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Post by the1truesushiboy on Oct 1, 2011 23:53:18 GMT -5
Okay,so I'm already aware of the situation with NS, at least somewhat, but how would I go about contacting Platinum Studios to advocate your continuation of Night School in the future? How would I send them a letter or email telling them how awesome I thought it was? I looked around a bit on their website, but didn't find anything that seemed to be along those lines.
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Post by nightreflection on Oct 2, 2011 1:48:02 GMT -5
It does look like Platinum Studios has lost interest. They were in the movie making biz, and if you have a real good look at NS, it is a very well done kid-friendly (no blood and guts) adaptation of the CTV concept.
Have a word with Nick before you start chasing them though. It's a sensitive situation, also, I don't think Amy has time for it. She hardly has any time for UIU, and she's already working herself to the bone.
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Post by jetylefr on Oct 2, 2011 11:19:50 GMT -5
you can send concerns to info@patinumstudios.com
that is what I was told.
Buuuut... I have to agree with nightreflection. Talk to Nick first.
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Post by the1truesushiboy on Oct 2, 2011 18:21:24 GMT -5
... also the reason I'm posting the inquiry here, in the forum.
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Post by Amelius on Oct 18, 2011 0:08:16 GMT -5
*lurk-drifts over to this thread* Oh hey youse! Yeah, I'll have to discuss this with Nick too (haha, he's the word of authority here I guess  ) but we're going to pull out our contracts and go over them with a fine-tooth comb to see if our agreement still stands with PS.... which I'm not sure I'm allowed to disclose here. Honestly that's been the biggest sticking point; it got to where a lot of contract obligations were not being filled out on their end (we didn't get royalties or paid for the work I did on the digital versions, which we're not going to throw a fit over since they were having financial troubles.) We did try to ask for the rights back in lieu of the money we were owed but we never heard back. I would absolutely love to work on NS again though. There were so many great ideas, and we didn't get to share them all... some really awesome stuff was about to happen before we kinda decided this wasn't going to be Plat's priority, we're hardly mentioned as opposed to their pride and joy Cowboys and Aliens (which all projects seemed to be a means to an end to get that movie produced) and Hero By Night. I'm not really sure Plat knew what to do with us and our concept anyway, they kept thinking it was going to be like Harry Potter and we kept saying "no, not really like Harry Potter..." but it ended up on the back of the hard-copies all the same! |
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Post by nightreflection on Oct 18, 2011 13:16:31 GMT -5
Corporations aren't nice, PS probably doesn't deserve it.  If you want to get your rights back, your best option is to start chasing the royalties, and then when they complain, refer them back to the rights option, but yeah, read the contracts first. One thing is sure, they will die with the rights in their cold bloody hands before they give them back, regardless of how much they mean to you. Corps are very tight-fisted with anything that may, possibly, somehow, in some way or another, eventually turn over a little cash, unless you provide them with a little motivation.  |
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Post by the1truesushiboy on Oct 18, 2011 18:20:32 GMT -5
Aw, well that's kinda' lame of them. They don't have a clue what they're missing out on.
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Post by jetylefr on Oct 19, 2011 13:09:13 GMT -5
silly humans with their... problems which they have.
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Post by Amelius on Oct 19, 2011 14:13:40 GMT -5
There is though, always the possibility of them selling their properties to a company who knows what to do with it  We did put a sort of, "out" in the contract though besides. However, despite all the problems and how much I grew to love NS, it's better this than CTV. The chance for CTV to get noticed and printed was tempting but I think we made the right choice selling Night School instead of CTV, but it was close! It was too good a chance to pass up, but I'm glad we didn't give Charby away. NS was like selling my pets, whereas Charby would have been like selling my soul! The problem is, when you sign on to a company who is looking to do multi-media things with your creative property, you have to surrender all your rights to the material, otherwise things end up in development hell. When they take a property to Hollywood to get interest in a movie or animation deal, the people with all the rights neatly bundled in their pocket are more appealing and a better shoo-in than someone who has SOME of the rights and the rest floating around in some other person's pockets whom they have to get the ok from before proceeding. Makes sense, but still sucks for the creators! |
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Post by the1truesushiboy on Oct 19, 2011 19:44:02 GMT -5
Too true. I would be inconsolably heartbroken if CTV befell the same fate. Personally, I think it's really pretty extortionist to make demands that somebody hand over the rights to their creation in exchange for the tools to make that dream a reality. It just leads to bad blood. There are a lot of issues with publishing in any entertainment medium that really need to be looked at objectively, 'cause it seems like rather than working together to achieve good results and long running series, the publishers and writers are stuck in a battle for rights and profits. It's just not right.
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Post by Amelius on Oct 20, 2011 12:54:37 GMT -5
Yeah, there's lots of people who are against the "work for hire" contracts, but we knew what we were getting into, we just didn't expect the company to tank right after we signed all the papers and for one of their flagship authors to go on a crusade against the company and spread (mostly lies, speaking of extortion!) bad words to every comic news venue he could contact. Right as our book was coming out, he was going around talking about how much PS sucks and you should boycott their products. This guy who we had lunch with at a con, who seemed like such a nice guy, was sabotaging our chances just to air his grievances with the company... as much as I could sympathize with not getting paid when your bills are due, I have a hard time forgiving what he did to us without a thought. Platinum at least put out a hardcover edition of his comic, NightSchool was printed on what looked like paper fit for instruction manuals and was overpriced to boot.  I could have done full-color in the same amount of time it took me to grayscale the whole thing, but they wanted it in "manga format" (which bedevils me to this day...) because black and white was cheaper to print I guess.... but UGH the paper wasn't even white so the whole thing just looked muddy in print! I was SO embarrassed by it. All that hard work, and over 100 pages of art, and it looks only thick enough to be 50 pages tops. |
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Post by the1truesushiboy on Oct 20, 2011 19:18:48 GMT -5
Well, that fellow sounds utterly indecorous... Meanyface >:I He certainly could've handled that better.
But anyway, for however impressively crafted the NS book could have, but may not have eventually been, it was still pretty rad. Heck, I bought two copies, indifferent to price. Sure they may have slighted you, but it's not your fault, and the end result, in my opinion, is more than worth the purchase.
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Post by Odin on Oct 20, 2011 22:19:54 GMT -5
It's the curse of DrunkDuck every company that lays hands on it suffers inevitable monentary failure for some reason.
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Post by nightreflection on Oct 21, 2011 14:03:54 GMT -5
The duck will never make good money. It is a base for developing comics. The only companies that should invest in it are talent-scout companies like PS - there is plenty of that.
Well, if it turns out your contract remains binding and you can't get out of it, as a last resort, you may want to go to one of their managers with what you've just said and ask them if they would be willing to reprint the book now that the seas have calmed, but tell them you want a sample, and if it's junk, they can forget it.
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) but we're going to pull out our contracts and go over them with a fine-tooth comb to see if our agreement still stands with PS.... which I'm not sure I'm allowed to disclose here.
