Joey Manley comments on the DJ Coffman/Platinum Studios situation:
Signing a Work for Hire contract for your own original creation is like getting a new credit card. It feels like easy money until it doesn’t.
Commercially developing your own creation without giving up ownership of it it is like opening up a savings account. It’s a slow, sometimes agonizing, process, and will probably never amount to much money at all. But it’s always there.
I’m not a comics creator, but I make websites, which are creations of a sort, and I’ve had the opportunity to do both of the above in the past few years. I’ve actually done something completely different — giving up some of my ownership to Josh, first, then collectively giving up a smaller amount of ownership to some investors, in hopes that, with all of those resources combined, we can accomplish more than any of us could alone. I am confident it will work out, but nothing is guaranteed.
BTW, we’re hearing that Coffman’s woes are just the tip of the iceberg, and a bunch of other creators are about to speak out on the situation.
