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Erik Larsen
Joined: 25 Mar 2005
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 Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 10:40 am Post subject: |
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| labyrinth wrote: | Erik, what would happen, if say, you received a proposal where the art wasn't good enough for it to be accepted but the pitch and story was extremely impressive and one of the best ideas you'd ever come accross.
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It would be rejected.
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Erik Larsen
Joined: 25 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 11:22 am Post subject: |
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| sacredsin wrote: | | Erik, is it okay to post images on this thread, you know, that will be included in propasal? |
No.
if you want to send in a proposal--please do so--but this thread is here to answer questions only. It's not to post proposals or images from them.
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Erik Larsen
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| Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 11:23 am Post subject: |
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| tank wrote: | I got one for you Erik...
Would Image shy away from a book that may have controversial politics? I'm sure your base answer is "depends how good it is," but let's just assume for a moment that you are pleased as punch by both story and art. is there a politic or dogmatic line that you wouldn't be comfortable with crossing? I mean short of the obvious things like THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KLANSMAN...
Obviously, most of us on this board, and most of Image's creators, are liberal-- does that mean you'd be more prone to publishing works that aren't afriad to criticize our government? Or opposed to publishing a book that embraces it in a scary way? What about religion? |
You answered it already. It depends how good it is.
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MisterGreenThumb
Joined: 31 Jul 2005
Posts: 93
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| Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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| tank wrote: | I got one for you Erik...
Would Image shy away from a book that may have controversial politics? I'm sure your base answer is "depends how good it is," but let's just assume for a moment that you are pleased as punch by both story and art. is there a politic or dogmatic line that you wouldn't be comfortable with crossing? I mean short of the obvious things like THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KLANSMAN...
Obviously, most of us on this board, and most of Image's creators, are liberal-- does that mean you'd be more prone to publishing works that aren't afriad to criticize our government? Or opposed to publishing a book that embraces it in a scary way? What about religion? |
Image publishes Battlepope -- which some of my Christian friends of mine consider highly offensive ... most contraversial to say the least. Seeing one of the world's most famous religious figures bagin' babes tends to set some people off. The fact that they publish Battlepope demonstrates that Image is willing to take a chance with extremely risky material. And from what I can tell, there hasn't been a strong public outcry or boycott of Image because of it. |
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Monk
Joined: 03 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 8:51 am Post subject: |
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I honestly couldn't bring myself to read every single post in this thread, so if the question I'm about to ask has been asked and answered already, then just ignore this post and I'll try to find the answer.
I read in the faq on the Image website that the creators of the comics published by image maintain all the rights themselves. All the copyright information and trademarks belong to the writers/artists. But do the creators of the comic have to make the copyright themselves, i.e. buy the patent for their property, or does Image handle this for them?
What if I submit a comic proposal that I didn't put any copyright on, and it's given the green light - can some random person then just walk up and buy the trademark for the characters/title/etc. and then I'm basically screwed? |
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Erik Larsen
Joined: 25 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:54 am Post subject: |
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| Monk wrote: | I honestly couldn't bring myself to read every single post in this thread, so if the question I'm about to ask has been asked and answered already, then just ignore this post and I'll try to find the answer.
I read in the faq on the Image website that the creators of the comics published by image maintain all the rights themselves. All the copyright information and trademarks belong to the writers/artists. But do the creators of the comic have to make the copyright themselves, i.e. buy the patent for their property, or does Image handle this for them?
What if I submit a comic proposal that I didn't put any copyright on, and it's given the green light - can some random person then just walk up and buy the trademark for the characters/title/etc. and then I'm basically screwed? |
It's your property--so you need to take care of registering the trademark. If you put a "Copyright ©2006 your-name-here" in the indicia and a little ™ next to the logo you're in pretty good shape--and nobody is going to outright steal your character--it's too risky. But to REALLY protect the name of your character--you would need to register the title so that you can slap a little ® next to the logo and let everybody know that you're protected.
