10 Jaw-Dropping Comics Cancelled Before They Were Published

6. Night Radio

Ellis' second entry on this list would have been an anthology series of four 48-page black-and-white issues, without ads, by Avatar Press. It was meant to introduce Matt Fraction, Antony Johnston and Micaela Petersen as scriptwriters, with each of them and Ellis himself taking an issue apiece, and Ellis editing the whole shebang. To be published by Avatar Press, it represented Ellis' attempt to inject "new voices" into comics around the turn of the century.

"I associate night radio with newness. Back in my youth, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, late-night radio was the time when new bands were broken, new musical forms were allowed out, and novelty was the point and not the exception. NIGHT RADIO is me trying to broadcast future music." Though Fraction and Johnston would go on to careers in comics, this "debut album" of theirs never came together.

How Regrettable Is Its Loss? Hard to say, really. Anthologies are usually a bit hit or miss even when the talent behind them is solid, and Petersen's obscurity thereafter isn't a selling point. Ellis' move was commendable, but perhaps the idea of the anthology opened more doors for Fraction and Johnston than the anthology itself.