Who Wants to be a Thousandaire?
by Joey Manley
DC has posted the creator contracts for its Zuda initiative online. Kudos to them for the transparency.
I’m not qualified to interpret the legalese for you — but I will say this: see where it says, in the introductory webpage, “we encourage you to have [these contracts] reviewed by a lawyer if you’re at all serious about submitting your work to Zuda Comics” — well, don’t take that lightly. And don’t imagine that it means “You should get a lawyer to look at this after we’ve accepted your work and have offered a contract.” Nope. Just submitting your work to them means you’ve agreed to certain legally-binding language which is complicated enough, in my opinion (and in DC’s, per the quotation above) for you to need an attorney to parse it out for you. This isn’t a wink-wink nudge-nudge kind of a thing. Do what they say — or you’re not allowed to get angry with them later for enforcing what you’ve agreed to. Okay, well, you’re allowed, and people will be sympathetic — but there will be nothing anybody can do for you.
And if you can’t afford an attorney, try to see if there’s a Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts chapter anywhere near where you live. That link goes to the NYC chapter, but I’ve been told that they have offices all over the country. For that matter, since DC is headquartered in NYC, the NYC chapter might be exactly who you need to talk with, no matter where you live. I dunno.
Anyway. It’ll be interesting to see if Platinum Studios follows suit, and posts the contracts for its Comic Book Challenge online. If their contracts are better — well then, that seems like a PR bonanza for them. I don’t see how they’d have anything to lose by emulating DC’s transparency — unless their contracts are substantially worse.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Joey, I’ll go even farther. Comics community, you are better than this.
Look, that $1,000 is not an advance – what gets paid in anticipation of sales. From what I can tell, that’s the purchase price, for all rights, for all media for the duration of the copyright.
I’d be pretty happy with a $1,000 advance for a print book – and only a print book, and only for a far more limited time. But for ownership of additional rights? Film? TV? Holy cow, that’s the payday! I mean, it’s fine for a publisher to acquire interests in those rights – for a limited time and percentage. But not ownership for the length of the copyright! Not for $1,000!
I’ve said it before: There is a difference between being a publisher and a property owner.
This Zuda contract is about accumulating property at very little risk. That they’re honest about it is good, but that doesn’t make it a good deal. It’s likely the submissions they accept are ones where they calculate they’ll recoup their relatively small initial investment. That’s fine, that’s business. They’re free to do that, they should be commended for being so open about it and any creator who takes the deal should know what they’re getting into.
But I recommend trying to find a publisher for your work before settling for a property owner.
Comics publishers in this country are not going to change until their supply of product is challenged – until they have to compete for the right to publish creators with other publishers. But if creators limit themselves to comics publishers, then they’re limiting the pool of potential publishers – and there’s a glut of people who want to work for them.
If your work is good enough, you don’t have to settle for such a deal. You can find other venues for your work – traditional publishers are looking seriously at graphic novels. I have such a deal – my book is coming out in January.
If I can do it, so can you.
September 24th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
[...] DC’s online comics initiative, Zuda, have posted their creator contracts online. Following along with Joey Manley, I will at least congratulate them for being transparent, though much of that transparency probably came because of the yelling and screaming that went on… they kind of allude to that in the second paragraph on the site there, actually. [...]
September 27th, 2007 at 9:04 am
[...] Who Wants to be a Thousandaire? from TalkAboutComics Blog [...]
November 6th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
[...] I’m well acquainted with the anti-Zuda arguments. I agree with much of what these guys have to say, and also with Joey’s post and Tim Broderick’s reply on the subject. [...]