Soft Release Dates + Creator Ownership

[badMike]

Two things from the column this week:

1) I'm totally shocked by this description of "soft release dates." Is that why I can never find anything I go to a store to buy? I can sort of understand the logic behind it, but if companies knew they were cutting it close by setting these release dates, why don't they just push those dates back as a cushion? Maybe a publisher here (Nat?) can explain more because I'm baffled. And as a casual store visitor this kind of thing drives me nuts because I go look for something and 99% of the time these days it's not there. That's how it feels anyway.

2) Steven wrote: "... is it any wonder the greatest goal for many indie talents is still to land a gig with Marvel or DC? Or that the audience picks up on that vibe?"

Well, I was reading an interview with Todd MacFarlane on CBR the other day and one of the questions was about why he hired "old" Image guys to do the artwork on his Spawn re-launch this fall. And Todd basically said that Marvel and DC have snapped up all the good young artists with their exclusive deals. So, I guess that is where the talent, for the most part, is going.

Also in the column, Steven says that Image doesn't go after rights deals. This also reminded me of an interview I read with Ben Templesmith awhile ago where he said that Steve Niles did a 50/50 split with Ben with all rights on 30 Days of Night, so Ben intimated that he made off like a bandit on the movie deal, which was generous of Image and Niles. Ben, from what I see, stays pretty indie with his new work, correct?

BTW: I think I read more interviews with comics creators online than I buy actual comics these days ...

[Steven Grant]

IDW published 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, not Image, but Niles did have a complete creator-owned deal with IDW back then as far as I know. Weirdly, from what I understand, it was Dark Horse that brokered the movie rights auction, which netted big. I don't know if it made the million that was touted at the time - publicists have a habit of inflating purchase prices or combining all the multi-tiered never-never payments that might be attached to a project into one misleading lump sum - but I know they did quite well...

- Grant

[badMike]

IDW published 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, not Image

Oh yeah, that's right. Don't know why I was thinking of Image ...

[Templesmith]

Two things from the column this week:
Also in the column, Steven says that Image doesn't go after rights deals. This also reminded me of an interview I read with Ben Templesmith awhile ago where he said that Steve Niles did a 50/50 split with Ben with all rights on 30 Days of Night, so Ben intimated that he made off like a bandit on the movie deal, which was generous of Image and Niles. Ben, from what I see, stays pretty indie with his new work, correct?

I didn't actually say that, no sir.

There was no 50/50 split. It was a different amount to that.

I never made out like a bandit on the movie deal. ( I did receive some nice money, I'm not complaining, but nothing life changing or that I could say, buy a house or something with...especially after agents and everyone take their standard cuts. ) You're thinking of the other guy, who also got a very healthy script writing fee etc. IDW also own a portion.

There was nothing generous about the deal. ( The comic deal I mean, not the movie deal ) To me, it's how things should be done. I was an artist/co-creator on a creator owned book, coming up with a visual look, half the vamp characters etc .So I got a portion of the rights. Now what portion an artist should get, and how much artists vs writers bring to certain projects can always be debated.

And yep, I stay indie. It's just gone that way. ( Though of course I started on Hellspawn, as WFH ) I'm thinking I must be the only guy yet to work for the two larger corporations on their IP who's still lucky enough to have some sort of name recognition as an artist. I love some of their characters and what they do, but don't feel a need to constantly pitch them or anything, and am lucky and quite happy to stay making my own creations the way I want to for as long as there's enough people to embrace my crazy crap as I plug away!

And yes indeed, it wasn't Image comics, it was IDW Publishing that did 30 Days of night.

Darkhorse didn't exactly "broker" any deal and indeed, the figure of a million dollars was at the time a little exaggerated.

[NatGertler]

1) I'm totally shocked by this description of "soft release dates." Is that why I can never find anything I go to a store to buy? I can sort of understand the logic behind it, but if companies knew they were cutting it close by setting these release dates, why don't they just push those dates back as a cushion? Maybe a publisher here (Nat?) can explain more because I'm baffled. And as a casual store visitor this kind of thing drives me nuts because I go look for something and 99% of the time these days it's not there. That's how it feels anyway.

