Is the New Marvel Universe a Secret War on Fox Super Hero Films?

by Gamal Hennessy

In the comics industry, the death and resurrection of characters is a fairly common occurrence. Marvel killed Wolverine a few months ago and ended Fantastic Four as an ongoing series a couple months later. DC recently killed Robin and we’re now in his rebirth phase. The death of characters is an accepted element of post-industrial mythology and the business of creativity.  Every so often, something has to be taken away so it can come back with renewed energy.

Killing a comic character is common, but Marvel is doing something a bit more daring with today’s announcement of Secret Wars (See The Marvel Universe is Ending). In essence, Marvel is dismantling all of its various continuities to create a single overarching narrative. This event appears to be in the same creative vein as other universe destroying events like Crisis on Infinite Earths, Heroes Reborn and the New 52. Rather than shake things up with a reimagined world like the Ultimate Universe I saw launch when I was at Marvel, the stakes are being raised, or at least the goal posts are being moved.

But how much of this is the product of business as opposed to art? There’s already been plenty of speculation about the impact Marvel’s recent creative moves in comics will have on the superhero movie industry. Marvel has poured more creative and marketing energy towards the movie properties it owns (Avengers, Guardians, etc.) and has downplayed, muddled or destroyed  properties licensed out to other studios (X-Men, Spider-Man, Punisher). Conspiracy theorists suggest Marvel of using the tail to help wag the dog.

If the comics are the root of the money making movie tree, killing the root might weaken the tree. When any licensed product becomes more trouble than its worth, a movie studio might decide they’re better off giving up the rights. When Marvel reacquired the movie rights to titles like Daredevil and Hulk, the conspiracy theorists saw this as a Marvel’s success. The recent rumors of Spider-Man appearing in the Civil War film also fuels the conspiracy fire. The death of Wolverine and the cancelation of Fantastic Four could be considered a more aggressive move, designed to lower the potential success of the upcoming films, assuming other factors remain constant.

So what will the industry impact be of reconfiguring the entire Marvel mythology? It could be nothing or it may be everything. It all depends on which titles and characters emerge from Secret Wars. If most (or none) of the Fox or Sony characters survive the slaughter, I’d say there was a strong case for the conspiracy theory. But I doubt Marvel will be so blatant. A lot of factors go into the success or failure of a film franchise. Killing off a character in the comics isn’t a magic bullet, Kryptonite or a mystic hammer, but it can provide insight into the mind of the character’s owner.

The insight independent creators should have for their own characters is the same no matter how Secret Wars plays out. You need to treat your characters and stories as business assets. Make your decisions and focus your energy on the properties that work for you. If they don’t, consider shaking things up, even if some of your babies have to die. (See Treat Your Art Like an Investment)

Have fun.
Gamal

You Signed the Contract, But Do You Know What It Says?

By Gamal Hennessy

            Every writer, artist and musician knows they should read and understand a contract before they sign it. You don’t need to hear the horror stories of rookies and veterans who lost the rights to a lucrative project because they didn’t know what they were signing. The advice is so universal, it often feels insulting to bring it up.

            But the reality is many creative people don’t read what they sign. There are a lot of reasons why this happens, including:

• Time pressure by the other side (If I waste time reading this, they’re going to give the deal to someone else)
• A perceived lack of experience (I won’t understand it so why should I waste time reading it?),
• A perceived lack of leverage (I won’t be able to change anything so why should I bother to ask?) (See Negotiating Power in Creative Contracts)
• A general faith in the decency of their business partners (Bob is my friend. Bob would never screw me with a bad contract, so why do I need to worry about it?)

            In some instances, an unread contract is signed and the world does not end. But information is power, even after the contract is executed. Creative people of all types can benefit from a thoughtful analysis of their existing contracts for three reasons.

