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.

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.

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.

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.

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?