As noted on the mothership and countless media outlets, the Writer’s Guild of America has gone on strike.

Besides Brian K. Vaughan, who answers questions about the strike in the first link up above, a few other comic pros have weighed in on it as well. Paul Dini shares an email from Micah Wright (remember him?) on the strike. Mark Evanier, meanwhile, blogs from the picket lines in L.A.:

The mood out here on the picket line is good, at least among those of us traipsing back and forth across two entrances into CBS Television City in Hollywood. We carry signs (except while blogging) and wave them in thanks as about 50% of passing motorists honk their horns. So far, the only dissent I’ve heard is a general grumbling over reports that our negotiators have taken an increase in DVD fees “off the table.”. True, even doubling what we now receive there is a matter of pennies but there would be a lot of principle in those pennies.

As does Mark Verheiden:

Okay, so it’s still mid-day, but I’ve finished my shift on the picket line, so… it’s update time! The entire BATTLESTAR staff worked corners outside Universal Studios, covering a gate a little off the beaten track, but that’s okay. Lots of folks honked in solidarity, and a few of Jane Espensen’s fans dropped by in support, which was great.

A very friendly policeman dropped by to give us some instruction on how to handle ourselves and to ask if we had had any problems, since a picketer at the Sunset/Gower lot suffered a broken leg after being hit by a car. We didn’t have any problems like that, but we were certainly being scrutinized by Universal security.

And Middleman creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach talks about how the strike will affect The Middleman TV show, for which he is a writer-producer:

…see, as a hyphenate, i can’t be legally penalized by the guild for doing my duties as a producer: but the guild would certainly prefer it if the walkout was complete – if people like myself struck not only as writers but also as producers…because if the paralyzing effect of the strike is felt swiftly and across the board, the producers might be more motivated to settle quickly.

so here i am, given the opportunity to see through to completion the production of a nine year-old dream into a pilot…a dream i self-financed as a comic book, seen through to three volumes and fought to get to this place, into a reality…

…and on the other hand, there’s a labor union of which i am a member, mounting picket lines i am required to honor, running a justified strike against a predatory media cabal that has no qualms about taking from creators as much as they can possibly get while laughably pleading poverty when their entire raison d’etre is to monetize the work of people such as myself…asking me to walk away completely.

If you’re curious as to how the strike will affect your favorite show, the Chicago Tribune has a grid that shows how many episodes various TV shows had written before the strike.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 at 7:30 am and is filed under Creators, News & Views, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.