1. Managing expectations: It is normal for an artist who gets a deal to expect to see a revenue stream begin to come in when his work gets released to the market. But the structure, timing and amount of payment can be controlled by different provisions of the agreement. Many contracts limit (or in some cases eliminate) your ability to get paid. If you understand this after the contract is signed, you’ll know when and if to expect some payment and you won’t put yourself in a financial hole waiting for money that might not come. (See Artistic Fantasy vs. Financial Reality)
2. Managing usage of the property: You may have created your story or song, but you might not have control over it depending on what the contract says. In addition, you might have signed away the underlying elements of the work, giving your business partner control over any sequels, spin offs and other derivative works. If you understand what you do and don’t control, you’ll know if you should focus your efforts on building that particular property or creating something else that you have more control over. (See Treat Your Art Like an Investment)
3. Understanding the process: Just because you sign one bad contract doesn’t mean you have to agree to the same detrimental terms with every project you do. If you use your bad contract as an educational experience, you can be better prepared to make a more lucrative deal for your next property. But you can’t avoid bad contract language if you don’t know what it is. Sitting down and coming to grips with your current deal will make you a better professional in the long run.

            I counsel my clients to understand all their contracts before they are signed, while they still have the ability to accept or reject the deal (See How to Turn Down a Bad Contract) , but there is value in understanding an existing agreement, even if you’re not in a position to change it. The worst thing you can do is make a bad situation worse by sticking your head in the sand. (See Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late)

Have fun.

Gamal

P.S. On a completely different note, I’d like to share my own creative work with my clients and potential clients. You can get free samples of my Crime and Passion stories by visiting http://nightlifepublishing.nyc

PLEASE NOTE: THIS BLOG POST IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL ADVICE. IF YOU HAVE A LICENSEING OR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISSUE, DISCUSS IT WITH YOUR LEGAL ADVISOR OR CONTACT C3 at gamalhennessy@gmail.com FOR A FREE CONSULTATION.

Recommended Professional Panels for NY Comic Con 2014

If you work in comics (or you just enjoy comic culture) then events like New York Comic Con one of the high points of the year. It’s a place where professionals get a chance to network, connect with their fans, sell their work, be inspired, geek out and spend too much money on comics, toys, t-shirts and other random paraphernalia.

Cons are also a good source of information when it comes to managing and understanding your career. If you take advantage of the professional panels at NYCC, you have a chance to learn from people who can help you avoid mistakes and have more success. 

This is a list of the most interesting panels I've seen on the schedule at this point. There are a lot more than last year, which proves the growing popularity of professional panels at the Con. I can't vouch for the speakers or the quality of the presentations, but you might learn something at these panels to help your career and your ideas. My own willingness to attend these meetings and not stand on line to play FarCry 4 has to count for some type of endorsement.

Thursday October 9th

• 1:15 pm: Selling Your Comics to Hollywood
• 6:00 pm: Comixology Submit: The Future of Self-Publishing
• 7:15 pm: How to Succeed in Self-Publishing

Friday, October 10th

• 11:15 am: Landing a Publisher and Negotiating Publishing Deals
• 7:00 pm Make Comics Like a Pro: Breaking into the Industry

Saturday, October 11th

• 4:15 pm: Copyrights, Contracts and Comic Book Creators
• 7:15 pm : Collaborating in Comics

Sunday, October 12th

• 1:15 pm: Successfully Crowdfund Your Comic
• 5:00 pm: Protecting Your Ideas

I plan to write an essay about what Iearn at Comic Con, but nothing beats being there yourself if you can. If any of you are planning on attending NYCC and you'd like a meeting to discuss the rights of your book, please send an email and we can set something up. Also, I plan to be in Artist Alley on Thursday afternoon. If any of you have a booth, please let me know the number so I can try to stop by.

Otherwise, you can probably find me at the FarCry booth.

Have fun.
Gamal

Can We Have Too Many Comic Book Movies?

by Gamal Hennessy

Last week was typical in the new normal of comics based entertainment. The latest news from the new seasons of Agents of Shield, Arrow, Flash, and Gotham leaked across the internet. Hints about the new Daredevil Netflix series competed with news about the Powers, Lucifer and Supergirl TV shows (See Superhero TV Roundup). Deadpool got a launch date for his film and a plot synopsis was leaked for Age of Ultron. New comic news comes out almost every day in 2014. Where does it end, and what does this new world mean for the creators of this work?

