Occasional Competent Studio?

Bleeding Cool pointed readers to a blog by someone who used to run day-to-day operations at Platinum Studios. He goes on about a fictional (read: not that fictional) Goldmine Studios, owned (to its detriment) by a silver-spooned idiot who throws money at any problem or desire.

The stories are much less salacious and about a much smaller "mover/shaker" in the comic book industry than Valerie D'Orazio's DC memoirs, but are so much less veiled as to make up for those shortcomings. It is a riveting and hilarious window into the worst kept secret that a particular studio was terribly mismanaged by its owner, despite having some well-intentioned employees trying to make it a success despite him.

Radical Publishing = What Platinum Studios Should Have Been?

Wow. Radical Publishing had Peter Berg sign to produce a film based on their Hercules and John Woo sign to make their Caliber. Now they have Bryan Singer producing their Freedom Formula?

They get their books to market. They have low-priced first issues and competitively priced regular issues. They're getting their product in front of the right people to get it optioned.

It's early and all, so Radical could always tumble once it has been around as long as Platinum Studios, but the early returns seem to indicate they're better at the Hollywood game than Platinum has been. I mean...no Lying in the Gutters reports of Radical buying copies of their own books to inflate sales numbers in hopes of it helping to attract Hollywood interest, so far. ;)

DJ Coffman: Revised WOWIO Contracts Shady

DJ Coffman started Twittering about it at first, but went on to blog about it:

1.1 EXPANSION OF GRANT OF RIGHTS. In addition to the grant of rights by Publisher under the Agreement, Publisher hereby grants and conveys to WOWIO the following rights in and to the Content:

The right to display page images derived from Content for free in a web browser with interactive display advertising (“PREVIEW”).

* BOOM. Right off the top you’re essentially giving them the right to use the content inside your ebooks as pretty much “webcomics” that they’ll monetize by selling advertising and boost their pageviews. They go on to say they’ll give you 20% of any advertising made, more on that in a bit…

...

Publisher shall have the option through the Publisher account interface to make Ebooks eligible for free distribution with embedded advertising when sponsors are available (“SPONSORSHIP OPTION”). If Publisher elects to activate the Sponsorship Option, Publisher hereby grants Company the right to distribute Ebooks for free with embedded advertising. The default setting for this option is “active”.

*”When” Sponsors are available? What happens when sponsors aren’t available? That seems really vague. Who’s going to be in charge of getting sponsors now? Platinum?!? UGH.

It would seem that Platinum infected WOWIO in record time. I think Rich Johnston had something about another site that was already doing international and paid a little less lucratively than the old Wowio terms. Given the vaguity and apparent move to featuring books as webcomics with only 20% of advertising going to the publishers (fucking 80% to the distributor????), I'm thinking that other company probably looks like the better option now.

SCHWAPP!!! Comics Week 27: Gunplay #0

Jorge Vega's GUNPLAY...better than COWBOYS AND ALIENS, but not sure just how much better as of yet...