Even with the new wait-for-the-trade realities of comic book publishing, I've still been caught out a couple of times. Once when the online community's hatred of ULTIMATE ADVENTURES script bod Ron Zimmerman got so fierce that Marvel were afraid to collect a fine comic (well, especially in terms of Fegredo's art) for years. In that case, I just had to track down the back issues (man, doing that was a blast from the past).
Lately, I've came across another problem: that inconsiderate sod Steve Gerber dying without finishing his current run on Dr Fate in COUNTDOWN TO MYSTERY. I loved Gerber, love the character (loved Gerber's run on Fate with Keith Giffen and Marty Pasko in the back of THE FLASH as a kid; I don't have much original art but I do have a couple of pages of Giffen's work on the four issue mini from 1987), and was pretty fond of the book's artist, Justiniano's DC work in the last couple of years. And I hadn't been buying the singles, safe in the knowledge that DC would get around to sticking a collected edition out when it was finished.
Anyway, it looks like DC have came up with a suitably Gerber-ish way of concluding the run, and I'll look forward to seeing it completed eventually. And in related news, Gerber's collaborator on MAN-THING and the great OMEGA THE UNKNOWN, Jim Mooney, has recently passed away. I'll remember him for the slick, Romita-esque work he did on bronze age Marvels, though his career started at least three decades before that.