There's a pretty standard solicitation cycle on comics; the books that are solicited in the June issues of Previews will have their orders sent from Diamond to the publisher in July, and generally these are supposed to be August books. Many publishers print based on the order figures, in which case they really have a limited time to get the work out. If something goes wrong (and things do go wrong) that can mess with everything.
There are two obvious things for a publisher to do:

1. Solicit further in advance. Put the September comics in the June Previews, instead of August. This is possible... but the retailers don't like it. When they're looking at the June Previews, they want to worry about their August expenses. They don't like folks trying to get the first bite at their September money. And they don't like having to order further in advance, because that means they're making more distant predictions, and have less information to base it on (suddenly, instead of ordering issue 3 before they've seen the sales of issue 1, they're ordering issue 4.)
2. Print in advance of orders. This is actually pretty common for squarebound material, where you're expecting ongoing reorders and want to print significant excess anyway. It's becoming more common with periodical issues, as some publishers are printing overseas (cheap shipping takes a while), and are willing to risk over- or underprinting in return for the savings. However, there are real expenses involved in printing with even further lead time... not just cash flow (putting money out for material and printing longer before getting paid for it) but also the real warehousing cost involved in hilding the completed material until the release date.

Here are About Comics, we solicit with a shipping month, but not a date in that month. That way, we can target getting the book out early in the month, and if something goes askew (goodness knows it has at times), we still get the book out later in the month.

[Steven Grant]

I didn't actually say that, no sir.

There was no 50/50 split. It was a different amount to that.

I never made out like a bandit on the movie deal. ( I did receive some nice money, I'm not complaining, but nothing life changing or that I could say, buy a house or something with...especially after agents and everyone take their standard cuts. ) You're thinking of the other guy, who also got a very healthy script writing fee etc. IDW also own a portion.

There was nothing generous about the deal. ( The comic deal I mean, not the movie deal ) To me, it's how things should be done. I was an artist/co-creator on a creator owned book, coming up with a visual look, half the vamp characters etc .So I got a portion of the rights. Now what portion an artist should get, and how much artists vs writers bring to certain projects can always be debated.

And yep, I stay indie. It's just gone that way. ( Though of course I started on Hellspawn, as WFH ) I'm thinking I must be the only guy yet to work for the two larger corporations on their IP who's still lucky enough to have some sort of name recognition as an artist. I love some of their characters and what they do, but don't feel a need to constantly pitch them or anything, and am lucky and quite happy to stay making my own creations the way I want to for as long as there's enough people to embrace my crazy crap as I plug away!

And yes indeed, it wasn't Image comics, it was IDW Publishing that did 30 Days of night.

Darkhorse didn't exactly "broker" any deal and indeed, the figure of a million dollars was at the time a little exaggerated.

Sorry, Ben, I'd been told Dark Horse/Mike Richardson brokered the deal, which didn't make any sense to me at the time since they didn't have anything to do with the comic.

You might have run across my brief review of the movie a few columns back - finally saw it on DVD - and, yeah, there's no doubt in my mind your visual interpretation of the vampire (which the movie tried to recapture and couldn't) was as big an influence on the interest and sale as the terrific "high concept." The things look really foul and evil in the comics, inhuman in a way that takes the basic Nosferatu visual and ramps it up on steroids. (Not that the, for lack of a better word at 1:30 AM, impressionism of your style wasn't a huge factor in the whole tone and mood of the story.) In the movie they just looked like they'd never heard of napkins...

- Grant

[badMike]

I didn't actually say that, no sir.

There was no 50/50 split. It was a different amount to that.

I never made out like a bandit on the movie deal. ( I did receive some nice money, I'm not complaining, but nothing life changing or that I could say, buy a house or something with...especially after agents and everyone take their standard cuts. ) You're thinking of the other guy, who also got a very healthy script writing fee etc. IDW also own a portion.

Sorry, I guess I either misremembered or interpreted something that wasn't there. Thanks for the elucidation.

But still, I guess what I took out of the interview I read is that you were at least happy with the deal and didn't get screwed over, much like I would expect artists to be, given the history of Hollywood and comic books. Maybe some of what I thought was wishful thinking...