Still--it's NOT as big a deal as you might think--and many creators don't bother to register anything. A good many books have a little ™ instead of an ® next to their logo. It is, however, against the law to use an ® unless you go through the process and pay to register your title--so don't use it if you don't have it! Still, the vast majority of books will start off with just a ™ even at the biggest company.
The bottom line is--worry about that crap when it comes up. It shouldn't keep you from creating NOW and you certainly don't need to have registered your trademark before you submit your proposal.
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Gonzogoose
Joined: 21 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:58 am Post subject: |
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I can't answer for Image per se, but copyright exists at inception. The legal copyright is a formality and very necessary if you ever intend on sueing anyone over misuse or theft of your creation. Trademark is a little different, and I'm not as clear on that.
As far as I know, the creators are responsible for getting all their copyrights and trademarks if they want to make it official. Image doesn't do that for them.
And I put up a webpage (that I updated today) that just has Erik's answers (quoting the question of course) from this thread at http://www.brantfowler.com/ImageComics/larsensubmissionanswers.html I know he has addressed this in brief somewhere in there if I recall correctly.
[EDIT] Erik and I must have been trying to post at the same time. Sorry.
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Steve Horton
Joined: 15 Oct 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 11:39 am Post subject: |
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Erik,
Not sure if you're allowed to answer this, but out of all the brand-new projects published through Image in 2005, what percentage actually made even a little profit for the creators involved?
Even a rough estimate would help.
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Erik Larsen
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| Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 11:56 am Post subject: |
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| the_poet wrote: | Erik,
Not sure if you're allowed to answer this, but out of all the brand-new projects published through Image in 2005, what percentage actually made even a little profit for the creators involved? |
Almost all of them.
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Erik Larsen
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| Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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| nick filardi wrote: | | Erik Larsen wrote: |
The colorist is not as big a deal. |
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Oh--I didn't mean it like THAT. My point is that it's possible to get a book approved without having a colorist lined up where it's NOT possible to get one approved without a penciller lined up. A great colorist can make good art even BETTER--but a great colorist can't make lousy art into great art. You can't polish a turd.
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Erik Larsen
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| Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:10 am Post subject: |
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| Aris Argh! wrote: | | Will you look at multiple titles in a submission package? or is it better to send one at a time? |
Multiple pitches is fine--but most often people don't get two pitches ready at the same time. There's no sense waiting to submit them both at once. There's no advantage to submitting two projects at once.
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Erik Larsen
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| Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 11:04 am Post subject: |
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| rob allan wrote: | | It used to be that if your book was published through another company first, it was advantageous toward getting a book published through a larger company like Image. However, a company that's interested in my book ultimately retains the rights to reprinting any issues I do through them, to include TPBs. This sounds standard, but does this type of thing actually HURT the chance of moving to a larger publisher like Image? I'm thinking perhaps the old way of thinking may not apply to the industry today. Image does business differently than when it started, but I know others (example Mario Gully) have had titles through other publishers and moved. |
It could hurt you if you didn't do a pretty major overhaul. I don't know if you read the old Ant series but it was about a young girl and Ant was a character in her diary--she was a character in her mind. In the Image series, Mario reinvented Ant so that she's an adult and the stuff with her as a kid is her past--she IS Ant. And it's really not necessary to have read the old series.
Where things might get screwy is if the series you did IS important and if we're picking up the book mid-stream. That would hurt your book. We've picked up books that had been started elsewhere and we simply continued and in some cases, not having available back issues has hampered sales. Old publishers can get shitty. If you've left them in the lurch and they have rights to print your stuff--they could essentially make it impossible for a reader to get the full story if they chose to. Sometimes things are clean--other times they're dirty.
Rocketo was clean. We'll do a trade that collects the previous series and then pick things up after that. That seems to be working out well.
Another book we're publishing, on the other hand, was picked up with #2 and the first issue is out of print. That certainly couldn't have helped its sales. A reader wants the full story. A retailer wants them to have the full story. I would have preferred to have had it start with a first issue--perhaps the same one that had sold out only expanded on. But it's a tough call--and it wasn't MY call. Starting off a new book with a reprint isn't an optimal situation either. Sometimes it's not easy.
