Q: What’s this we hear about Platinum Studios merchandising my comics and 10% royalty share or something…?

A: That 90/10 split mentioned recently was a misquote that has nothing AT ALL to do with comics. We at some point in the not too distant future plan to enable creators to make some money on the Duck. It’s all in the very early design phase. No percentages have been worked out. None. It will probably be variable depending on what it’s for, how complicated the deal was to make, and how much profit is even there for us to share. Any number right now is purely speculative. And before we would do anything with YOUR comic we would need your permission. It will be purely voluntary. We will be approaching this gradually and with lots of feedback and dialog with the creators on DrunkDuck.

Selling it through your own site, you spend $7 for smaller runs of shirts and sell them for $20 (which is too expensive, but nevermind) and make $13, all yours.

Is being affiliated with Platinum going to get you 26 times as many T-shirt sales? Maybe. But I doubt it.

The fuh.

Scott Kurtz suffers from a common problem. People who accomplish anything think they know best for everyone else. Afterall, it worked for them right? What worked for you? Nothing? Well I guess we know who’s right. We should all be building the latest greatest operating system so we can all be just like Bill Gates. Scott would have all succeed or fail by his one trick mentality. And right now the succeed pool is very, very shallow.

The fact is Scott Kurtz isn’t a visionary. He doesn’t understand the limitations imposed on the web comic world as it stands, and can only think very one dimensionally. The problem is, he’s another guy who got a lucky break, and unfortunately that gives him room to spread his mental disease. For gods sake he makes D&D jokes and bathroom humor. None of this shit is even original. The same mainstream media problems that wrote a crappy article for platinum studios granted him an eisner.

Also, the tyrade someone threw over not getting the ad money from the sites? WAH. Other freehosts dont split their ad revenue with their members, right??? I cant think of any. ComicGenesis doesn’t.

I think it’s funny that DJ is actually saying how happy he is with his arrangement, and Scott Kurtz is so offender by that idea. That somebody could succeed by an avenue he didn’t pursue. Scott is so angry by this is blows my mind. DJ Happy? It MUST be a lie.

You know, you mention Gabe from PA in your post. You don’t mention that they DID “sell out” a few years ago. It’s a point they can laugh at now, and it’s usually glossed over when referring to them as the gold standard for how to turn webcomics into $$$, but it happened. DJ is playing with house money here. HBN was a shot in the dark to begin with. It cost him no more than a sketch or two and a flight out to San Diego. For an investment of one or two thousand dollars, he has the opportunity to make a fantastic return. In turn, Yirmumah gets exposure and new eyes, the artists who spend their money to advertise here get more eyes, etc etc. Even if it’s 10% of the people who read HBN, DJ still pays the bills, it’s a larger audience from the get-go, and all this for a relatively small investment of time and effort. In terms of ‘risk vs. reward’, how is this anything but a good investment of his time and creativity?

It seems to me there are worlds colliding here– maybe I can sum it all up later how I feel on it. There is no cookie cutter way to make a SYSTEM work— no one is going to come in and roll the red carpet out and hand you a check at the end in webcomicdom.

Comics are Comics. That’s the point.