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DC's Webcomic Play: Zuda Comics

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on July 9, 2007 - 08:44

Thanks to Gordin McAlpin for the tip: DC Comics has a press release out on their forthcoming (an October launch date is mentioned) webcomic site: Zuda Comics. The NYTimes has an article on it this morning as well. From the press release (with my comments/questions/snark interlaced):

Already established as the largest English-language publisher of comics in the world, DC Comics announced today the creation of Zudacomics.com, a new web comics imprint. The home to such iconic characters as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Sandman, DC Comics will soon publish new, never before seen online content featuring new characters and concepts through Zudacomics.com.

Is this really true? Does DC put out more than any of the newspaper syndicates?

The site is scheduled to launch this October and will feature multiple ongoing web comics. Following the site's launch, the majority of the web comics will be selected by Zudacomics.com's visitors, who will vote on new web comics presented to them in periodic competitions. Winners of the competitions will receive commissions to create a year's worth of their web comics for the site, and will have their work published in print formats as well.

"There is an explosion of creativity in web comics," said Paul Levitz, DC Comics President & Publisher. "We want to build a great stage for this new generation of creators to perform on, a solid system for their work to reach audiences online and in print, and for the creators to share in the profits their creations can generate. In this time of rapid technological and cultural change, DC wants to be a good publisher for the evolving and growing community of online comic creators, so that we can be their partner for showcasing new kinds of works to entertain future generations."

Interesting. I haven't heard of any recruiting going on so it may be that the initial lineup features work from comic book regulars (or simply repurposed comic book comics). Contests are always fun. Of course the above doesn't explain who gets the copyright (DC traditionally does work-for-hire), how much the year's worth of webcomics commission (i.e. pay) is and what the deal will be for ancialliary stuff like books, t-shirts, etc. Mentioning that the creators will share in the profits actually makes me suspicious that DC does in fact intend to treat this as work-for-hire.

Creators will be encouraged to send submissions that run the full gamut of comic book genres—from humor, romance, science fiction, fantasy and superheroes. Editorial for Zudacomics.com will be handled by Ron Perazza, DC Comics Director of Creative Services and Kwanza Johnson, DC Comics Online Editor, and overseen by DC Comics SVP-Creative Director, Richard Bruning. Johnson and Perazza will be charged with selecting the submissions for the site's competitions; additionally, the editors can declare as many as six submissions as instant winners during the calendar year. All Zudacomics.com creators who are instant winners, competition winners and competition finalists will be paid by DC Comics.

What can I say - editors are great. If all of this helps to make the overall Zuda Comics site consistently great in terms of quality it'll help immensely to build the traffic to the site. Plugs in the DC line-up of comic books will also help a lot with site traffic too :)

Zudacomics.com's official tagline is "click here to continue." The site will have numerous variations of a site logo that reflects the scope and ambition of the imprint. "In designing the Zuda logo, it was important to echo back to the interactive nature of the web, the creativity of our medium and the diversity of the comics community," said Richard Bruning. "We soon realized that there shouldn't be just one logo. We wanted to reflect the different 'faces' of web comics that we are looking to publish. It's all about the diversity of the readership and the medium."

Have no idea what they're talking about but I predict lawyer-grams to anyone who dares utter "click here to continue" in the future...

Unlike a traditional comic book page (which traditionally measures 6 5/8" X 10 1/4"), a Zuda web comic will consist of a series of 4:3 aspect ratio screens, so that users will be able to read a web comic installment without opening an additional window in their browser or excessive scrolling. Ongoing Zuda web comics will run for at least 52 total installments, in addition to the initial submission.

Interesting. These aren't the most restrictive guidelines they could put out if they're trying to create a uniform experience at the website. There are more details on what they mean by a 4:3 aspect ratio here.

DC Comics has chosen IBM Global Business Services to design and build the new Zudacomics.com site. The site will embrace leading Web 2.0 technologies such as blogging, commenting, rating and tagging to encourage maximum community participation and feedback on artists' submissions. The DC Comics creative and technical teams are working side by side with consultants, visual designers, information architects and developers from IBM's Media & Entertainment practice to design everything from the technology architecture to the look and feel and overall user experience for the site. Through the use of open source technologies, the new site will enable collaboration and innovation as well as flexibility to allow DC Comics to continue to enhance the site with industry leading functionality over time.

Interesting as well although I wonder if IBM and DC will be contributing any new code back to these open source projects they'll be using for the site.

The Zudacomics.com teaser site will go live in July, timed to this year's San Diego ComicCon; the teaser site will allow pre-registration for the site and provide updates for the imprint throughout the summer. "Zuda Comics will be a transparent publishing operation," said Ron Perazza, Online Director. "We're asking the community and the creators to participate in the growth of a new business. They need to have access to every bit of information we can provide, so we're going to roll out our submissions process, our contracts and agreements throughout the summer, well before our October content launch."

Smart marketing. Let us know what you see at ComiCon this year and we'll try to keep everyone updated. (UPDATE: a good article at ICv2 compares this to other publishers' web efforts.)

Cult of the Amateur?

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 29, 2007 - 10:47

An interesting article in the NY Times talking about a new book by Andrsew Keen called The Cult of the Amateur. It sounds like the book covers a lot of territory but one point of interest to webcomics was the notion that free content is killing content:

"What you may not realize is that what is free is actually costing us a fortune,” Mr. Keen writes. “The new winners — Google, YouTube, MySpace, Craigslist, and the hundreds of start-ups hungry for a piece of the Web 2.0 pie — are unlikely to fill the shoes of the industries they are helping to undermine, in terms of products produced, jobs created, revenue generated or benefits conferred. By stealing away our eyeballs, the blogs and wikis are decimating the publishing, music and news-gathering industries that created the original content those Web sites ‘aggregate.’ Our culture is essentially cannibalizing its young, destroying the very sources of the content they crave."