The Reality TV Link

There was a time before the current “golden age” of television where unscripted or “reality” TV dominated the pop culture landscape. It began with experimental shows like MTV’s Real World and then expanded into things like Road Rules. A few years later, shows like Survivor, the Bachelor and American Idol became prime time staples. That prompted a flood of reality programming. The category got so big it had to develop subgenres to create differentiation. They had makeover shows, celebrity shows, and competition shows. Every network felt the need to jump into the category. Networks like the History Channel and Food Network created shows having little or nothing to do with the channel’s original purpose. The phenomenon became so big MTV itself morphed into a reality TV station. For all intents and purposes it abandoned music videos altogether.

The Tail That Wags the Dog

Consider the evolution of comics based entertainment over the past twenty five years. The success of films like Batman in 1989, Spider-Man in 2002 and the Avengers franchise in 2013 have made this genre of film one of the most financially successful genres in the history of movies. (See IMDB Highest Grossing Films of All Time). When you add the success of TV series like Smallville and Arrow to the equation, not to mention animated series like TMNT, Batman, Justice League and X-Men and you have a content avalanche that’s only gaining momentum. We’ve reached the point now where some universities are devoting college classes just to the comic book movie phenomenon (See New College Course for the Marvel Universe). The industry has come a long way from the sad days of films like Howard the Duck and Spawn.

But how far can this momentum take us? Consider this:

• Unlike reality TV, it will take more than a box office flop (or even a series of flops) to stop it. Green Lantern, Punisher and Ghost Rider taught us that.
• It won’t come from a lack of “A  List” characters. Iron Man wasn’t a household name before RDJ got to it and no one knew who Guardians were before last year.
• It’s not just a game for Marvel and DC, since Wanted, Sin City, Kick Ass and Walking Dead have shown independents can take their titles to the screen too.

Will comic film and television get their own awards category at some point? Which network will abandon its original mandate and become a comic entertainment channel? The questions seemed silly ten years ago. Now it doesn’t seem so farfetched. In the world of comic entertainment, comics are becoming the bottom priority, not the top (See Making Comics Isn’t Really about Comics Anymore)

Forward Thinking

What does all this mean for the aspiring writers and artists? I think there are three takeaways anyone in the industry should keep in mind as they build their careers:

• Opportunities beyond traditional comics are continuing to grow not just in terms of TV and film, but in the areas of video games, streaming video and other forms of entertainment
• While the chances of translating any given property into a mainstream market release is still rare, it is essential for creators to know and protect the rights they have in the comics they create
• The amount of quality entertainment coming into the marketplace can raise the bar across the industry and drive innovation in art and story quality.

We might be living in the golden age of comic entertainment, but it will take creative expansion and prudent business choices to keep the momentum going.

Have fun.

Gamal

PLEASE NOTE: THIS BLOG POST IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL ADVICE. IF YOU HAVE A LICENSEING OR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISSUE, DISCUSS IT WITH YOUR LEGAL ADVISOR OR CONTACT C3 AT gamalhennessy@gmail.com FOR A FREE CONSULTATION.

Losing Control and Loving It

By Gamal Hennessy

Reading isn’t the main media for storytelling in the 21st century. Film and TV have replaced the written word as the primary source of entertainment. This means if a writer wants to reach the widest audience possible, the best thing she can do is have her story optioned for adaptation into a movie or TV series. Stephen King, Frank Miller, J.K. Rowling and Joss Whedon are just a few authors who ascended to the next plateau of success by jumping from the page to the screen.

