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That's interesting. I've been wondering for a while if there was some right-wing chud network funding the entire project, but when that much of a given crowd-fund is suspicious, it seems to give away the game. I wonder how you'd start to dig into something like this. It's not my field, but given how good the CG crowd is at making comics, I doubt their real gifts lie in information security.
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Sep 6, 2021 08:07
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Wanderer posted:That's interesting. I've been wondering for a while if there was some right-wing chud network funding the entire project, but when that much of a given crowd-fund is suspicious, it seems to give away the game. Van Sciver selling actually cardboard boxes for over $100K was pretty much proof that it was all a scam, but this pretty much solidifies it.
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Sep 6, 2021 17:19
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E the Shaggy posted:Van Sciver selling actually cardboard boxes for over $100K was pretty much proof that it was all a scam, but this pretty much solidifies it. How much were the coins with a sticker on them?
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Sep 6, 2021 17:25
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Comicsgate about to get a new member: https://www.gamesradar.com/marvel-breaks-ties-with-joe-bennett-removes-immortal-hulk-artist-from-upcoming-projects/ Bennett ran afoul of Glenn Greenwald though, so I'd love to get a "let them fight" moment out of this.
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Sep 10, 2021 00:32
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Ike Perlmutter being a POS again: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-associates-wanted-sell-veterans-medical-records-profit-report-2021-9quote:The team, which was based at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, included Ike Perlmutter, a major Trump donor, Mar-a-Lago member, and a Marvel executive; Marc Sherman, a Washington, DC, lawyer; and Dr. Bruce Moskowitz, a West Palm Beach, Florida, physician, according to ProPublica.
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Sep 28, 2021 16:02
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Hoopla added the Avengers Standoff: Welcome to Pleasant Hill collection and the first two Thunderbolts volumes that spun out of it. I always like Thunderbolts, so I'm reading those collected editions now, and the artist is Jon Malin, a name I vaguely recognized from this thread even though I had never seen his work before. Yikes, his style is awful (kind of like Liefeld, only everyone is very elongated instead of bulky and wide), and he seems like a right-wing Comicsgate jerk. Is he still working at Marvel, or has he burned all his mainstream bridges?
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Sep 29, 2021 03:38
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Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:Is he still working at Marvel, or has he burned all his mainstream bridges? Malin went full CG some time ago, yeah. He was the one who drew the comic with Dickie Meyers that got the lawsuit against Waid started. I don't think he's one of the ones EVS has run off but I don't look that close.
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Sep 29, 2021 03:49
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Malin went mask off after pencilling a few issues of Cable and I think he has been exclusively hawking his indie comics to CGers ever since.
JordanKai fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Sep 29, 2021 |
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Sep 29, 2021 06:01
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https://twitter.com/jrome58/status/1443726792104235017?s=20
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Oct 1, 2021 01:07
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So what's the play here? They didn't want the book, the company sends it, the company then comes after them for money for goods received? (I'm a little in the dark about who this person is, I just remember Action Lab from earlier in this thread.)
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Oct 1, 2021 01:17
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https://twitter.com/rodimusprime/status/1443760446612332547?s=19
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Oct 1, 2021 03:14
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Good for her
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Oct 1, 2021 04:11
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Uthor posted:So what's the play here? They didn't want the book, the company sends it, the company then comes after them for money for goods received? If that's their scheme they biffed it. It's a common scam hoping someone will just sign the bill without asking any questions, but unsolicited goods have no obligation and can be dealt with in any way the recipient wishes. By law, at least in the US and UK. It can carry additional charges as well, I think US law files it under "unfair trade practices" or something like that.
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Oct 1, 2021 05:01
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Happy Hippo posted:Good for her In this case, even though I may not like Johansson, I am glad to see Disney reduced.
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Oct 1, 2021 06:46
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Dawgstar posted:Malin went full CG some time ago, yeah. He was the one who drew the comic with Dickie Meyers that got the lawsuit against Waid started. I don't think he's one of the ones EVS has run off but I don't look that close. Whatever happened with that?
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Oct 1, 2021 21:38
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Bruceski posted:If that's their scheme they biffed it. It's a common scam hoping someone will just sign the bill without asking any questions, but unsolicited goods have no obligation and can be dealt with in any way the recipient wishes. By law, at least in the US and UK. It can carry additional charges as well, I think US law files it under "unfair trade practices" or something like that. That Cowboys Versus Aliens movie is based on a comic that did the same thing. Maybe it's a ploy for a movie deal by having receipts to show you shipped X number of issues.
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Oct 1, 2021 21:45
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bessantj posted:Whatever happened with that? Waid and Meyers made a join statement to voluntarily dismiss the suit and it's worth noting that it was also dismissed with prejudice.
