When Heidi Snaps Her Fingers
by Joey Manley
Heidi MacDonald is promising to look for my reactions to this story on her blog, about DC launching a new user-generated webcomics portal, so I feel compelled to say something.
Quick thoughts:
a). It’s about time. I’ve been hearing rumors about this for over a year.
b). The content model, where people submit a few sample panels, then DC editors decide on a small handful of comics to feature fully on the site, isn’t the kind of thing that has worked in webcomics before, and does not seem, to me, to be the best way to identify the real webcomics superstars of the future. Would six sample panels from the early Penny-Arcade strips have caught anybody’s eye at DC, way back when? What about Dinosaur Comics? No and no. But that’s only relevant if you’re looking for the next big webcomic star. If you’re looking for the kinds of artists who would be good to slide over to work-for-hire assignments on pre-existing company properties, then, yeah, this is probably the way to go. This is not YouTube for comics, by a long shot.
c). “Comic-book style” webcomics, as opposed to “newspaper strip style” webcomics, have had a rough go of it. I like comic-book style webcomics, and expect that this project will help them to thrive on some higher level than they have before. If anything, it will encourage more creators to make and post those kinds of webcomics — and the ones who aren’t selected by DC will move on to other hosting solutions. So that’s a good thing, for me as a reader, and for my business.
July 9th, 2007 at 11:20 am
What is their plan for trademarks and copyright?
July 9th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Oh wait. It seems they’re idea-mining…
July 9th, 2007 at 11:25 am
According to Dirk, yes. But they’re also saying they will release the actual contracts to the public for viewing at some point over the summer, in the interests of full transparency. I’m waiting until that happens before I have an opinion on that part of it.
July 9th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
The only person I can possibly imagine blowing an editor away with a single 8-panel page is Roger Langridge, who I would hope, is already in the rolodex of any editor seeking freelancers.
This is an inevitable development, though I’m skeptical that DC’s core audience and webcomics’ core audience have much overlap. I’d be much more excited (even ignoring the nebulous comments regarding IP) if this was a venture of Wired, BoingBoing or Salon.
July 9th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
There’s a lot of dancing going on here and it’s happening before the band has even played a note. It’s not that difficult to state that creators will retain ownership of their properties. Either you do, or you don’t.
Given the news that Platinum seems to make every few months and the reaction by webcomic creators,etc…you’d think that a company like DC would have done their homework and worded their press release a little bit better. I admit to a bit of excitement on my part at the news but, my red flags are waving.
I realize that this is just their first shot across the bow but, they should’ve done some homework. Proceed with great caution. Maybe wear a haz-mat suit or something.
July 9th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Considering how often people quote Shortpacked on scans_daily, there is definitely considerable overlap between offline and online comics readers.
July 9th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
I agree that a large percentage of offline comics readers read webcomics, which is what the scans_daily example would tend to support. I don’t think that a large percentage of webcomics readers read offline comics, though. This is not a contradiction. Venn diagram, two circles, one small, one much larger, the small one mostly contained within the larger one. The larger one being webcomics readers. Now, that’s just a theory born out of anecdotal evidence. But if it holds true, it’s much more valuable, as a business proposition, to find the next webcomics stars, and build mutually-beneficial, non-exploitative relationships with them early, than it is to use webcomics to find the next print comics stars. If that’s what DC is doing. Which I think is the case. But, again, just a theory. It’ll be fun to watch this all play out!
July 9th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Considering how often people quote Shortpacked on scans_daily, there is definitely considerable overlap between offline and online comics readers.
Most of the users at Scans Daily are the shrieking “You raped my childhood, George Lucas!” variety of uber-geek. That they’d take a comic about grown men collecting dolls to heart isn’t much of an indication of anything other than Willis knows his audience.
My bet is that the creators will get the sort of deal (I assume) they get in Vertigo, here DC owns everything, but the creators are left alone to do what they want with their ideas… you know, depending upon a company wide crossover.
July 10th, 2007 at 2:13 am
The Shortpackeds they quote are generally the ones where Willis pokes fun at the Justice League and Teen Titans cartoons. Which should be even less surprising.
Webcomics have a much wider readership base than comic books, that’s pretty certain. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a one-way deal. Image has been publishing PVP, and Dark Horse has been publishing collections of Penny Arcade, with some success, despite neither of those titles being that much like what those companies usually sell. DC itself has been publishing Megatokyo through its CMX manga imprint (which has not been that successful otherwise. Of course, all three of these are online juggernauts, and a total unknown just starting out would not have it that easy (even with DC’s marketing behind it).
July 10th, 2007 at 6:24 am
[...] Seemingly everyone has further commentary on DC Comics’ new IP farm webcomics initiative, Zuda: The best of the lot include Joey Manley, Xaviar Xerxes, Alice Hunt, Brigid Alverson, Tom Spurgeon, Lea Hernandez, Christopher Butcher, Heidi MacDonald and T Campbell. [...]
July 10th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
I don’t see what would be in it for the artist. Exposure, maybe, but that’s a dicey offer at best. Bandwith is practically free nowadays when you think of Flickr, Blogspot, LJ, MySpace, etc so it’s not as if offering creators their very own page on which to post their comics (as long as you give DC the right to your work) is all that big of a deal. I really see it as a lumbering print giant trying to poke its finger into the electric pie unaware of what it is doing. Still, I’ll keep an eye out and see what happens.
July 10th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
“I don’t see what would be in it for the artist. Exposure, maybe, but that’s a dicey offer at best.”
Exposure of any type concerning webcomics is not a bad thing. The only real thing I see as a benefit, of any kind, is the prospects of getting paid. Monetary rewards are something a majority of webcomic creators don’t get. I think that would be my only motivation here. I have enough projects sitting in the file cabinet to sell a piece of my soul. If they want to make millions off of “Raging Stick Figure Gnome”, have at it. I have rent to pay.
I’d still proceed with great caution though.