Platinum Studios, WTF?
by Joey Manley
Dave Roman is a nice guy, one of the nicest, a consummate professional, who has never had a mean thing to say about anybody on the Internets, as far back as I can remember, and I’ve been acquainted with him for a long time. You may know him from his work on Astronaut Elementary, or the sweet engagement comic he and his mate Raina Telegemeier (who is also a great cartoonist) posted on WCN a while back.
Dave Roman is disappointed that the work he (in collaboration with L. Frank Weber) created for Platinum Studios is being run, without credit, on DrunkDuck, a webcomics portal Platinum owns. Dave’s a nice guy, like I said, with lots of connections in the industry. Shame to disappoint him. Comic Bytes and The Beat also provide commentary. Here’s what Heidi says:
Let’s put it this way: signing away original material as work-for-hire is right up there with sharing needles with AIDS patients, eating blowfish liver, and not wearing a seat belt in a vehicle driven by a New Jersey state trooper our own personal DO NOT DO list. … read more
I couldn’t agree more.
But. Well. The weird thing is that it would have been so easy to add credit for Dave and Frank on those pages. “Credit,” as they say in even the hardest core of Hollywood con-artist circles, “is free.” I don’t get it. Maybe this is an oversight? If so, expect to see the credit appear on those pages after this rush of publicity. If not — if there are real business reasons for obscuring the authorship of this work — well, then don’t expect to see credit appear on those pages. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Now, about that little talent show they’ve got going on … nah. Never mind. You guys know where I stand.
[EDIT: Heidi MacDonald didn't interview Dave -- the quotes came from Dave's own LJ post; I haven't had coffee yet this morning, sorry. The significance of the story still stands.]
[EDIT: the site now credits Dave and Frank. Seems the problem was solved by simply adding their names to the logo image for the comic. Kudos to Platinum for implementing this simple fix after running the comic uncredited for several days, and waiting until it had been called to their attention by the creators in question, and one of the biggest comics blogs on the Internet (not this one, of course, TAC is strictly penny-ante -- I'm talking about The Beat). If I had held my breath, I would have passed out by now, and possibly hit my head on something hard and hurtful. I'm glad I didn't hold my breath! But, well, I *am* a smoker, so there you go. A polynesian oyster diver could have probably held his/her breath during this period of time.]
May 16th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Jeezus. Screwing over Dave Roman is akin to kicking puppies. Way to go, Platinum.
May 16th, 2007 at 10:35 am
> “Screwing over Dave Roman is akin to kicking puppies.”
We all love Dave.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
“EDIT: the site now credits Dave and Frank.”
Well, that’s something, anyway.
May 16th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
As far as I knew this was always supposed to be a print comic (not that there is anything wrong with it being on the web, it will probably get more readers given Platinums release scedule – just wonder if this was even mentioned to the creators that it was going web instead.
May 16th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
According to Dave’s post on his LiveJournal, it was a surprise for him to see it on the web — and he found out about it from a third party, not from Platinum. However, he acknowledges that, having signed a flat-out Work For Hire deal, he really has no say in how it’s used, and says he’s just happy that people can now read it, especially now that he and the artist are credited (though he expresses some unhappiness that the colorist and letterer are still going uncredited). See the LJ link in the post for more info. Dave’s a real pro (he works full-time in editorial for Nickelodeon Magazine), and understands the ins and outs of this kind of thing very well, I reckon.
May 16th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Actually they’ve changed that already since. (I also noticed that post he made and a few hours later, I noticed Platinum adjusted it to include the colorist and letterer.) Now four names are mentioned on the DD page: writer, illustrator, letterer, and colorist.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:13 am
Good to know, BK. Thanks.