Batman Europa was supposed to have been published a couple of weeks ago, six and a half years after it was first announced.

A Batman series written by Brian Azzarello and Matteo Casali with Italian artists Jim Lee had met in his year living in the country, as well s Jim Lee himself.

Back in 2004 it was to be drawn by Jim Lee, Giuseppe Camuncoli, a mystery choice and Gabriele Dell'Otto. It was to have been edited by Scott Dunbier and Mark Chiarello.

On re-announcement in October 2010 with considerable pomp and publicity, it was now to be Giuseppe Camuncoli who would layout every issue, and Jim Lee would paint over the first issue layouts, Camuncoli doing the whole second issue with Diego Latorre and Jock signed up for future issues. And it got the cover of Previews.

That was then. The first issue book was meant to come out in January, then slipped to February. Then March. And now, along with subsequent issues, all mention has been removed from the DC website. Though there is this from the Google cache for now which indicates at one point DC were considering a quite unlikely schedule.

I am told that, as of a couple of weeks ago, Jim Lee had only finished painting two or three of the thirty pages. That on solicitation, people involved knew that it was never going to hit these dates. And that there is some understandable disquiet from people in the project who weren't been kept in the loop over the quite ludicrous schedule.

Of course the delay has some benefits. Jock, scheduled to draw the fourth issue told me "all going well, i'm still on the book — there was a moment of worry that the schedule may conflict with Detective Comics. but it's looking like we'll be able to work it out"

So because of the delay, Jock can now finish his issue and stay on Detective Comics. And when Batman Europa finally returns to the market, expect a lot more of it to have been drawn.