Marvel soliciting pictches
Marvel is relaunching their Epic line, and is open for submissions of wholly original premises and stories related to the Marvel universe. Writer@Large is blogging an account of his preparing a submission, and has lots o’ links about Epic and the current projects.
Time to actually write up some of my comics ideas.
(Via Neilalien )
It's a neat idea, but only if you're willing to work on Marvel's terms. Many comics writers have written articles about this in the past few years. Anything you do for Marvel or DC is a "work for hire", and your stories, characters, and ideas become their property. The contracts for royalties and residuals have become a little more fair since the days when Superman's creators sold the rights to their characters for a pittance, but overall the contracts are still about as unbalanced as the treaties that gave the Native Americans' land to the US. The big comics companies have more lawyers and deeper pockets, and will always win.
That being said, there are plenty of people who go into that sort of deal with open eyes, just because they'd really, really love to write Spider-Man or the Hulk or the Fantastic Four. I can relate to that. Go for it if you want it badly enough.
Posted by Jimcat on June 5 2003 05:20
If you actually read the linked material, Jim, you'll see that if you submit original premises, they'll be creator-owned.
Posted by Zed on June 5 2003 06:16
Not necessarily, Zed. It's going to vary from project to project. For instance, Bill is encouraging people to use existing Marvel characters, which by their very nature are not going to be creator-owned. Basically what this is, is a chance for brand-new writers to break into the top comic book publisher in the country, a chance that doesn't come along that often. If you're already established then Epic probably isn't for you, you'll probably want to go to CGE or Code Six down in Tampa. But for folks like me with connections and writing ability and a direct line to a professional artist and not that big of a resume (although another old story of mine has its publishing debut today in a charity antho), it's probably right up our alley. I keep promising Bill to write and send him something this summer, as soon as my boss leaves on vacation. :)
Posted by Elayne Riggs on June 6 2003 07:42
I was using "original premises" in reference to the text of my original message in which "wholly original premises" was opposed to "stories related to the Marvel Universe."
Congrats on your publishing debut!
Posted by Zed on June 6 2003 11:08