You're going to AWA? That's awesome! It was my very first con ever, and it's also my Birthday con, since it's the weekend after my b-day.

AWA is my hometown convention so I try to go . This year I also got an artist alley table, so I'll be there Friday afternoon through Sunday .

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For some reason the drama has me all excited Thanks for the link, s-girl! This is really juicy stuff. I think most of us have known that Tokyopop is the devil for a while, but it rocks seeing them exposed and taken apart.

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I think the discussion that has resulted is really good in that it exposes TP a bit more plainly and hopefully encourages them to consider different business models.

However, that said, if I were an unknown creator looking for some kind of exposure and could reasonably risk a character or storyline as a first ditch effort, it wouldn't necessarily dissuade me from using them. I think artists are a bit unreasonable to think that by their own efforts they could easily negotiate a contract elsewhere.

Maybe it's because I've been watching writers struggle to get noticed for so long, but the market out there is not pro-creator. It's always pro-distributor and pro-investor because they have the capital to invest and market.

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Yeah, but you would know what you're getting into. My concern is for those poor naive talented kids that realized too late what a mess that contract is. I'll agree that there is no easy road to publication, but I have a hard time seeing Tokyopop's route as beneficial. Rivka's experience with the non-existent editing was pretty shocking. You'd think editors would put more work into making sure their product doesn't look so shoddy, since they're the ones with the rights. The contract itself is a bit demeaning enough without TP in turn behaving so unprofessionally with the work.

I'm hoping this exposure on their policy will get the TP heads to go, "Aw snap, we can do better than this." Since it does seem to be the only major OEL publisher right now. I saw "seem," 'cause there's always other ways. Jeff Smith's Bone was an underground comic when it was first published, and it gained popularity by being--surprise!--well-written and well-drawn. TP can afford to give better options for the upcoming artists than going solo like Smith, you know?

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I'm not so sure TP has a good enough business model for them to do much better. THey have a very bad "throw everything at the wall" type of approach with their licensures, and I don't think they've done so hot a job with the OELs either. To be honest, I think they don't have any real direction.

As for the editing, it seems kind of haphazard. Rivkah says she didn't get any input, and another person quit because he got too much!

If TP is to get better, they need more seasoned editors out there. Maybe they should hire some comics people ... or maybe they should separate writers and artists out instead of letting people do both chores unless they have proven their chops at both tasks. And I think this is the other part that really isn't being considered, and that is perhaps we've lost site of the writing here and many of these OEL books are not well written. I haven't really liked much of what I've seen. The only volumes to really grab my attention were from Dramacon. One of several dozen... yikes... versus the level of interest I've had in Viz titles which have been much more clverly packaged in serial publications.

Also -- BONE was pretty unusual in that he kept going and going in spite of himself. For every BONE , there are tons of comics sitting at the comicbook store completely unread . There are so many failed comic book projects out there.

As for Tokyopop being hte only contender, a few people have said Viz is entering the fray, although I heard it was for completed works, while another heard that they were going to be working with artists over the next several years to develop works. I'm not sure that their contracts will be better though.... here's hoping, though.

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o.O I've never really followed Tokyo Pop, but those contract quotes are something else.

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It definitely is for those who want to break in I think. From reading all the comments, most people seem adamant they won't go for it, but I think for most they have more reasonable options

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See, I actually like a few of the OEL titles (Dramacon, Fool's Gold, Steady Beat) that TP has put out, and it frustrates me because I admire those artists and want to support them, but I don't want to support TP's bad business model. That contract is so condescending and unprofessional that it boggles my mind.

I've heard good things about Slave Labor, Dark Horse, Oni Press, and Del Rey as far as creators' rights and editors go. Viz sort of vaguely mentioned that they're thinking about maybe publishing some OEL stuff in the future, but it sounds like they already know what artists they want to work with and aren't really looking for unsolicited submissions.