Batman Writer James Tynion IV Quits Book In Move to Substack and Creator Owned Focus

The Eisner-winning writer of DC Comics' Batman ongoing series has announced his exit from the series. James Tynion IV leaves Gotham City behind to launch a new comic, Blue Book, with acclaimed artist Michael Avon Oeming via a Substack newsletter. "This wasn't an easy decision," Tynion told The New York Times. "In order to invest my time in new material, I needed to choose. I could not do both." DC Comics announced Tynion as the new Batman writer on Batman Day in 2019. He's led the Batman led through a period of expansion, including a relaunch with the beginning of the Infinite Frontier era. His run will continue through the upcoming Fear State event and end in November.

While Tynion is known to DC Comics fans for his work on Batman, he's built up a stellar catalog of creator-owned comics. Something Is Killing the Children has been a hit at BOOM! Comics, with a spinoff series and Netflix adaptation in the works. In a post on Sustack, Tynion expressed a desire to create more of his content as a big reason for moving away from DC.

"...I was trying to make one of the most difficult decisions of my professional life. DC had presented me with a three-year renewal of my exclusive contract, with the intent of me working on Batman for the bulk of that time. I was grateful of the offer, but I couldn't help but look at the success of my original, creator owned titles and wonder if it was the right choice. And then I received another contract. The best I've ever been given in a decade as a professional comic book writer. A grant from Substack to create a new slate of original comic book properties directly on their platform, that my co-creators and I would own completely, with Substack taking none of the intellectual property rights, or even the publishing rights. Given my bandwidth, I knew I could only pick one of two contracts sitting in front of me.

"Which is a lot of preamble to say that I am going to be leaving BATMAN with Issue #117 in November, and THE JOKER with Issue #14 next April, with no immediate plans to write any other superhero comics in the near future. Instead, I'm going to dedicate my whole brain to building a bunch of really cool stuff on my own terms, without having to get permission from any publisher to make it."

What do you think? Let us know in the comments. Tynion's final Batman issue arrives in November.