The Entertainment Trade-Off to Succeed
The comic book business is a lot like the music business – if you don’t know the rights to the art, you don’t own anything. Both have produced sizable industries and companies of all sizes. The big players like Marvel and DC are well known and date back to well before the 1970s. However, smaller players established their own place, like Image, and now Ghost Machine is also combining serious art and storyline production as well. That said, a big difference is in how the ownership of the titles produced is being handled.
A Painful Trade-Off
Good talent in any entertainment industry uses its value to buy access, income and success. The hope is, as the artist begins to be successful, that at some point they can call the shots for themselves. However, many artists find they have to sell their talent rights to gain the stepping stones to move up and move ahead. Doing so, some of their best early work ends up in the hands of others who then repeatedly profit off the copyrights and more. None of that income goes back to the artist once it is traded for an initial commission, payment or paycheck. For example, who would have thought at the time, that letting go of the rights to Superman as a hero and character for $130 back in 1938 was selling them cheap? That much money in the late 30s after the Depression was a sizable fortune. But today, it’s peanuts compared to the entire income Superman has generated since that sale.
A Different Model for Today’s Comic Book Artist
Ghost Machine took a noticeably more democratic approach. Its work and production is shared between the founding artists and writers in the start of the company. That includes a number of names like Geoff Johns, Jason Fabok and Bryan Hitch among others. And the company is still onboarding talent. Each of these players is a sizable skill package in his own right, and together they are shifting the comic book business model away from corporations and networks and more into a collective mode. While the idea is not new, it could function as a market disruptor, easily attracting top talent who want a bigger share of their own work.
Of course, the establishment of Ghost Machine is new, and the big players have barely twitched an eyebrow, garnering big money right now from the comic book-related movies hitting the box office. That said, every big change starts small and picks up steam if it makes practical sense.