I have to say this "I worked for ages on a baby Birds of Prey-type presentation (with Spoiler, Misfit, Bumblebee, and Black Alice)." sounds awesome. I'm sad they didn't bite.

They never really ASKED for it, was the problem.It was just something I kept trying to push on them and that probably rarely works, ever. You need to have an editor really champion a new concept to get it approved, and I had just said, WE MUST DO THIS!

Which isn’t how it’s normally done, basically.

On the night the new52 were announced, I was kind of shocked that there were so few female creators and that several favorite characters were benched. I kinda misunderstood the mandate, and I wasn’t aware that other women were coming (though not enough) and that some had been asked but couldn’t commit at the time (though not enough).

So I wrote a long letter about the kind of book I thought was needed and would really help, Baby Bop (it wasn’t called that but I don’t want to use the real name just in case something does come up).

The idea was Steph as Spoiler leading a team featuring a de-aged  super-brilliant Bumblebee, and Misfit, and Black Alice.

Now, to give full credit, they dd listen, and they did consider it. They asked for revisions several times because of conflicts with other books or because it didn’t match what they wanted for one character or another. It went through some fairly drastic different takes, trying to find one that they would bite on, including a digital comic concept. 

But it was felt that it might infringe a little bit on what Dustin is doing with his digital book, so that was out.

Basically, it didn’t have a champion in the office, and all the editors are already swamped with their own books.

I don’t blame anyone, tons of books are pitched and only a handful every few months are greenlighted, but I desperately wanted those characters unbenched. Even forgetting how beloved they are (and I think it’s unlikely any would get a solo shot anytime soon), they represent visibility of young girls in comics, and that is inclusive and welcoming to young girl READERS of comics.

I still feel it’s a great concept, I think it would be a wonderful book, and I know darn well it would sell. So it’s sad, but I can’t stress enough, this stuff happens all the time. LOTS of ideas get pitched, and the writer of each of those ideas is just convinced that it’s wonderful and will be a huge hit.

Eventually, I just had to give up on it. Sad, but these things do happen. Hopefully someone else will try and succeed.