It sounds like the model was fully developed, and most of the materials were already created. Am I misunderstanding at all?
Given that, it's just STUNNING that the publisher would scrap all that work. I can see "holding it" for a while, but scrapping it? That's just not sane.
I think this is an amazing concept. Such a project would never even get a "green light" here in the states, I'm afraid, because the publishing folks are scared of doing ANYTHING "tech-ish." That they blame that on the "lack of a market for this sort of thing," rather than recognizing that the market is there for QUALITY WORK (like this clearly is!) just shows that making a big income and sitting in a corner office doesn't require any actual common sense.
This was to be 100 issues... presumably weekly, correct? So, basically two years worth.
I would strongly recommend trying this out in the States, but not selling it on a news stand. This should be sold through subscription... and the best place to do this would be through a site like Amazon.
The thing would be sold as a subscription... each month, you'd be "auto-billed" 1/100 of the total price of the set, and you'd be auto-shipped that week's package.
You'd need an initial run of the items, and would need to keep the ability to produce more as required, of course, but would not ever have to worry about "returns" (except for quality issues) like you'd have to worry about if it were sold on newsstands.
Seriously... this is a fantastic idea. What was the total selling price for the set, and thus the "weekly selling price" of each issue? The periodical concept is great, since it's an 'installment plan" that the owner has a true incentive to keep up-to-date with!
I WANT ONE. I mean, I want the whole freakin' set.
Is it literally DEAD (ie, all materials now lost) or was it just shelved, due to the earthquake?
I can't imagine how ANYONE would permanently kill this, or anything else, without taking into account the quake's impact. NOBODY can be that insular, can they?