, Outlaw Nation was a much quieter pleasure than Orion was.  It reminded me in many ways of George Foy's challenging novel Contraband, which I reviewed aeons ago for Sci-Fi Universe magazine. Beautiful language. Lush imagery. Brilliant commentary. Ultimately too challenging for the average reader. Outlaw Nation shares these noble qualities with Contraband, and ultimately it shares some of the same problems as well.
Both are wonderful intellectual exercises, dripping with language that compel and enthrall. I still quote passages of Contraband, which are more poetry than prose. Unfortunately, trapped in all the glorious wordplay and intimate discussions of the nature of things, the laws of storytelling are cast aside on some dirt road outside Tucson, leaving readers and potential readers alike with the vague sense of discomfort one has upon waking up in a car with a stranger driving. The scenery is nice, true, and the conversation may be vastly engaging, but somewhere in the back of your mind, you wonder how long this trip will continue.
In an interview on Sequential Tart, Jamie Delano described his aspirations for the series, one of many challenging works he's done (a run on Hellblazer, some work with Marvel UK on Captain Britain, Cruel and Unusual with Tom Peyer, et cetera). He said,
I deliberately eschewed trying to write it in "arcs" in favor of a truly ongoingÑsome might say ramblingÑdrama of chance and improvisation. In a continuing series, it's the journey that counts: There is no expectation of imminent arrival, and I wanted the story to be more of a saga, or soapÑwith broad scope and slowly interweaving plotlinesÑthan a collection of episodic adventures, focused around the escapades of a central protagonist. A reckless strategy, for sure, but one embarked upon on the understanding that the series would be collected from the start in (probably) six-issue volumes, to accommodate "new reader access" and hopefully reach that more mature audience who (like me) is tired of reading their graphic fiction in monthly installments, packaged, interspersed amongst inappropriate advertising, in pamphlets. We ran into a publishing policy Catch 22. Sales figures not initially high enough to justify the trade paperbacks needed to swell the numbers to profitability. Result: an inevitable spiraling towards entropy and the waste of a lot of strong characters and creative energy.
This is a problem many could face with more complex works. When I first read Transmetropolitan, I started with issue #33, then picked up the collected columns from the I Hate It Here softcover. I was intrigued enough to seek out the series from the start. Similar story with Preacher: I was the dead last guy on the bandwagon as the music was dying out and Ennis was saddling up Punisher for a run. I was blessed with the economic wherewithal and the determination of spirit to challenge myself with those works, and I'm very glad I did.
 However, domestic sales figures for challenging works are notoriously low, whether the books be good (as I believe Outlaw Nation was) or godawful. (The Monarchy, will die with issue 12, leaving readers everywhere free to breathe a collective sigh of relief.) In Europe, these kinds of works are revered and are rewarded with stronger sales, but the U.S. comic-buying public is certainly not European in its sensibilities. Long-form stories are hard to get into, hard to keep up with and hard to deal with as a monster narrative. Fox TV can tell you that, struggling to find viewers for the brilliant new 24.
Delano wasn't wrong in making his artistic choice. I've enjoyed it endlessly, and as he said himself, there just weren't enough "Johnsons" supporting the book to keep DC happy. (As long as I'm not Ensign Johnson, standing behind Bones or Data or Chakotay, I'm cool with such a designation.) It's frustrating for me as an artist, developing a long-form story for release (I sincerely hope) by Comic-Con next year. It's frustrating for me as a fan, at a point in my life when Superman seems more and more ridiculous and I find myself wishing Vader would shove that lightsaber down Luke's whiny farm-boy throat during my re-viewings of Empire Strikes Back. It's overall a bad thing, and on a cold winter night, these thoughts tend to cling to my frame like a scarf, wrapped tight, stifling...
Hannibal Tabu is a Web producer and aspiring writer in his late twenties. He lives in South Los Angeles with his endlessly patient wife and his vicious horde of action figures. He bootlegs by day and debt finances by night his furious life, and chronicles the madness he sees at his own private Tennessee, http://www.operative.net.
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