PvP, Liberty Meadows and Jack Staff all started off at different publishers and there have been a number of others.
It really comes down to the book.
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Erik Larsen
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 9:06 am Post subject: Re: Trademarks and copyrights |
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| fyifoff wrote: |
Are these four things true or false?
1-you can not copyright a name
2-you can copyright a comicbook character, including appreaence, orgin, personality, etc..
3-character names are covered by trademarks
4-trademarks means you can't use it in a title.
(like cola, Pepsi fought Coke to use cola)
Does this mean I couln't name my comic book say "Wolverine and Aurora"? Or some other simple named characters? |
1-3 are true--and kind of. It's easiest to trademark combinations of words (Spider + Man = Spider-Man) but part of a trademark is the tradedress. The way Superman's logo is written makes it a trademark but you could title a story "Man or Superman?" and as long as it was clear that you WEREN'T talking about THE Superman--you'd be okay.
THIS wouldn't be okay...
But the actual cover to FF #249 (it had Gladiator in Superman's place and the actual Superman logo wasn't used) was fine.
It gets messy when you try to fool people into thinking that you're publishing comics about established characters. Marvel would object to you using Wolverine and might make your life difficult but if your character was called Wolverine Jones and it was obvious he was NOT their Wolverine you MIGHT be able to get away with it. They would have to make the case that the name Wolverine is so clearly identified with Marvel that nobody should be able to use it. I know that they were successful in getting Marvel Man changed to Miracle Man when Eclipse Comics started reprinting and continuing the adventures of that character--they might be able to make a strong case for Wolverine as well.
It's best NOT to push it. If you're NOT trying to fool people--why use the name? Pick something else.
And Wolverine Jones™ is © 2006 Erik Larsen--don't even think about using it or I'll have my lawyers on you in a heartbeat.
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Erik Larsen
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 9:09 am Post subject: Re: Just a question or two. |
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| trialsze wrote: | I was just curious, Erik, what do you feel is appealing to comics audiences today. What do you consider a good book to reach the most targeted audience; males 13 to 24?
I know these might seem like weird questions but it could help me understand what you believe moves the market and is good for comics. I am trying to see the industry as a business as well as an artistic avenue, so I would like to focus on a pitch that has the ability to survive in the industry. Your knowledge would help me in creating a pitch or product that will see the light of day. |
I would suggest telling a story that you want to tell rather than trying to target a certain demographic. What do YOU have to SAY?
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Erik Larsen
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 9:23 am Post subject: |
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| Aris Argh! wrote: | I have a question regarding marketing and advertsing.
Say you have said Aris we want to publish your book, and we had three issues in the can and it was time to solicit.
Does Image automatically take space in Previews. Do you discuss with the creators possible adverts in trade mags(wizard as an example), and place full pagers in other image books for a few months leading to the date the books actually come out.
If you do, is this an added expense? That the creators pay after and if the books printed sell? Or is this part and parcle of Image publishing your books?
Also, is there any policy regarding ad space in the title itself. Can I advertise what I want, more pages of image titles? Other publishers? My friends band? Or is Image in total control of this, and after receiving the finished pages decides how many pages of ads are placed in the book, where they are placed, including inside cover and back of the book? |
Ads in Previews are part of our deal with you. Generally, ads are traded in Image Comics. If you're running an ad for Small Gods in your book--Small Gods will run an ad for you. Sometimes it's more of an ad pool--an ad for Gødland runs in your book, an ad for your book runs in Invincible, an ad for Invincible runs in Gødland or so on. There's no charge for Image "house ads."
Ads in other publications are a different story. If you want to drop $5,000 for an ad in Wizard it's going to come out of your pocket. We take a flat fee off of the comics we publish and we'd be in the hole in no time flat if we had to foot the bill for ads in Wizard magazine and not get reimbursed.
We have the right to decide what ads are run in our books. Generally we don't allow creators to run ads for comics from some other comic book company. But this is all talked about when the books are being put together. If you can't stand Savage Dragon--we won't force you to run an ad for Savage Dragon.
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