Okay I didn’t see that one coming… Journalista! links to a Platinum Studios news release that they are in negotiations to buy WOWIO. Wowio is a website in a state of suspended animation right now — and was the subject of lots of speculation last week.
Know Your References!
Continue Reading
Newsarama interviewed some of the creators, including Park and Barbara Lien-Cooper, who entered Tokyopop’s comics contest. Heidi MacDonald comments on the ongoing Platinum and Tokyopop stories and Lea Hernandez weighs in again on the Tokyopop contracts.
While I’ll admit I do get annoyed at the more judgmental commentators on these stories, I do think that work-for-hire contracts giving the publisher the copyright to original material is horribly horribly wrong for comics. It’s great for companies interested in amassing IP for sales to Hollywood. But that IP-centric model — especially when such companies don’t really get around to publishing comics — somedays it seems a lot like the company that buys up a lot of patents without any intent to actually manufacture anything.
DJ Coffman blogs again about his ongoing issues with Platinum over the Hero By Night comic. Coffman states that he's now paid in full and that Platinum has terminated his consultant contract with them. Final results? Coffman paid what he's owed; Platinum boxing up Hero By Night like the Ark of the Covenant. Platinum owns the copyright on it so it can do what it wants, including never doing anything with it again.
This happens everyday…
Continue Reading
FLEEN has an interview with Rich Stevens on his recent announcement that he’ll stop production of the newspaper version of Diesel Sweeties later this year. Stevens has been maintaining both the web version and a second newspaper version since striking a syndication deal with United Features. Stevens notes that Diesel Sweeties appeared in about 50 papers at its height, but that "My website and merch were a little over 90% of my gross income last year."
Also Stevens slips that he and Meredith Gran spoke at the Googleplex recently and their talk should be online some time soon.
I kept coming up with ideas for comics that were too complicated and too ambitious for my meager writing and drahering skills so finally I hit on that ol’ standby: the journal comic. No need for plot — just write down what happens to me everyday. Something interesting is bound to happen right? Er or […] Continue Reading
So let’s see how this goes.
Continue Reading
Another webcomic inspired game — Wired reports on user-created games appearing on X-Box’s portal:
Another game shown off by Microsoft at GDC, Little Gamers is based on the webcomic of the same name. The adorable drawings belie the gruesome violence; most of the gameplay consists of hacking people to death with a surprisingly large variety of guns and melee weapons.
Comics Worth Reading writes that it’s been a year since DC announced the coming of Zuda (the site actually went live last October) and this July, Zuda will be holding the "Zuda Comics 2008 Invitational" sort of a supplemental contest to their regular monthly contest. It will feature 10 comics selected by "fan response".
Zuda is essentially another IP farm, like Platinum, TokyoPop (and Marvel and DC…) and now that it’s had a number of "winners" I’d really like to see some stories on how the winners are faring and whether their experience with DC/Zuda has lived up to their expectations.
Recent Comments