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Oct 1, 2021 22:26
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Skwirl posted:That Cowboys Versus Aliens movie is based on a comic that did the same thing. Maybe it's a ploy for a movie deal by having receipts to show you shipped X number of issues. Cowboys & Aliens was a different kind of scam, and a much more elaborate one. Basically, in the late 90s, the president of Malibu Comics, Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, pitched an idea to Universal about a sci fi western with a claim that there was a graphic novel in development. The idea got put on ice and shuffled between studios with no progress on it for years. So Rosenberg cooked up the idea to actually create the graphic novel for it and send a massive number of free copies to anyone he could. This way, he could turn around to the studio, show them the printing numbers, and say "The graphic novel is out, and look how hot it is!" then leave out that very few copies actually sold. I'm guessing he personally lost a lot of money on it, but the studio fell for the scam and tried to get the film made while it was "hot," which in turn tricked a number of high profile celebrities (Daniel Craig! Harrison Ford!) to attach themselves to the picture, making it seem like an even bigger deal. There was a self-compounding issue of industry-side hype for a film most of America did not know or understand, and so it then flopped hard. Action Lab seems to be doing a much smaller scale scam where they're reacting to bad press for not printing the books they were under contract to print by pretending it was all a miscommunication and if the creator had been patient, he would have gotten his books without any fuss. And maybe they're hoping they can bully him into paying for it, but I think it's more about trying to muddy the PR waters. e. Looking into it further, Cowboys and Aliens is like a perfect time capsule of the comic book movie evolving. It comes out of 1997, where the industry is struggling, comic book movies mean Schumacher Batman, and revamps itself with the scam in 2006, taking advantage of Spider-Man, Batman Begins, and X-Men making comic book movies interesting, but not so huge that a studio would know how to look into comic book distribution. By 2011, Iron Man's made comic books insanely hot, every studio's looking to snap up their own cinematic universe, and Mark Millar is making comics just to sell the film rights. It just slipped into the perfect time to pull off what it did. e2. And poo poo, I misread your post and explained your explanation back to you. Sorry Skwirl! Precambrian fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Oct 2, 2021 |
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Oct 2, 2021 01:01
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Wasn’t there also something shady with Malibu and the Men in Black film?
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Oct 2, 2021 03:36
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Dawgstar posted:Waid and Meyers made a join statement to voluntarily dismiss the suit and it's worth noting that it was also dismissed with prejudice. Did Meyers claim it as a win?
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Oct 2, 2021 10:33
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bessantj posted:Did Meyers claim it as a win? I think he tried to thread the needle between claiming it as a victory and acting like the victim of a conspiracy on the part of Big Comics.
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Oct 2, 2021 10:37
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JordanKai posted:I think he tried to thread the needle between claiming it as a victory and acting like the victim of a conspiracy on the part of Big Comics. Hell of a yoga pose.
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Oct 2, 2021 11:44
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Dawgstar posted:Wasn’t there also something shady with Malibu and the Men in Black film? Nothing unusually shady, for comics. The original creator gets paid a relatively small amount, and Marvel get to pretend they published the comic on the film. Aircel published it originally, Malibu bought them, and then Marvel bought Malibu for their colouring process, and got a nice bonus movie franchise.
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Oct 2, 2021 12:18
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Not to take away from general creators' rights/compensation shadiness, but tied into Scott Rosenberg, he's spent the past 20+ years dining out as "The People Who Brought You Men In Black" when the actual timeline was Early 1980s: Scott runs a regional comics distribution company Sunrise. that focused on independent publishers during the "Black & White Boom" 1986: Scott uses the money from Sunrise to co-found Malibu Comics 1987: The bubble bursts on indie comics, Sunrise declares bankruptcy and closes up shop leaving lots of publishers in the lurch Also 1987: Rosenberg lends money to several publishers to keep them afloat with terms that would leave him owning said companies if they can't pay it all back 1990: Aircel Comics publishes a comic The Men in Black to not much acclaim or attention 1991: Aircel is absorbed into Malibu Comics 1992: Film rights for the Men in Black movie are sold. Was Scott Rosenberg involved? Possibly? 1994: Rosenberg sells Malibu to Marvel 1997: Men In Black the movie, which was made without the input or involvement of anyone who actually made the comics, is released and is a hit. Scott Rosenberg: THAT'S ME, I DID THAT. He immediately founded Platinum Studios and started trying to make Cowboys & Aliens into a thing based on a hit graphic novel, which somehow eventually worked? I feel like this rises above standard industry shadiness, and there's a lot more that I'm not even sure how to detangle.
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Oct 2, 2021 14:37
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Edge & Christian posted:Not to take away from general creators' rights/compensation shadiness, but tied into Scott Rosenberg, he's spent the past 20+ years dining out as "The People Who Brought You Men In Black" when the actual timeline was this is so bizarre but thank you for writing this. i had no idea what went down with this whole thing until now.
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Oct 2, 2021 18:04
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Someone here (maybe Edge) previously speculated that Rosenberg’s ties to the Ultraverse are why Marvel has disavowed ever reviving those characters. Dunno but wouldn’t surprise me
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Oct 3, 2021 00:36
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Barry Convex posted:Someone here (maybe Edge) previously speculated that Rosenberg’s ties to the Ultraverse are why Marvel has disavowed ever reviving those characters. Dunno but wouldn’t surprise me Tom Mason (founding editor of Malibu Comics, Ultraverse founder): quote:As far as I know, there are no creator contract issues with the Founders that would prevent the revival of the Ultraverse. I know that phantom issue gets tossed out there a lot, but both Tom Brevoort and Joe Quesada have stated that it’s not a creator contract issue that prevents Marvel from reviving it. And since I’m one of the people who has an Ultraverse contract and an interest in multiple characters, I would know. Also, Marvel owns the Ultraverse outright, so they don’t need anyone’s permission. (The Founders still keep in touch and we’ve all talked about it over the years – there’s nothing legal going on between the Founders and Marvel.)
