Totally Grey

Blargh?

It's been an ugly, grey day on pretty much every front. The sky is overcast. It's been dropping rain, lightning, sinus pain and tornado warnings all day. A tornado probably wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world, at least it might have woken me up, which nothing else seems capable of doing right now.

Trying to get my brain screwed in properly to get some work done, but it's not going well, to put it mildly. The script for the Zuda thing is written, but I can't get it out of my head. From the eight screen story I've found myself developing an actual storyline for the thing, which is as great a creative waste of time as I can conceive of. Trying to focus on working screenplay style on something, while staying on top of the editing.

Anyway. Couple of notes of interest to touch on while I wait for the pizza to cook.

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PLATINUM CORRECTION and THE LATEST

As correctly pointed out in the comments last week, the ILLEGAL ALIENS Platinum's planning to develop with Vanguard Animation is not the ILLEGAL ALIENS Rob Moran created for them several years ago, but another ILLEGAL ALIENS altogether. I feel doubly stupid on this one: I skimmed the article I linked to, which was pretty clear about who created the property in question, and my friend Scott O. Brown is actually writing the Moran version of ILLEGAL ALIENS (which has apparently been retitled THE HUNTER).

As for the wider Platinum Studios situation, Rich Johnston posted a "confidential" letter from Platinum Chief Operating Officer Brian Altounian to the people who hadn't been paid in his Lying in The Gutters column yesterday, explaining and apologizing for the situation (and reminding everyone they had confidentiality agreements and shouldn't be doing things like sending the letter to Rich Johnston). This was subsequently picked up by The Beat and Journalista, among others.

I didn't get the e-mail, possibly because I'm not owed money (I'm actually a little surprised about the situation, in my experience Platinum could always be counted on for sending out a cheque very soon after receiving an invoice), possibly because I'm no longer "a part of (the company's) long term plans" (I was told that I was several times over the years, but that no longer seems to be the case--which, if creators aren't getting cheques promptly anymore, may be for the best.)

I don't really know what to make of all this. There's certainly a bit of car crash fascination about the whole thing, but I still know and like several people working with or for the company. In a comment after Publishers Weekly's THE BEAT column on the situation, Lea Hernandez counts Platinum as one of numerous "Big companies with big talk collapsing under their own awful weight." What worries me is that, if this is, in fact, what's happening with the company, the awful weight's going to collapse on a bunch of people who're doing their jobs in good faith and don't deserve to have it fall on them. For that reason if no other (and I do have others), I hope the company manages to hold on.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Glad he likes it. I shall add his kudos to my collection. It’s getting quite large, but I think some of them are going off, there’s a weird smell coming from the kudos cupboard." The Future of Comics (II) John Keane, responding to positive comments from the writer of the comic project he's currently working on.

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