|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2018 0:39:48 GMT -5
Part of the reason why the creator-owned stuff came out so infrequently at Marvel is that Marvel wanted Bendis to write 4-5 books a month in the main Marvel universe and any creator-owned stuff he did was above and beyond that, done only when deadlines didn't loom for all the other books they wanted him to do for them, on top of his teaching load teaching writing at the university. He was also called upon to help shape the story direction for large chunks of the line, etc. and the creator-owned imprint was a bone they threw to him to keep him exclusive, but they would rather he just write their IP. They didn't market or promote the creator-owned stuff much if at all and any promotion for those books was done by Bendis or at his expense.
DC approached him to make it a partnership, offered to promote and advertise the books out of their pocket as they do their own stuff, keep it all in print (something Marvel is terrible at), make it all available digitally (something Marvel also did not do well and did reluctantly), etc. He is also only doing 2 books for DC giving him more time to work on the creator-owned material and his partners have also cleared their schedules to make themselves available to do more material for those titles. That was the selling point for Bendis on the deal. DC was willing to make his creator-owned stuff a priority and give him the time and resources to do it whereas with Marvel it was a reluctant afterthought for them and wouldn't give him time to do it until he met a specific quantity of titles per month for them. That's a big difference and I would expect to see a different outcome due to the changed circumstances. From what I understand Oeming is already working on the next Powers arc (and a United States or Murder arc is on deck after that), Maleev is set to start on the next Scarlet arc, and new projects are on tap with different partners. Will it fizzle. Possible. Nothing is guaranteed, but the Jinxworld stuff seems to be a much higher priority for Bendis at DC than Marvel allowed it to be.
-M
|
|
|
|
Post by Icctrombone on Mar 11, 2018 18:24:07 GMT -5
The amount of responsibility on Bendis' shoulders indicates to me that he was getting a pretty penny as compensation from Marvel. It's funny because the initial reports were that Marvel Phased him out after changing leadership. But then I read that they offered him good books as an incentive to stay.
|
|
|
|
Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 11, 2018 21:06:41 GMT -5
Part of the reason why the creator-owned stuff came out so infrequently at Marvel is that Marvel wanted Bendis to write 4-5 books a month in the main Marvel universe and any creator-owned stuff he did was above and beyond that, done only when deadlines didn't loom for all the other books they wanted him to do for them, on top of his teaching load teaching writing at the university. He was also called upon to help shape the story direction for large chunks of the line, etc. and the creator-owned imprint was a bone they threw to him to keep him exclusive, but they would rather he just write their IP. They didn't market or promote the creator-owned stuff much if at all and any promotion for those books was done by Bendis or at his expense. DC approached him to make it a partnership, offered to promote and advertise the books out of their pocket as they do their own stuff, keep it all in print (something Marvel is terrible at), make it all available digitally (something Marvel also did not do well and did reluctantly), etc. He is also only doing 2 books for DC giving him more time to work on the creator-owned material and his partners have also cleared their schedules to make themselves available to do more material for those titles. That was the selling point for Bendis on the deal. DC was willing to make his creator-owned stuff a priority and give him the time and resources to do it whereas with Marvel it was a reluctant afterthought for them and wouldn't give him time to do it until he met a specific quantity of titles per month for them. That's a big difference and I would expect to see a different outcome due to the changed circumstances. From what I understand Oeming is already working on the next Powers arc (and a United States or Murder arc is on deck after that), Maleev is set to start on the next Scarlet arc, and new projects are on tap with different partners. Will it fizzle. Possible. Nothing is guaranteed, but the Jinxworld stuff seems to be a much higher priority for Bendis at DC than Marvel allowed it to be. -M Oh, good. I'm not anti Bendis' superhero stuff, but I love, love, love Jinx and Scarlet was maybe the best book Marvel has released this decade. At this point he'd probably be more successful at Image, though. DC hasn't had a great track record marketing creator owned stuff in the 2010s. |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 3:49:51 GMT -5