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Oct 3, 2021 03:16
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Who was the CEO of a comic company who made an employee stand in the corner?
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Oct 4, 2021 03:05
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Why did CrossGen die?
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Oct 4, 2021 03:35
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El Gallinero Gros posted:Who was the CEO of a comic company who made an employee stand in the corner? Nystral posted:Why did CrossGen die? dunno if these two posts being back-to-back are a coincidence, but I believe that Gallinero is thinking of Marc Alessi, CEO of CrossGen. Mark Waid alleged this in a 2009 interview: quote:BM: Did Crossgen owner Mark Alessi have much of a role driving the creative aspects of the company? Or did he give the creators free reign with their books?
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Oct 4, 2021 18:12
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drat. I'd heard that Crossgen went down because the owner kept using company funds to buy sports cars or something like that but I'd never heard much more than that. I loved Meridian back in middle school (even if, following the trades, I was never able to finish the series) and I loved the multiversal thing it had going on. Marvel bought the remains of Crossgen, right?
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Oct 4, 2021 18:28
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catlord posted:drat. I'd heard that Crossgen went down because the owner kept using company funds to buy sports cars or something like that but I'd never heard much more than that. I loved Meridian back in middle school (even if, following the trades, I was never able to finish the series) and I loved the multiversal thing it had going on. Marvel bought the remains of Crossgen, right? Yeah, even published a new miniseries for Mystic written by G. Willow Wilson that didn't really have anything to do with the original. Maybe some other titles, too.
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Oct 4, 2021 18:59
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Dawgstar posted:Yeah, even published a new miniseries for Mystic written by G. Willow Wilson that didn't really have anything to do with the original. Maybe some other titles, too. there were a handful of others, though I think Ruse was the only one that was more than an extremely loose reboot of the original (probably because it was the only one that had the original writer, Waid in that case), on it. they also announced two more, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Route 666 iirc, that were never published, probably because the original batch sold poorly and possibly because of budget mandates that came down in 2011 from Perlmutter and seemed to have resulted in some other announced books being cancelled before release
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Oct 4, 2021 19:09
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Quoting myself from another thread:Edge & Christian posted:Technically Disney bought Crossgen when they went bankrupt in 2004 because they could get the entire company for about a million dollars and they were interested in adapting Abadazad. They commissioned a series of YA novels based on the concept but kind of lost interest at some point. Ruse #1/Sigil #1: 28,500/28,000 orders which is pretty respectable. Ruse #2:/Sigil #2: 11.8k/10.k Ruse #3/Sigil #3: 10.7k/9.5k Ruse #4/Sigil #4: 10.5k/8.9k So not a great start to the new subline. Then a few months later Mystic came out: Mystic #1: Orders of around 18,000 put it ahead of a bunch of stuff, actually. Mystic #2: 7100 copies, ahead of Casanova: Avarita #1, a FF Marvel Universe supplement, Anita Blake:Circus of the Damned – The Scoundrel #1, and Ka-Zar #4 Mystic #3: 6400 copies, ahead of Ka-Zar #5 and a Vampires Marvel Universe supplement Mystic #4: 6000 copies, ahead of John Carter: A Princess of Mars #3 and a book collecting "I Am Captain America" cover variants And then yes, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Route 666 mini-series had been announced and taken off the schedule.
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Oct 4, 2021 20:20
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There was also the story about Marc yelling at his employees to get back to work when they were all glued to the TV ... on Sept 11, 2001. Apparently, he didn't see what the big deal was.
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Oct 4, 2021 20:24
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Edge & Christian posted:Quoting myself from another thread: They also did a Sigil reboot at the same time as Ruse. All three were actually pretty decent iirc. VVV somehow my eyes absolutely glazed over this. RevKrule fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Oct 4, 2021 |
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Oct 4, 2021 21:45
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RevKrule posted:They also did a Sigil reboot at the same time as Ruse.
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Oct 4, 2021 21:49
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catlord posted:drat. I'd heard that Crossgen went down because the owner kept using company funds to buy sports cars or something like that but I'd never heard much more than that. But hell, maybe it happened to CrossGen, too.
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Oct 4, 2021 23:19
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Endless Mike posted:I think you're thinking of Dreamwave? It's possible, that's a memory at least a decade old and the person who told me could very well have mixed it up too. I forgot it was Disney that bought Crossgen, not Marvel. Shame we'll probably never see it again, either way.
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Oct 5, 2021 01:29
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Endless Mike posted:I think you're thinking of Dreamwave? I was going to bring up Dreamwave as well, but shady bosses buying cars with company money is a common enough occurrence that I wouldn't be surprised if two different comic book hotshots did it.
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Oct 5, 2021 07:14
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