Remember Com.X? Oh, come on, you must. BAZOOKA JULES? CLA$$WAR? Yes, them. British publishers - cripplingly late books and unfinished miniseries a speciality.

Anyway, there's good news, because Com.X has just announced its latest shipping schedule. And this being Com.X, the word "latest" is particularly apposite. It's been a while since we're heard anything much from them - as Newsarama points out in its coverage, the last such announcement from Com.X came in November 2002, over a year earlier. But, says the headline, Com.X has its "act together".

Well, now. Let's be blunt. A Com.X shipping schedule is not, historically, a schedule in the traditional sense of the word. It is appropriate that they tend to announce them at this time of year. Like Christmas wishlists and New Year resolutions, a Com.X schedule is announced more in hope than expectation.

Take, for example, CLA$$WAR, which has so far shipped a grand total of three issues. The series was meant to start in autumn 2001 but, understandably enough, was delayed on grounds of sensitivity following September 11. The first issue finally emerged in February 2002. Issue #3 staggered belatedly onto the shelves on 30 September 2002.

And that's it. The title has failed to ship a single issue in the last fifteen months. Issue #4 is due out next March. Assuming - with tremendous charity - that issues #5 and #6 followed monthly, Com.X would finally complete the series in May 2004, after taking 27 months to produce six superhero comics. By comparison, even THE ULTIMATES looks positively speedy.

Now, of course, Com.X can make three points in its defence. Firstly, the immediate aftermath of September 11 would have been a very bad time to ship a comic full of attacks on the US government. Secondly, the publisher's offices were ransacked in a break-in towards the end of 2002. Thirdly, it's quite a good series and - they would no doubt argue - well worth the wait.

The first two points are inarguably correct but can hardly explain the inordinate delays that readers have had to put up with. Point three may also be valid, depending on your point of view, but it's really just a reason for sticking with the comic regardless, not an explanation or excuse for how Com.X got to this point.

Back in autumn 2002, for example, Com.X announced that Cary Nord was going to draw the remaining three issues, concluding in May 2003. Quite why it was going to take Nord, an experienced superhero artist, ten months to draw three issues was never made entirely clear. Since nothing by Nord ever shipped, it's largely academic.

Com.X then hired one Travel Foreman to draw the book, and announced it back in June. At that point, they said that Foreman was finishing work on issues #4 and #5, and that they hoped to solicit issue #4 in July 2003. Once again, nothing happened.

'Com.X - cripplingly late books and unfinished miniseries a speciality.' CLA$$WAR is not unique in its troubles. PUNCTURE and BAZOOKA JULES both shipped their first issues at the end of March 2001. PUNCTURE's sixth and final issue is now due out in April 2004. BAZOOKA JULES has shipped only three issues since then - a period of over two years eight months - and issue #4 still isn't on the schedules. Original creator Neil Googe fell ill, and the book was going to be drawn instead by LeSean Thomas, but, as with so many artists with whom Com.X work, that didn't pan out.

Now Googe is going to do the comic himself after all, while Thomas (who was said to be too busy to do BAZOOKA JULES) is instead working on his own series CANNON BUSTERS, to be published through... Com.X. As for Joshua Middleton's SKY BETWEEN BRANCHES, which shipped a preview issue back in mid-2002, it's obviously not going to see the light of day, because Middleton has signed an exclusive deal with Marvel.

To give Com.X its due, when it does actually produce comics, they tend to be pretty decent. They clearly know a good artist when they see one. They can be relied on for a well-designed, professional-looking product. Their books are usually solid enough. PUNCTURE suffers largely from overambition, and there are certainly worse sins than that. Even BAZOOKA JULES, which could easily have been embarrassing, is actually quite fun in its way. The problem with Com.X is not the comics. On the contrary, the problem is the near-total lack of comics.

True enough, Com.X has suffered from break-ins and illness. They do seem to have been plagued by unusually bad luck. But not to the point where that can single-handedly account for all the publisher's problems. The average Com.X book is delayed in a way rarely seen in mainstream comics since the early days of Image. We are talking, literally, about delays of two years. You can't chalk all of that up to bad luck. For example, what's with the artists being hired, doing some interviews, producing nothing that gets published, and disappearing off the scene?

In October, Com.X's Russ Uttley was interviewed about his own title, PUNCTURE, and asked why there were so many problems. Uttley explained:-

"Contary to most opinions, none of Ed [Deighton], Neil [Googe] or myself are millionaires - or thousandaires - and not frequently hundredaires... We are not a bunch of rich-kids squandering on vanity projects.

"In between every issue of every comic, and every title launch we three have to do sufficient work elsewhere to raise the necessary capital to publish.

"Net result is that when a content publisher like Sony or the BBC comes to us for a video game or TV show we have to take the work, bag the cash and then invest back into creation and publishing of comics. This is great news for funding the company, but shit news for schedules...

"We ran out of what little cash we had. Needed to do a shit load of work to get some more cash and can now finish up PUNCTURE and various others.

"Does this make us bad people? I don't know anyone else who would consistently spend their own income on producing comics for no profit. We love comics, we love creating and producing. No one is prepared to help us do these things - so we have determined to do it on our own efforts - whatever the hiccups are.

"I'm not sorry."

In other words, the Com.X publishing operation is undercapitalised and unprofitable. The traditional solution to this would be to raise some investment capital. If you know anyone who wants to invest money in an unprofitable fledgling British comic publisher aiming primarily at the American direct market, do let me know, because I've got a bridge I'd like to sell them. Com.X evidently don't know anyone like that, because they're essentially taking a day job and paying for the publisher's activities that way.

'Com.X does seem to have been plagued by unusually bad luck.' One may well applaud Com.X's determination. Certainly they deserve some credit for living somewhat within their means rather than continuing to run up bills with freelancers like some people I could mention. But ultimately, this is the way one runs a small press publication as a hobby. It is no basis on which to run a successful publishing company. Uttley is essentially appealing to readers to treat Com.X as a group of enthusiastic amateurs. But if that's so, the company would seem to be badly out of its depth trying to compete with Marvel, DC and Image.

When Uttley asks "Does this make us bad people", he's asking the wrong question. The track record of the company, and its diabolical inability to remain anywhere remotely close to schedule, doesn't make Com.X's owners bad people. But it does suggest that they're bad publishers. To be tactless about it, if Com.X were any good at publishing, they might actually publish something.

Given the generally favourable reaction to Com.X's output, it's a little surprising that Uttley says nobody is prepared to help them "create and produce" comics. Marvel has published a Neil Googe story before (in X-MEN UNLIMITED). One would have thought Image would be more than happy to publish BAZOOKA JULES. If there really aren't any other publishers prepared to help them produce comics, then that's truly surprising. More likely, Com.X's position is that they don't just want to produce their own comics - they want to publish them.

But, for all that they might stay on the right side of financial responsibility, Com.X's fundamental problem would seem to be that they're trying to run a publishing operation at a level that's beyond their resources, and perhaps their abilities. (It's always irritated me that, for all their impeccable design sense, Com.X seem incapable of hiring a proofreader who can spell or punctuate.) Until they address that, it's hard to think that the company's crippling lateness problems are going to be solved.

If they really want to participate in the market at this level, they can't treat the business as a hobby.

Paul O'Brien is the author of the weekly X-AXIS comics review.

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