Some recent articles talking about the cancelled comics makes me want the opinion of someone who works within the whole industry. What exactly happens when someone's book is cancelled? Do the creative teams go back to the drawing board, so to speak, or are

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Well, I think there might be a little misunderstanding here. Writing a comic isn't quite like having a standard day job. The relationship is very fluid, and we all work under the knowledge that we can be removed from a book or have the book canceled at any time (assuming it's work for hire, or course, and not creator-owned).

There are basically two answers to this.

One is the typical freelancer's situation. This generally means you are given assignments, sometimes open-ended on continuing series, sometimes not. If a book is canceled, you are done with that book, usually. If you are well-regarded and the company feels you are better used elsewhere, they may ask if you want to work on this other title, and you can say yes, or no. 

Or, they will let you know they like your work, and would like you to pitch for either a new title, or an existing one. I try never to step on another writer's toes…if a writer is working on a book and wants to stay, I won't pitch for it.  Pitching is by no means a guarantee of new work. And quite often, if your book failed, you may not have more work assigned for some time and have to go look elsewhere.

If you are an exclusive creator, meaning you have a contract with one of the majors, they usually have a certain number of pages you have to write as a minimum each month, which also benefits the writer because they know they have at least that much work and income. Under those circumstances, if a book is cancelled, they will try to get you another assignment pretty quickly.

So, it's different for every situation. Hope that helps.