Part of the reason why the creator-owned stuff came out so infrequently at Marvel is that Marvel wanted Bendis to write 4-5 books a month in the main Marvel universe and any creator-owned stuff he did was above and beyond that, done only when deadlines didn't loom for all the other books they wanted him to do for them, on top of his teaching load teaching writing at the university. Unless they tied him to a typewriter in the bullpen and only let him out sporadically to work on the Icon series, that's still a mutual choice to do those series, and to pick up the guaranteed income rather than the speculative returns from the creator-owned work |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 13:08:48 GMT -5
Part of the reason why the creator-owned stuff came out so infrequently at Marvel is that Marvel wanted Bendis to write 4-5 books a month in the main Marvel universe and any creator-owned stuff he did was above and beyond that, done only when deadlines didn't loom for all the other books they wanted him to do for them, on top of his teaching load teaching writing at the university. Unless they tied him to a typewriter in the bullpen and only let him out sporadically to work on the Icon series, that's still a mutual choice to do those series, and to pick up the guaranteed income rather than the speculative returns from the creator-owned work Or it as in the terms of his exclusive contract that he had to produce so many issues per month for them. The exclusive contract did have minimums he had to produce, though I don't know the exact terms. He may not have been chained to the typewriter but he was contractually obligated to produce a certain amount of work for their IP characters under the deal he had. So yes, metaphorically he was chained ot the typewriter and forced to produce for their characters before he could work on his own. And when you have a family to take care of, benefits like health insurance an guaranteed income are the reality you have to choose over pursuing your own creative visions at times. -M |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 16:48:09 GMT -5
It's all negotiable when the contract is being agreed though - if he said "I only want to do 3 books" are they going to walk away from their biggest name writer? I don't think so. Yes, they undoubtedly wanted him on books which were more profitable for them, but he's only chained to that typewriter because he's agreed to be chained there as part of his contract negotiations.
Anyway, this is all getting way off topic, so I'm going to stop now
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 22:20:35 GMT -5
It's all negotiable when the contract is being agreed though - if he said "I only want to do 3 books" are they going to walk away from their biggest name writer? I don't think so. Yes, they undoubtedly wanted him on books which were more profitable for them, but he's only chained to that typewriter because he's agreed to be chained there as part of his contract negotiations. Anyway, this is all getting way off topic, so I'm going to stop now If you want an exclusive contract and not freelance employment (with the exclusive you get benefits like health insurance and guaranteed work, with freelance you get a page rate for what work they give you if they give you any and even if they do you don't get benefits or health insurance as a freelancer) you have to agree to terms of the contract, and if you want to publish through ICON, you have to be a Marvel exclusive creator, Marvel doesn't publish anything through ICON that doesn't come from a Marvel-exclusive creator. Health care/insurance is a big thing for a lot of creators, being exclusive is the only way you get it unless you pay out of pocket for it and if you have a spouse and kids it can get very expensive, as does self publishing and marketing your own books without the Marvel ICON label. So it's not a choice of do I want to do self-published or Marvel characters, it's do I give up the security of healthcare for my family and guaranteed work of the exclusive contract just to shoulder all the risk to do creator-owned stuff. For some the answer is yes (ex. Brubaker) but they usually have income derived form other areas as well (Bru had TV work for example), so yes you are correct Bendis could have chosen not to take the exclusive contract to to negotiate different terms but it wasn't simply a choice between doing Marvel stuff or creator-owned stuff, he had other lives to consider in his decision, and that's a lot bigger factor in the decision than whether he gets a few more issues of his creator-owned series done. Sure he could go to Image with his creator-owned stuff, but then there is no page rate, he has to pay the artists, letterers, colorists, editors, etc. out of his pocket, there's no benefits, and he doesn't get paid dime one until after the book is released because it's all back end payment but not everyone involved can afford to wait on that payment so he would have to front a lot of the money to the other creators to get them to do the work on his books. Image doesn't pay for any of that up front, they only pay at the back end to the creator/owner and all monies to other creators are distributed by the owner/creator. Bendis worked with that model for years, but he took the Marvel exclusive to provide security for his family, so yeah he chose the chain, sure, but I am not going to begrudge him the choice to better provide for his family because I get less of his creator-owned stuff. IF that is the choice I faced, I'd choose my family over the creator-owned stuff every time too. DC has offered him a deal where he can still provide and have security for his family and get to do more of his creator-owned stuff, which is why the deal was so attractive to him. -M |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2018 2:06:27 GMT -5
