The dirty little secret is that those Image guys made all these deals and almost to a man failed to deliver. They burnt Hollywood horribly on letting comics talent actually be a part of the production of the material they sold.
Ive reached the end of my Work For Hire rope. Im enjoying The Punisher, but thats not mine, its Marvels, and l knew that going in. I have spent a lot of my comics career in service of other masters, and Ive had enough of that for now. Im sick to death of the way the Big Two treat people.
I gave seven very good years to DC and they took gross advantage of me. Thats partially my fault, but not entirely. At this point, I see no reason why I should have to put up with that, I can sink or swim on my own.
You are seeing a grotesque Hollywoodisation of the two main companies. There was at least a period where I felt that the way they wanted to make money was by telling the best story they could; now the quality of the work matters less than that the book comes out. There is far less a desire to see good work be done.
Dan DiDio has gone on record, and this is the same man that said Gotham Central would never be cancelled as long as he was there, telling people what a great book Gotham Central was, but it never made any money.
Well, take a look at your trade sales! That book has made nothing but money as a trade. What Im now being told is, lt was never worth anything to us anyway.So, you know what? They can stop selling the Batwoman: Elegy trade and stop selling the Wonder Woman trades and everything else Ive done, because clearly Ive not done anything of service and those guys arent making any money off me.
Right now, where the market is, I have no patience for it.
My run on Punisher ends on #16, and we are then doing a five-issue mini called War Zone and then Im done. Thats it! The Powers-That-Be at Marvel, without talking to me, decreed that hes going to join a team on another book.
Thats their choice, they own him, but I dont have to be happy about it. I am glad I had the opportunity to work on the character and Im proud of the work Ive done.
Despite what the publishers say, their interest in the talent is minimal now, the interest is only in promoting the financial worth of their properties. That was not the case as of two or three years ago, when there was an Exclusives war, but thats all gone by the wayside now. Ultimately, they are saying, We dont need you, because they can get a million more just like you.
For every person who passes on the opportunity to write Spider-Man or Superman, I guarantee there are 5000 hungry writers who would give their eye-teeth to do it. But just because they want to do it, it doesnt mean they are capable of doing it. It comes down entirely to Warner Bros. realising what they owned but had not exploited. At the end of the Harry Potter franchise, they went Oh, crap, we need something else fast, looked over at Marvels very very successful film program.
DC are playing catch up with Marvel, because of things like The Avengers breaking six hundred million domestic. Thats a lot of money, I dont begrudge Warner Bros wanting to make bank it would be like blaming a shark for eating, but l do think that the pursuit of that financial windfall bears a detrimental effect on the creative and artistic side.
Greg Rucka On Leaving Marvel And DC Behind | Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors
They are just going to change it again when it gets close to 800.
