Dancing on fresh graves
Some links to start my morning, and yours… sadly they are all Platinum Studios related…
- I’ve made a cameo in the latest SoreTHumbs comic. There are some great caricatures in this one, and it’s Platinum related
- A quote from yesterday’s blog is the headline quote on Dirk Deppey’s Journalista column this morning.
- And according to the latest 8k report filed with the SEC by Platinum just yesterday, this quote:
The employees of Platinum Studios, Inc. (the “Company”) have agreed to accept minimum wage cash compensation until further notice to reduce the company’s payroll obligations.
That last one is really sad to think about. To think workers at Wal-Mart are making more than people inside Platinum right now? I mean… well, maybe that’s saying a lot on it’s own. At least they are being paid something, because the last I heard nobody was being paid anything at all.
I’d like nothing more to stop thinking and talking about Platinum Studios. I have tried in the past but the public will not have it! Once their greatest cheerleader and producer I’m now a conduit (lightning rod?) for information, both good and bad. MANY creators who are owed email me their woes. (when they should be speaking up themselves), and some other companies who wish to not be named have spoken to me about being owed monies. I get emails and comments from people telling me “I told you so!”. The worst emails are from the HBN fans who want to see more…
I’m not blogging here about this because I’m trying to be a champion of creator or consumer rights or that I even care that other schmucks are owed and trying to use me as a mouthpiece because they’re too afraid to say how they really feel. I’m not looking forward to dancing on anyone’s grave… I blog here because this is MY blog! I blog about what I’m thinking about (for good or bad) I’ve been doing it since Y2K, and I can’t help but think about this topic when it’s being emailed to me and brought up in conversations that many of us, myself included are just TIRED of…. nothing gets resolved.
If I really had my way, I’d fancy a device like in the cinematic masterpiece, Total Recall that could just erase it all from my mind and implant memories of how things could have been….
17 Comments so far
You may wish it to go away, but I truely hope the company goes under. I suspect the new owner of the rights could be either you, or someone that wants to “deal” with you.
While I don’t email you, I am one of the fans that would like to see “The rest of the story” for HBN.
(and I have more than $2 in my hand!)
I think you need to start a new feature — “Things that are worth more than one share of Platinum Stock”
Today’s entry: A third of a banana
[...] his blog, former Platinum creator/defender DJ Coffman puts the news in [...]
The only thing you need to post about Platinum is “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I ever aided these snakes in duping you.” You should acknowledge your culpability in all of this, DJ.
And the only thing that you should apologize for Scott is being such a whiny douche bag! Just sayin’!
Scott, that would just be your opinion. For me to do that would mean that I had anything knowingly to do with “duping” people. The only thing I’m sorry about is trusting people so easily and taking people there at their word. That’s a lesson learned, and one I’ve written about already.
Now run along and think about your own future. I’m sure it’s bright! And I’m sure you have better things to be doing than trolling around here.
My name is not Quaid.
Hey Kurtz, you should read before you post. DJ has said in this post and in others that he was their biggest cheerleader and how bad it makes him feel NOW that other people were brought into Platinum by DJ’s love for them.
In other words, to make it easy for your to understand, DJ HAS acknowledged his culpability in all of this and now uses this blog and his posts to make whatever amends he can.
Do you read these posts Scott or just troll and post?
Scott is just a tired old troll/one trick pony. He is sad.
Shawn and Tim and Calypso,
I can appreciate that you are fans and/or friends of DJ and you want to defend him here on his website. I can respect that. But believe me when I say that I’m well informed in my opinion.
The bottom line here is that DJ has known from the beginning what Platinum was all about. I know this because he informed me as much at my booth in San Diego the year he pitched HBN for the first Comic Book Challenge. He told me flat out that he knew that Platinum was only interested in being an IP farm, but that he was going ahead with it anyway because it was just a throw-away idea and worst-case he gets paid to make comics for a year.
That’s a very different assessment of Platinum from the one that he evangelized on their behalf during the year or so that he was being paid handsomely by them. DJ knew the score with Platinum before and after he was being paid by them. It was only DURING his payment that he forgot their true nature and championed them as strong lovers of comic books with the best of intentions who took care of their people.
It’s one thing to take your own chances and lie with snakes. You’re only risking your own skin and your own properties. It’s another entirely to coax other people into a pit of snakes because it benefits you at the time.
I’m sure that if Platinum had simply managed to keep paying DJ and his crew to continue producing HBN, he would have absolutely NO problems keeping silent on any internal wrongdoings, no matter how many emails he was getting from other disgruntled platinum contractors.
Scott, you say you’re “sure” about a lot of things that you’re wrong about. When I had that conversation with you it was the day I was pitching HBN! I had figured those things I said then, and was cool with that. After i won and actually began working internally, things did change. I got to know many people and they weren’t evil bad guys, if anything just poorly mismanaged at times, and I dug and dug, and asked questions about everythig all the time. Things aren’t as black and white as you’d like to paint them, so please don’t.
the Drunk DUck thing came along right after CBC and left a lot of us scratching our heads. I didn’t want to put HBN on Drunk Duck initially, but we did because there was at one point a VERY SOLID plan put together by the New Media– And Platinum wasn’t use to working with creators like me who did everything–When I first started working on my own comic for Platinum and came in and took charge, it was a breathe of fresh air to a lot of people behind the scenes.