[Templesmith]

Sorry, Ben, I'd been told Dark Horse/Mike Richardson brokered the deal, which didn't make any sense to me at the time since they didn't have anything to do with the comic.

In Hollywood, everyone will give you a different story, that's the way they work. So far as I know, Mike just passed the comic to an interested party, that being Sam Raimi's company. But then, there was a three way bidding war for the property anyway. I don't claim to know much more than that, but I've heard various stories about how it all went down. I'm sure they're all at least half right in the end.

Darkhorse did ironically pass on publishing the comic initially way back when it was just a little pitch though. ( But then, so did everyone except little ol' IDW, who made it their first normal format comic they published. )

You might have run across my brief review of the movie a few columns back - finally saw it on DVD - and, yeah, there's no doubt in my mind your visual interpretation of the vampire (which the movie tried to recapture and couldn't) was as big an influence on the interest and sale as the terrific "high concept." The things look really foul and evil in the comics, inhuman in a way that takes the basic Nosferatu visual and ramps it up on steroids. (Not that the, for lack of a better word at 1:30 AM, impressionism of your style wasn't a huge factor in the whole tone and mood of the story.) In the movie they just looked like they'd never heard of napkins...

- Grant

I think any success the movie had was down to director David Slade. He actually picked the comic up in it's initial low print run as he dug the art. So you had a guy that really wanted to translate it in a workable fashion to the screen. ( Visually I mean ) But it had to try and be more realistic than my sketchy art was back then. The colour scheme was pretty much kept as well as the vamp designs. So I owe him much for putting a piece of "me" on the screen. He also fought, among other things, to keep the little girl vamp in. Which I loved since she was mine baby! ;)

[Templesmith]

Sorry, I guess I either misremembered or interpreted something that wasn't there. Thanks for the elucidation.

Oh, I just freak out when people assume I'm like "Mr moneybags" from a huge movie deal when in actual fact I have to still work for a living and find ways to pay my rent. But yeah, when quoting numbers, like that 50/50 thing, I couldn't help myself but correct it slightly.

But still, I guess what I took out of the interview I read is that you were at least happy with the deal and didn't get screwed over, much like I would expect artists to be, given the history of Hollywood and comic books. Maybe some of what I thought was wishful thinking...

Man, I was just happy it got made in the end honestly. I got ( to my mind ) a little bonus magic money from Hollywood for working on a small press comic, and got to hang on set and get to know a very creative director who besides anything else, is a fan of my work, ( and turns out I was a fan of his before I knew who he was ) I had great experiences with the movie stuff...though it's Hollywood, I know it can eat people up and spit them out. I was just along for the ride. And a great ride it was.

I was never going to be screwed over, at least not in the sense I think you mean, as I was a co-creator and had to sign off on a few things etc. It wasn't like Batman or Superman etc where the actual creators never really got to see their efforts truly rewarded properly. Plus there seemed a real semblance of the actual comic invested in the film version from what I did on the page. Closer to 300 and Sin City than most comic adaptations where the artist doesn't really figure into much. ( IMHO )

[Steven Grant]

Man, I was just happy it got made in the end honestly. I got ( to my mind ) a little bonus magic money from Hollywood for working on a small press comic, and got to hang on set and get to know a very creative director who besides anything else, is a fan of my work, ( and turns out I was a fan of his before I knew who he was ) I had great experiences with the movie stuff...though it's Hollywood, I know it can eat people up and spit them out. I was just along for the ride. And a great ride it was.

People - especially nascent publishers, I've noticed - always seem to think there's going to be a whole lot more money out of Hollywood than there usually is, the perception not being helped by most people lying about or inflating the amount they got. They don't seem to understand two things: Hollywood wants to pay as little as inhumanly possible for virtually anything, and, as you said, there are hordes of people in the process whose main role seems to be to chip as much as they can out of your cut before it gets to you. (There's nothing, for instance, like a producer whose fee runs well over a million a picture telling you that wanting more than the $5000 he's offering for an option is you trying to steal food out of his children's mouths...) Nonetheless, the comics world suckers out for the lure of "Hollywood millions"...

Hey! Whaddaya mean you're not rich?!! They made a movie out of one of YOUR COMICS!

- Grant