But there is often an inverse relationship between commercial success and creative control. While some creators have enough leverage in TV and film to have a major impact on the transformation of their stories, many don’t. Even the authors who do get to write the screenplay or act as producers give up much of the control over their story’s direction. This occurs for several reasons:

• Collaboration: Writing is often a solitary art. TV and film almost always have various layers of artists, each with their own talents and vision for your story. When screenwriters, directors, actors, editors and dozens of other people put their stamp on your story, what comes out on the screen will be very different from the image you created sitting alone at your desk.
• Transference: Different media lend themselves to different types of conflict in a story. (See What is the Best Media Outlet for Your Writing) Prose has a superior ability to explore internal conflict. Theater has a strong emphasis on interpersonal conflict and film has the ability to render extra-personal conflict to an amazing degree. When your book becomes a film, the story has to be adapted to fit the new medium.
• Time: Your book might take a reader hours, days or weeks to finish. You could write one hundred or two hundred thousand words and fill your story with flashbacks, subplots and other tangential elements that work perfectly on the page. But even a long movie is less than three hours. A TV series might only be fifteen episodes. A lot of material from your book might have to be discarded to fit the time constraints of the screen. Your story might need to be altered yet again to create a logical connection between the remaining elements. Readers of the book will, and often should, see a different story on the screen than they did on the page.
• Cost: Ideas are free. Words are almost free. You can imagine and write about any scenario, setting or creature you want without worrying about cost. But locations, special effects and actors are not free. The things you imagine might cost millions to translate onto the screen. Production budgets rise with each new summer movie season, but your story can and will change to fit the budget constraints of film production.

There are, of course, extremes on both sides of this experience. Frank Miller’s stories are known for their dogmatic adherence to the source material. Watching Sin City or 300 is really just watching the graphic novel in motion. But authors like Barry Eisler have a different experience. Although he’s been a best-selling author for more than a decade, he doesn’t expect to have much input on the adaptation of his John Rain series by Keanu Reeves. In his own words “If they think my involvement will be useful, I’m sure I’ll be involved. Otherwise, I’m looking forward to making popcorn and enjoying the show like everyone else. Either way, I’ll be happy.”   

Keep in mind, it is rare for an author to get their book optioned for a screenplay or TV series in the first place. There are thousands of screenwriters pitching work created specifically for the screen and they often take precedence over novels. Most books don’t translate well enough into the mainstream to justify the financial risk, so often only the runaway bestsellers (or books made in the same style) find their way to movies. For the thousands of authors who never find financial success in books, there are thousands of profitable book authors who never make it to the screen. And authors who navigate those hurdles will often lose much, if not all, of the creative control over their work. But in this scenario, popularity and revenue can replace creative control. Just be sure your contract gives you enough compensation for you to sit back and enjoy your work on screen with everyone else.

Have fun.
Gamal

Words for Pictures: A Book Review

As a child, the first book I recall getting my hands on about the comic book industry was How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. After I got out of law school, I got my hands on Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. The first book exposed me to comics as a technical skill and not just a bunch of cool pictures. The second book reintroduced me to comics as an art form and not just a childish obsession. Words for Pictures is a book on the same level. It describes the creative and practical aspects of comics as a business and belongs on the radar of anyone with any interest in the medium.

Brian Michael Bendis is an award winning writer who has worked on seminal franchises including Spider-Man, X-Men and Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s also had success with his own original titles including Powers, Torso and Scarlet. Bendis brings years of experience to Words, walking an aspiring creator through major aspects of the writing business including:

• The motivations for writing
• The form and function of the script
• Collaboration with editors and artists and;
• Protecting your business interests

Bendis doesn’t just rely on his own perspective for this book. He adds the insights from dozens of top writers, artists and editors to create a behind the scenes look into the business that is now driving the blockbuster movie industry. One of the most important lessons in the book gets a chapter to itself. Bendis advises anyone and everyone who gets into comics on any level to protect their creative investment by seeking out and listening to lawyers and accountants when it comes to handling their career.

Even if you’re not interesting in writing comic books, Words for Pictures still has value. If you’re a writer on any level, the advice he offers transcends the comic book page and extends out to novelists, playwrights and screenwriters. If you simply love iconic artwork, Words is filled with art from some of the top comic book artists of the past and present. In the same way you don’t have to read comics to enjoy comic book movies, you can enjoy Words for Pictures without trying to be the next Walt Simonson of Brian Michael Bendis.

Have fun.

Gamal