The Four Color Media Monitor

Axios has some history of the late independent publiher CrossGen, whose art is appearing at a Tampa Bay exhibit, and which reportedly almost made deals in Hollywood to adapt their creations, but as they'd lost money and had to fold, it never went through:

For five years, CrossGen churned out titles and became known as a nimble, innovative comic publisher. With Lanphear's help, it became one of the earliest adopters of digital publishing. The startup also invented comic book digital subscriptions, known then as Comics on the Web.

• In a step toward his larger ambitions, Alessi struck a deal with Michael Uslan, executive producer of the Batman movie franchise, who started to make introductions and pitch CrossGen products in Hollywood, Panaccio said.
• The closest it got was with DreamWorks, which optioned a comic called "Way of the Rat" about a martial arts adventurer in a medieval world, but it stalled out after Steven Spielberg never read the script, according to a 2016 article in the Hollywood Reporter.

Between the lines: All of that momentum then came to a halt. While trying to scale up the company, Alessi ran out of money after Perot's stock tanked, and there weren't enough interested investors to make up for it, Panaccio said. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004.

Seriously, I think the whole notion they'd try to get their creations adapted into films/television/computer games was a big mistake. The reasons they went bankrupt were because they'd been launching too many new pamphlet series all at once, and from a business perspective, that was sadly a mistake. Interesting how Spielberg, whom I feel has lost direction since the turn of the century, never even bothered to read the script drafts he was given. I guess that sums up what he really thinks of fledgling publishers.

But the point that needs to be made is that CrossGen shouldn't have focused on getting into Hollywood, because there's been several smaller publishers since who're trying to do the same, including Bill Jemas' AWA venture, and it just has the effect of turning everything into a joke. Few of these publishers begun for the whole purpose seem to have had much impact either. What CrossGen should've done was concentrate on producing for the medium incrementally within the confines of affordability. Now, they're owned by woke Disney, which never even bothered to develop adaptations anyway, and when Marvel, having acquired them by default in 2009, tried reviving or remaking them, it was a flop. I honestly hope somebody with common sense might buy out the original creations and make something of them without being a Hollywood hopeful. But again, nobody seems interested, despite all the potential that could be in such a venture.

Labels: exhibitions, history, indie publishers, msm propaganda, technology