Originally Posted by
Dzetoun
Well, the two situations are not exactly identical, either from an editorial or a business perspective. In Dick Grayson they had a very popular character who had already proved capable of carrying a mid-ranking series even under less-than-ideal circumstances, and whom many believed, based on the evidence of Teen Titans and Batman and Robin, should be capable of doing much more given the right support. In Catwoman they had a character who was well-liked and of long lineage, but who had never been capable of selling at the same level as Grayson's books and who had no Teen Titans or Batman and Robin to give hard data on possible improvements, whatever the editors might think of the character's literary potential.
For what it's worth, I actually was at a convention where Genevieve Valentine talked about her experience with the Batman Office and Catwoman. It's true that anything said in such a public forum has to pass through several filters, and I am sure there was more to the story than she let on. But she indicated that, although she had faced some problems inherent in working in a corporate culture like D.C.'s, she was very admiring of Mark Doyle and his approach (she said it was like Gotham was a multi-dimensional city where dozens of different realities interacted) and had no complaints about the support she was getting from that quarter. She did say her initial contract was for seven books with no promises thereafter. However, given that she had never worked for D.C. or in comics before, such a trial run is scarcely surprising, or unwise. Also, she said that everyone seemed to have very realistic and reasonable expectations. That is, and she put it rather bluntly, given how badly things had gone for the character in the last few years, if a writer just managed to get a solid arc out without major stumbles, everyone was prepared to breathe a sigh and declare a victory. One might call that defeatism, but she found it a welcome and very workable attitude.