Well, I just read something sad....DC's Gotham Central, of which I have every issue, is coming to a close with #40. In the solicitations for that month's comics it said "final issue" and I was like "Wha..?" I always knew that the book never sold really well but I had hoped that DC would keep supporting it. Then I talked myself into thinking that it was being relaunched because after " Infinite Crisis" I have no idea what DC is up to. Wonder Woman had a "final issue" label too...so I just thought they were gonna shake it up a bit and bring it back.
But I just read an interview with Greg Rucka over on Newsarama (one of a bunch of cool comic sites out there) and Mr. Rucka said that he just didn't have the heart to write it anymore after Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark left for Marvel. I was really sad to see Michael Lark go, his artwork hit the perfect tone of gritty for the series and you could totally tell in an interview I read with Rucka and Brubaker that they enjoy throwing ideas around and dreaming up stories together. In fact, they basically came up with the "Dead Robin" story in a Newsarama interview. With Michael Lark they had a definite team spirit. But Lark left and the artwork was never the same. And Brubaker seems to be more fatalistic and sarcastic than Rucka to me, so this added a different tone to the book. Without them Rucka feels like a single dad as it were. I can understand that. And he doesn't want anyone else to write it, which I can understand as well. So he asked DC to end it.
For anyone who has never read Gotham Central, do yourself a favor and buy the trade paperbacks. The series concerns the detectives of the Gotham City P.D. trying to do their jobs and often running into the fantastical, the monsterous and the just plain weird. And lurking in the shadows, alternately working with and hindering them, is Batman. Batman barely ever appears in this comic but when he does it is always to great effect. He truly comes across as dangerous and scary in this book. He, along with the city of Gotham, is a character that you don't have to see to feel his presence. Great book.
I only have one problem with the book and that is that I think they will kill off a character that I like quite a bit. It will have a dangerously negative effect on his partner, if this is the case, and that would be interesting to see but I am still not happy about it. But I think I understand why: This character appears to be the moral center of the book, and all bets for the city and it's people are off now as represented by his death. I hope it doesn't happen but I understand if it does. Much like Greg Rucka's decision to put Gotham Central down.
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