Chris Butcher talks to Viz’s Marc Weidenbaum about the company’s plans to publish original content and reports back on what he’s learned:
Now, you have to understand, all the while I’m having this conversation with Marc… I’m feeling pretty good about all of this actually, but this nagging phrase wouldn’t stop repeating itself in the back of my mind: “THE TOKYOPOP DEAL”. I f****** hate The Tokyopop deal, flat out. It’s awful and abusive of young creators, and while I haven’t gotten up and shouted I TOLD YOU SO at anyone two years later, the number of disenfranchised and angry Tokyopop creators has more-or-less done the work for me. I’m not particularly happy about being right of course; it is, at best, a pyrrhic victory.
“Marc,” I said. “Who owns it?” I was honestly not anticipating the response.“The creators do. It’s going to be a standard book-industry type contract, although even there we’re doing a bit of tweaking. I believe in that, and we wanted a fair deal.”
Don’t send your work in yet thought folks. They’re not ready to accept submissions.
