Okay I am sure this has been answered a million times, but indulge me please.

Why Most Wanted Vol 1 and 3 but no Vol 2?

What happened to it?

Is there a story behind this?

Who knows?  Perhaps it's among some of that older stuff that FGU has promised to reveal from the ancient vaults (like the markers for DD and Dr. A)?

That would be really cool, to finally get a Most Wanted 2.   

dsumner wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 5:39pm:


Correct.

-Jeff Dee
UNIgames

Exactly Troy!

That's the story I want to know.  Why wasn't Vol 3 released as Vol 2 then?

Zenith Comics wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 1:58am:


To understand completely, we would have to understand the FGU business model.  While I don't totally understand it all, I did find a blog done by the writer of "From the Depths of Space".

He stated that FGU gave work of a consignment basis.  He stated his Agent kept steering him to FGU and V&V.  He would pitch an idea and would be given the work on consignment from FGU.  If FGU expressed they weren't interested then he wouldn't start on it.

So following that logic, if Vol 2 was already assigned but hung up with editor and creator differences then Vol 3 continues on unabated and will be published as is.

So if this is the business model of FGU.  Then Scott couldn't change the Title of the submission without violating writer's rights (based on their mutual agreement for the work assignment).

Zenith Comics wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 3:11pm:

I'm with Aslan here. Publishers change titles all the time. ALL the time. And it this case it's simply changing the numeral after the word Most Wanted.

Yeah, I can't believe the title would have tied things up.  I've done professional writing for a few organizations before, and - even though you work with a contract - changing a word (or in this case, a number) in the title would/should never end up being a big deal.

The Cougar wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 6:30pm:


People redraft contracts with different titles all the time. It's not that complicated. It happens with books and magazines every day.

Plus, unless you read the contract between Troy Christensen and FGU about Most Wanted Vol. 3, it might be better not to speculate that changing the title wasn't an option.

Titles change in publishing all the time. Sometimes right before manuscripts go to print. Sometimes in reprint. It's not a hard work-around.

Okay, Troy.  Since you know every reason why my answer is wrong then:

Because Scott didn't want to change it to Vol 2.

The Cougar wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 6:43pm:


If you knew that all along, why the legal rigamarole?

The Cougar wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 3:03pm:

You could simply ask Scott B. over at FGU instead of extrapoating theories about contracts you haven't read. I mean, all the players involved are still alive. One of the greatest things about V&V is that the creators were so young at the time that 30 years later they're still young bucks.

The Cougar wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 6:54pm:


To me that suggests that personal reasons were involved in naming one volume 3 even though it came out before volume 2 would have.

Seeing how about half of the people here seem to have a foot in publishing, the contractual argument doesn't jive.

So your sarcastic comment about Scott B. not wanting to change the tile actually makes more sense, even if it seems goofy.

Either way, I think it's better not to speculate about what a contract may or may not have prohibited without having read the contract.

No one's persecuting you, Cougar. You're a respected member of this board. No one's treating you like a Target.

Peace!

So essentially no one who knows is telling?

That the reason?

Heh

Colour me disappointed.

Awesome Polarboy, I love it!!!

Or it could be that Super-Crooks & Criminals (or Opponents Unlimited) are actually the Most Wanted, Volume 2, but the fact that they're such secretive, classified bad guys they decided to keep even the title mysterious!   

Wow. You guys are still talking about this?

Here's the explanation.

1) The adventures published by FGU do not represent a single coherent continuity. Each individual author's adventures take place in their own private parallel world. None of it is "canon" as far as the core universe created by Jack Herman and myself is concerned.

2) Most Wanted was intended to be a series of books detailing villains from our core universe. Jack wrote MW1, and I was writing MW2.

3) FGU ceased to be a real company (no promotion, no convention appearances, no solicitation of distributors) before I finished MW2. I therefor stopped working on MW2.

4) MW3 was not supposed to be MW3. It does not contain any official information from the setting I shared with Jack. But FGU released it as MW3 anyway, without consulting us.

5) Why did FGU leave a "gap" for MW2? Because Scott Bizar is a lunatic. Despite his company dwindling to nothing, despite his refusal to relinquish the rights when he was no longer in any position to uphold his responsibilities as a publisher, and despite having insulted us creatively by releasing a book that craps all over our continuity, he still thought I would eventually finish MW2 and hand it over to him. He probably STILL believes that.

I am in the process of finishing up what would have been MW2 for release as a Living Legends book. No release date has been announced.

-Jeff Dee
UNIgames

How about we just drop this and move along?