At San Diego, DC’s new online project, Zuda Comics, was handing out lots of postcards that cartoonists could fill in as a sort of tryout for their website so that you could get all the advantages of DC’s name recognition and traffic.
Scott Kurtz, whose PVP webcomic gets about twice as much traffic as DC’s entire website, produced this:
Hear, hear.
Glenn Hauman
Glenn is VP of Production at ComicMix. He has written Star Trek and X-Men stories and worked for DC Comics, Simon & Schuster, Random House, arrogant/MGMS and Apple Comics. He's also what happens when a Young Turk of publishing gets old.
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>Boooooooooooo. I think it is rather snarky, hateful, and callous to attack a group that has made their web/comic player open source. To attack a company that believes "if webcomics are successful in general — ours or theirs — that good for the medium. That creates a healthy, sustainable industry. That's good for all of us." DC is giving away free promotional space for web comic artist – and want-to-be-comic artists like me – and all you do is shit on it. I am really, deeply disappointed in you Glenn and in ComicMix as a whole. I expected more from you.
>Boooooooooooo. I think it is rather snarky, hateful, and callous to attack a group that has made their web/comic player open source. To attack a company that believes "if webcomics are successful in general — ours or theirs — that good for the medium. That creates a healthy, sustainable industry. That's good for all of us." DC is giving away free promotional space for web comic artist – and want-to-be-comic artists like me – and all you do is shit on it. I am really, deeply disappointed in you Glenn and in ComicMix as a whole. I expected more from you.
Say what?First off, their use of the term "open source" looks to be entirely meaningless. If you can give any examples of how their reader is "open source" (going by the standard definition, say at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source) and how being "open source" actually benefits creators, please show me. Otherwise, it sounds like they're just running on Linux and using buzzwords.Wow, DC is giving away free promotional space, if you're good enough. You know who else gives away free space? Yahoo. LiveJournal. Flickr. YouTube. Again, I have to go back to my standard question: What is DC and Zuda offering creators of webcomics that they can't get elsewhere? Visibility? Show me a marketing plan. Money? Show me a contract.Scott Kurtz didn't need Zudacomics to create his own comics for the web. Neither did lots of other folks. And neither do you. If your stuff isn't accepted by Zuda, don't let them be the be-and-end all. Go out and create and distribute it already. You don't need to go through Zuda's competition to create your own book any more than Wendy and Richard Pini needed DC to create Elfquest.
This is where you are wrong, sir. We are all in competition – whether actively or passively for each other’s time, attention, resources (and sometimes money). We do comics because we want to be heard. You post your comments – because you think you point is valid, but all you are doing is adding to the noise. Rather than praise DC, you add to the negativity. You talk about contracts – but where are Marvel’s contracts? Dark Horses’? Image’s? You talk about we are ‘not contestants’ – but yet – you do not share the same vitriol for things like ‘ComicBook Idol’ or ‘SmallPress Idol’ – Zuda goes live, according to their site, in October, and I’m sure contracts be certainly be available until then – and I just really expected more out of you that just jumping to conclusions and drinking the anti-zuda koolaid.
Well if you're surprised Glenn's on the anti-Zuda wagon you've never been in earshot of him talking about it and you must have missed his first piece here on Comicmix.And Glenn did say anything about compettion or contestants, Scott Kurtz did.I for one am waiting until Zuda launches to pass judgement, it does however seem silly to me to launch an entire universe and not avail yourself of any of the ones you have the poer to use. Established characters are a draw. Artists that do their own webcomics don't have the advantages Warner's corporate machine offers (nor do they have they limitations working for a huge machine brings).I'm annoyed at the unanswered questions: Jim Lee did a postcard and Wildstorm is DC will he be doing something more for Zuda? What are the perks for a creator to bring their work to Zuda over selfpublishing online? I know how they sold me on Minx how are they going to sell me on Zuda… October isn't that far off.
Hey Glenn, how do your words taste?
With regards to what? Has Scott suddenly announced he's doing a comic for Zuda?
I'm confused as well. I'm also very interested in seeing if the Zuda Backlash dies down now that they've destroyed the contest aspect in favor of Instant Winners. It will probably, ironically, rise.