We're talking about 2 different things. You're saying the alternatives are "exclusive + icon but do what you're told" or "do it yourself at Image". I'm saying the option 1 - exclusive + Icon has negotiable terms, and that Bendis was in a very strong position to negotiate
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2018 3:21:27 GMT -5
We're talking about 2 different things. You're saying the alternatives are "exclusive + icon but do what you're told" or "do it yourself at Image". I'm saying the option 1 - exclusive + Icon has negotiable terms, and that Bendis was in a very strong position to negotiate I don't think he was. It's a contracting market, sales are shrinking and if they were going to give him an exclusive contract with the ensuing benefits, they were going to maximize output on their properties for it. When they created Icon, the market was healthier, and Marvel was more willing to support it, but as it shrunk (and it was shrinking last time they renewed his contract and made changes to it, which he noted in interviews and such) they were trying to put Bendis on as many of their company owned title to get the most out of their investment in the exclusive contract. He had little leverage at that point as they were no competing offers on the table at that time and Marvel held most of the chips during that negotiating period. Marvel wasn't afraid to let "architects" walk, they had already let Brubaker, Remender and Hickman go when they were unwilling to meet Marvel's terms in the exclusive deal (all of them wanted more time to do creator-owned stuff and Marvel wanted them to do more of their properties) so they all ended their exclusive deals with Marvel as Marvel was unwilling to budge from the terms to allow them more time to do creator-owned stuff. The precedent had been set they weren't going to allow for more creator-owned projects and less corporate owned work and still provide exclusive contracts. So how was Bendis position stronger than those three guys? Marvel replaced all of them without blinking in negotiations but they were going to bend to Bendis' demands? -M |
|
|
|
Post by james on Apr 5, 2018 13:35:42 GMT -5
I see that DC has done a full splash page announcing Bendis doing Superman. If i'm not mistaken I think only John Byrne got this kind of treatment by DC. And Bendis is no Byrne!
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2018 14:14:15 GMT -5
Well... I am NOT a fan of Bendis' style of writing. I have dropped every series he wrote (except for Ultimate Spider-Man) after one arc. Yes even his Daredevil! But... He is probably the most famous writer at Marvel in the last 20 years. So it is quite a coup for DC to get him to write Superman for them. And they did the same thing when Kirby left Marvel.   |
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Apr 5, 2018 14:21:36 GMT -5
Yeah, Kirby was the first time DC ever acknowledged, via ads that a superstar was coming to work for them. Byrne was as much about the revamp of Superman as it was Byrne coming to work for them, as he had done some DC comics. in the past (Untold Legend of Batman), though not much.
Quite frankly, Bendis' superhero work never did much for me. I prefer his indie stuff, even if he did overdo the David Mamet bit in his writing.
|
|
|
|
Post by sabongero on Apr 5, 2018 14:25:58 GMT -5
Quite frankly, Bendis' superhero work never did much for me. I prefer his indie stuff, even if he did overdo the David Mamet bit in his writing. What is a "David Mamet bit" and which title or titles did he do this sort of stuff? Thanks. |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2018 14:37:46 GMT -5
Quite frankly, Bendis' superhero work never did much for me. I prefer his indie stuff, even if he did overdo the David Mamet bit in his writing. What is a "David Mamet bit" and which title or titles did he do this sort of stuff? Thanks. It is the weird dialog Bendis does when he has two characters having a conversation. He does it a lot. |
|
|
|
Post by sabongero on Apr 5, 2018 14:42:22 GMT -5
What is a "David Mamet bit" and which title or titles did he do this sort of stuff? Thanks. It is the weird dialog Bendis does when he has two characters having a conversation. He does it a lot. By this, do you mean the "talking heads" bit where the dialog is really long and the story does not move forward, and that the characters in play are "out of character" to long time readers who have read those characters for a long time in the series? |
|