Scott, there was no pitt of snakes I was coaxing anyone into, in fact I saw an awesome opportunity for OTHER creators after I did trust Scott Rosenberg and Brian Altounian. And internally, I actually fought for them to rethink the rights issues you and others were so adamant about, and in doing so, I was able to actually negotiate, no, I was able to write MY OWN seperate contract for the webcomic I ran and other things. You are dead, dead wrong about me being paid handsomely and not having problems inside, but I did keep them inside for obvious reasons (NDA), but ask a good bit of ANYONE inside Platinum current or previous employees how much complaining I did about their website and marketing, or really dumb things that would pop up– or handling of Diamond, or when editors would mess something up… heads rolled regularly. When I’d make a suggestion or critique, Rosenberg actually listened to me and pretty much let me handle everything my way behind the scenes. As things grew rapidly worse after they went public, I think he just kinda wanted to curl up under his desk and take the ringer off the hook and not face problems head on. And I don’t work that way.
Was I fooled? No… I believed the plans I saw, but in the end the people managing those things just didnt have the know-how to get things done. The only people I really brought in was when I was asked… “Hey, do you know anyone who can draw KISS?” So I referred my friend Adam Black. — I brought in my friend Jason to help me color. And all of them made good money for a time. Actually, I brought in Brandon Carr too,
and I wrote a new Micro-Branding strategy that allowed Platinum to cherry pick from it’s library to have things that were just one-sheet ideas developed into webcomics, wherein a cartoonist like Brandon Carr could get a page rate, pageviewbonus AND a cut in ownership in the property they were “running”, and to boot, 100% of the profits from any merchandising the creator did on his own. I actually demonstrated how this was possible when I had my own HBN rings made and sold them direct to the readers. To Platinum, it would be too much time and energy, they make their paydays on the bigger thigns. Scott Rosenberg really liked the idea, but it got shot down in February or early March for apparent reasons by their board. (there was starting to be NO money…)
Anyways Scott, there is a lot you do not know, and maybe you would if you read my blog here all the time which I don’t expect you to do. I do feel bad for the friends I brought in. And you find me ONE single creator who went to Drunk Duck because I told them to host there, or ONE single creator who pitched something to Platinums CBC who’s upset with me and I’ll deeply apologize to them, but I won’t apologize to the likes of you. You will find none. Even though my friends aren’t upset with me, I feel bad for ever getting them involved in hindsight, and I learned a valuable lesson, as I’ve written about thoroughly on my blog.
Is it just me or does Scott’s constant rehashing of certain points remind you of the conversations between Cartman and most kids on South Park?
I feel for Scott really, because his paranoia with “business” will also keep him from trying anything. Unless he is the head cheese of EVERYTHING related to his business deal, he “suspect” treachery. While he can be very successful with this approach to business, in real life, the most successful realize that they must trust and deal with others. Sometimes this will get you burned, sometimes it creates a highly profitable relationship.
DJ’s additude towards work and working with others is “blunt” but it is honest and when he creates that relationship that does work, it will be much more productive than if he does it all alone.
Again, I say that Platinum may own rights “now”, but as with all things, this whole conversation might be very different in a year.
As a landlord, I rent a house and sometimes the tenant and I have a very profitable relationship. Sometimes they tear up my house and force me to evict them, costing me hundreds of dollars. Do I complain about it? No, I MOVE ON, I fix the damage and start again.
DJ has moved on and will continue that. (though I still hope that the rights come back to him and HBN can be finished some day) Meanwhile, will Scott be bringing up 2006 stuff in 5 years from now??
I think DJ’s “How to start a webcomic” is probably more useful advice than anything Scott has brought up in his lectures on IP rights.
Don’t hate me Scott, just an opinion from a reader, not a creator of IP material. ie: the guy that actual clicks the tip jar now and then. You know, the people that an IP creator actually has to get to be successful.
Gseke makes a really good point. While I don’t always agree with D.J. and I never trusted Platinum, trying to paint D.J. like he was helping screw over creators is wrong. Long before Platinum, and long before Scott Kurtz got the bug for helping webcomic creators, D.J. was openly sharing advice and showing things that worked for him and it helped a lot of creators, strangers he didn’t even know. And as far as I can tell, he just did it to do it because he loves talking about it and sharing the information. Again, I was skeptical of the Platinum plans, but the bottom line here is that Platinum won’t exist soon, and D.J. will, and hopefully he’ll keep sharing the things he knows as best as he can.
Kurtz, you may not sense it yourself, but you come off like a be-all-know all for comics and that’s ridiculous. Don’t you have comics to draw? Why are you even here unless you wanted to start a fight with D.J.? You are ridiculous.
You know, things got messed up and crashed and burned, pretty quickly. I’ve watched that happen to other clients I’ve had over the last 10 years too. It affected ALL of us that were doing work for them at the time. Hell, I was the one who stopped working on HBN first because I wasn’t being paid, and DJ and I talked about the situation and he made some tough decisions of his own. For a while it was fine, for a while things were being changed as needed. hell, I made enough dough off of ONE overnight, tight deadline, coloring job, to buy a freaking Cintiq. I don’t have regrets for working for Platinum, or the work that was done while there. I DO regret the way things were handled in the end when money became an issue. There either wasn’t enough proactive solutions being offered, or there were bad solutions being offered to problems. That sort of thing happens, we all learned from it, and moved on. DJ shouldn’t feel guilt over offering other creators he knew the opportunity to make money. Damn Kurtz, it’s like you think we’re all little kids and don’t understand the WFH contracts WE signed either. I’ve been freelancing for 10 years, the last 3 exclusively coloring comics. I’m pretty confident I’m business savvy enough to make a living the rest of my life, and I don’t blame PEOPLE for their mistakes because god knows I’ve made and continue to make my own. If someone BLAMED DJ for the way things happened, I think they’d be man enough to come out and tell him, and you don’t see anyone doing that do you.
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