Last week, David Taylor assembled a list of OEL titles over at Love Manga. This led Warren Ellis to ask for a roll call of OEL creators over at The Engine. This has led to a spirited discussion of the nature of contracts for said creators and whether Tokyopop is taking more than its fair share. Leading the charge is Lea “I’m Hurting Comics” Hernandez:
“I hate that good creators think not-so-equitable contracts are the best they can get because they’re new. Oni doesn’t take ownership from new creators. Dark Horse doesn’t. TPop is not publishing you out of the goodness of their hearts. Their risk is not huge—it’s calculated. Publishers (not shrewd ones, anyway) don’t take on projects that aren’t going to sell.”
It should be fun to watch that one develop.
In other points of art-commerce intersection, Paul O’Brien of the X-Axis finds the advertisements in last week’s comics so intrusive that he can barely manage to review them:
“Seriously, Marvel. Don’t you have any pride? Don’t you have any self-respect? Don’t you care about putting out a quality product? Don’t you even care about your reputation for quality? And if you do, why are there 22 pages of adverts cluttering up the 24 page story that I have paid my hard-earned money to read?”
O’Brien also looks at Diamond’s new policies over in his Ninth Art column and mentions Carla Speed McNeill’s move from monthlies to web-to-trade distribution with Finder. I keep wishing people would mention the fact that the Foglios did this with Girl Genius months ago. In his Things to Come column, Greg McElhatton sings the praises of the Foglios’ funny, quirky comic, among other worthy December offerings.