Abandoning Micropayments

June 29, 2007 - 04:44 | Joel Fagin

Joel Fagin follows up his previous article on the selling of webcomics Reinventing Micropayments with another look at how creators could sell digital comics. This time, he further explores the notion of selling comic downloads and examines the initial results of Starline X Hodge's sales of her comic Candi.

Atlanta Comic Convention

Atlanta Comic Convention - Sunday June 24, 2007, 11am-5pm

Webcomic creators in the Artist Alley:

Tuesday News & Blues

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on June 19, 2007 - 10:10

COMIXMEDIA UPDATE:  I'm still working on the site(s) upgrade. Current plan is to have this site rebranded as COMIXTALK by the beginning of July. I'll have another site called COMIXMEDIA as an umbrella site for comics-related projects I'm working on. The upgrade here went well except the current "theme" for the site is creating some problems so I need to get the site moved to a new theme pronto (current plan is to simply update the current theme to Drupal 5.1 specs)

Guest Bloggers Wanted: Interested in blogging about (web)comics on ComixTalk in July or August? Drop me a note at xerexes AT comixpedia DOT com

BUSINESS
Todd Allen breaks another piece of the story about DC Comics plans for the web. DC Comics' new online editor is Kwanza Johnson (who according to Allen had a similar job with Marvel back in 2000?!) Allen predicts a "big" 4th quarter roll-out of webcomics from DC.

Mike Strang posted about his unhappy experience working for Platinum on a work-for-hire contract and others (T Campbell) chimed in with comments. Joey Manley compared work-for-hire to sticking your hand in a meat grinder. My own personal opinion is that authors should keep their copyrights and that creativity and business are both better off under those circumstances. But in movies, television, music and especially comic books, work-for-hire arrangements have been used forever and are still being used. So long as you know what you're getting into I don't see anything inherently evil about it. Just be clear on the concept - work-for-hire means all of your creative work becomes someone else's property. (REMINDER: if you comment at ComixTalk please try to be civil and respectful of others.)

INTERVIEWS
T Campbell interviews Aaron Williams, creator of Nodwick, PS238, Full Frontal Nerdity, co-writer on Truth, Justin, and the American Way.

Jane Irwin interviewed Templar, AZ creator Spike about webcomics and "effectively whoring your way to higher pageviews." You can read the interview here.

Shaenon Garrity interviewed Rob Vollmar who writes the comic Inanna’s Tears (drawn by mpMann).

Lynn Lau interviewed Katie Shanahan creator of the off-the-wall journal comic Shrub Monkeys.

Finding Wonderland talks to American Born Chinese author Gene Yang. (link from Journalista!)

DEAD TREES: Life Meter Vol. 2 will debut at MOCCA. Life Meter is an anthology of video game- inspired comics, featuring stories and art by Bannister, Joel Carroll, Raina Telgemeier, Steve Hamaker, Jake Parker, Jeffrey Rowland, Queenie Chan, and many, many more.

JUSTIFY MY HYPE: I saw some plugs for Boxcar Astronaut and it is indeed a cute comic (it reminds me a bit of the syndicated Red Rover comic strip).

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOGS
FLEEN speculates on whether Elfquest creators Wendy and Richard Pini will follow the path of Phil and Kaja Foglio to the web.

At the Webcomicker blog, Gilead writes about Dominic Deegan:

If there’s one thing I like about Dominic Deegan, it’s that the storylines move forward progressively. The comic tends to have storylines which are fairly self-contained, with a specific villian or villians wreaking havoc with a specific set of goals and a specific set of heroes undergoing a specific set of actions in order to thwart said villians. But instead of each storyline coming around the full circle and leaving the heroes in basically the same place as they were when they started in classic comic book “and so the world was saved once again, and John D and Suzy Q were able to return to their normal lives” fashion, the characters in Dominic Deegan mature and grow from their experiences, and with each storyline move progressively closer to the “happily ever after.”

Joystiq readers pick their favorite comic.

Odd factoid of the day - according to this blog post, VG Cats creator Scott Ramsoomair used to babysit this guy.

Never sign a Work For Hire contract with Platinum Studios!

Submitted by strangq on June 18, 2007 - 17:43

Stay away from Platinum Studios and any Work for Hire contracts if you feel attached to your creations. I feel as though I signed my soul over in a deal with the devil.
My name is Mike Strang and I wrote a comic book for them a horror spoof entitled WEIRD ADVENTURES IN UNEMPLOYMENT...

Panels and Pictures: Long Form Serialization

June 16, 2007 - 11:02 | Derik A. Badman

In this month's Panels & Pictures, Derik A Badman looks at a few long form webcomic narratives and how their serialization affects the reading experience.

Heroes Con - Charlotte, NC

Heroes Convention - Charlotte, NC, Fri-Sun, June 15-17, 2007

Anyone else have an issue with Marvel Comics?

Submitted by stardreamer0228 on June 11, 2007 - 21:32

Now, I'm not usually one to say bad things about a company, but sometimes something happens that just chaps me off. How about you? Let me tell you about this unbelievable event.

Adventure Con - Knoxville, TN

Adventure Con in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.

Hours: Friday 12pm - 7pm; Saturday 10am - 6pm; Sunday 11am - 5pm

Webcomic Guests: Gina Biggs - Red String and Greg Carter - Abandon.