Chip Zdarsky Leaving ‘Batman’ With #157

Over this past weekend, it was announced that Jim Lee and Jeph Loeb are taking over the regular Batman title from DC Comics for a sequel to their classic storyline, Hush. So what does that mean for regular Batman writer Chip Zdarsky? Turns out, he was planning on leaving much earlier.

Per Zdarsky’s newsletter, the writer explained that back last spring he decided to start wrapping things up for a number of reasons. First, he was finishing up a big arc with artist Jorge Jiménez. Second, editor Ben Abernathy was leaving for Skybound. And third, he had a big workload and needed to prioritize.

So per Zdarsky, he informed DC he was leaving Batman in April, just before Chicago’s C2E2. However, they asked if he could stick around for an arc in October, and so decided to do a standalone arc to finish things up.

Said Zdarsky, “I’m super proud of our final story, though scheduling issues forced it to go to biweekly, which meant Jorge sadly couldn’t draw it all. But then OTHER scheduling issues put it back to monthly, but what are you gonna do? Comics be comickin’.”

So now Zdarsky’s run extends to February 2025, before handing the reins over to Loeb and Lee in March. No drama, no “Zdarsky forced out for Hush 2!” Just a writer finishing a story on his own terms. Congrats to Zdarsky on the run, and good luck toiling in obscurity from here on out. Just kidding.

Read Zdarsky’s full note (other than his fictional story about Mark Waid, Dan Didio and more), below:

I love Batman. It’s been a true joy working on the title. But some time in the spring I got the itch in the back of my brain to wrap things up. Partly because Jorge and I were finishing up the giant Failsafe/Zur story, but also because my amazing Bat-editor Ben Abernathy had left for Transforming G.I. Joes at Skybound. I also had a terrifying workload in front of me and had to make some hard decisions about what needed to be prioritized.

So, just before C2E2 in April, I let DC know that I was leaving. It was a tough call ‘cause I truly love the crew there (especially their EIC Marie Javins, an absolute light in this dumb industry), but they understood. They asked if I’d be willing to stick around for an arc starting in October and I said yes, because I wanted to do something special and contained for Jorge; beautiful, beautiful Jorge.

Speaking of Jorge, the absolute hardest part was knowing we’d no longer be working together. Many hugs were exchanged at C2E2 when he found out, which was great for me because he smells so nice and his arms are so strong yet tender.

Since that convention I dug in on our final arc with the new Batman editor Rob Levin and ended up loving working with him as well, so THAT became the SECOND hardest part of leaving! Maybe I made a huge mistake???

I’m super proud of our final story, though scheduling issues forced it to go to biweekly, which meant Jorge sadly couldn’t draw it all. But then OTHER scheduling issues put it back to monthly, but what are you gonna do? Comics be comickin’. At some point we’re all at the mercy of things like “the financial quarter” and “CEO MacGuffin has a plan.”

I won’t get all maudlin here ‘cause we still have issues coming out until February. This is me pre-maudling, priming the maudlin pumps!

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