Hero By Night Television Series

It was recently announced through PR services that Platinum Studios had come to a deal with IM Global to turn Hero By Night into a television series. IM Global recently put out Religulous with Bill Maher, and looking at their website, they have some interesting projects in the pipes. Creator of the series DJ Coffman, didn't hear about it until after the fact, and so far has not been contacted by Platinum or IM Global. DJ has been very vocal about his troubles with Platinum when things began to go sour, perhaps further distancing him from any future Hero By Night enterprises. DJ was also very vocal at the beginning about how Platinum and their Comic Book Challenge was a great way for people to break into the business. I remember reading correspondence between Scott Kurtz of PVP and DJ Coffman when Platinum first began running these things and Kurtz was quick to point out that losing your rights to your creations, even at the price of "breaking in" wasn't a smart way to go and would hurt you in the end. Kurtz said that there are many avenues for a comic book creator to pursue in getting their work published, many of them extremely cheap.

I can see many angles here. One could say that Platinum is well within their rights, the creators all know the deal going into it and none have to enter the contests. Others could also say that Coffman was the one that ruined it for him, by "blowing the whistle" on his non-payment. Personally, I have a hard time feeling bad for Coffman. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do feel very bad for Coffman's situation and I can only imagine what he must be going through to basically lose the ability to make more Hero By Night comics, which seemed to be a labor of love for him. My thing is that there were so many people saying, "Don't do it!" You know, it was a situation where there's a bright red button that says "Don't Press!" and everyone is shouting "NO!", but they push it anyways.

The contract really seems to be lopsided in favor of the publishing company and when we let our desires for fame and fortune override our common sense, we only have ourselves to blame. I've heard many creators talk about how you can't rely upon a publishers word, only the contract protects you in the long run. I hope that if this series does go to television, Coffman will reap some benefits, if only to have some name recognition for further work. Be sure to check out Coffman's Blog and current work, The Flobots.