Platinum Studios

The Awesome NIGHT SCHOOL Graphic Novel

DrunkDuck.com Marriage update!!! Fact of the day: When Dan and the gang from Platinum Studios first started talking With Night School’s Amy Tomlinson and NIck Stroffolino, the two at met on DrunkDuck.com, and have since gotten married!!!!

Our newest graphic novel, Night School, was just recently released and is available for sale at most comic book and graphic novel stores. The story and artwork was created by Amy Tomlinson and Nick Stroffolino, and it’s terrific.

Night School Graphic Novel by Amy Tomlinson and Nick Stroffolino from Platinum Studios Comics and DrunkDuck.com

One of the things I like about Night School in addition to the story is that Amy and Nick are creating their characters within an expanding world The DrunkDuck.com Night School web comic series is free, while a totally different storyline is in the graphic novel that can be bought anywhere comics and graphic novels are sold as well as from the Platinum Studios store. Soon the book will be available on Wowio.com for a digital download version that should also be viewable on all I-Phones.

On the Facebook Night School fan page, Nick is putting up individual characters with cool info about each one.

There’s also a simultaneously running alternate NIGHT SCHOOL story initiated by Nick and Amy and continuously evolving on the best webcomics site, DrunkDuck.com (Disclosure: Platinum Studios owns – and loves — DrunkDuck.com) and a just launched Facebook Night School fan page that Nick’s doing individual character introductions on.

How’d this all start?

Our VP of Content, Dan Forcey, started talking with creators Amy Tomlinson and husband Nick Stroffolino about our enjoyment of their long running Drunk Duck webcomic series Charby The Vampirate, and that conversation led to another really cool project they had called Night School, which then led to a publishing deal for the series.

A RECENT REVIEW:
Night School just got reviewed by Craig Folson at Grandlan. I’m paraphrasing a bit, but he said: It’s my pleasure and personal honor to present Amy and Nick’s first print comic, NIGHT SCHOOL. There’s a very linear story with a series of events…you feel like you’re getting a meaty story. It has that Harry Potter feel. Definitely a good book.

You can get the book at any mail order or retail comic shop, or you can get it at Platinum’s store, or soon, the digital download version will be available at Wowio.com.

Pork, policy and politics

With the mounting anticipation of a historic election come and now behind us, our focus is turning back to getting our economy back on track.  It was only two weeks ago that we were staving off the impending recession and watching Congress scramble to put a bailout plan in place to shore up our financial infrastructure.  While not a perfect plan (by any stretch), the addition of the “pork barrell” provisions in this bailout plan have been mostly overlooked, even though they will all have far-reaching effects and costly impact for taxpayers in general.  One provision in particular could have a positive impact on our business and our industry.

In 2004, to stem the tide of “runaway production”, the flight of film and television production to locations outside of the United States, the Federal Government passed the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004.  This Act enacted Section 181 of the IRS code, marking an unprecedented change in the U.S. policy that addressed this specific problem of production flight.  Over the years, Canada has been the greatest beneficiary of U.S. runaway productions (according to some reports, Canada has claimed up to 80% of the U.S. runaways, generating an economic impact of $10.3 billion in production output in 1998 alone).

What this Section 181 provision allows is a tax rebate of 100% of an investment made in a qualified production.  The idea behind this was to encourage production companies whose films were being funded by independent financiers (and hedge funds, investment banks, and basically any non-studio financing packages) to keep their film production in the states and allow private investors in those projects to take a tax write-off for their entire investment.  Sounds pretty good if you’re an investor, huh?  Imagine investing in an alternative investment where you have a guaranteed rate of return of 35%-70%, before revenues. Lets also kick in 100% Federal Tax Deductions of said investment against ordinary income that has a higher premium and same year incentives.  Sounds pretty attractive, doesn’t it?

Section 181 was created to stimulate job creation and economic growth - a good plan, but like many government programs, it’s implementation left a little to be desired.  The section only applied to films having a production budget of $15MM or less and 75% of all compensation on the film has to be paid to all personnel working in the US.  So here’s the problem: residuals and participation need to be figured into the overall budget.  If the film happens to be successful enough to reward talent with bonuses based on box-office performance, that additional compensation has to be figured in the overall budget - if these new figures exceed $15MM, then the film loses it’s “qualified” status and all investor tax returns have to be amended.  The prospect of this has discouraged productions from even applying for the 181 incentive.

As for Platinum Studios, this hasn’t been an issue because we haven’t been in production yet.  Section 181 was originally set to expire this coming December 31.  Thanks to the bailout plan and the addition of pork barrel amendments, Section 181 incentives have been extended an additional year and now ends December 31, 2009.  It is something we will be examining as we look towards producing independently-financed projects in the US in the coming year.  With so much focus on an economic stimulus plan that includes job creation, this could be very beneficial for our industry and for Platinum Studios.

Thanks for listening.

-Brian

Billion Dollar Franchises

This past weekend, Disney’s High School Musical 3 opened in theaters, blowing away the competition with $42 million in the US and an additional $41MM overseas.  One of the things we’ve admired about Disney is their ability to take a property and turn it into a billion-dollar franchise.  If you look at a number of the projects that they have produced over the past few years, you will see what I’m talking about.  Hannah Montana, High School Musical, The Jonas Brothers, The Cheetah Girls….the list goes on.  What Disney has done is taken a multimedia approach to the exploitation of its properties, airing television shows on the Disney Channel or distributing theatrical releases in Disney-owned theaters, playing soundtracks on Radio Disney, distributing DVDs through their own distribution network, promoting their products on Disney-owned ABC Television network, promoting within all Disney theme parks, etc., etc., etc.  As a marketing machine, Disney has really perfected the cross-platform, multimedia blitz to turn a huge profit and make mega-stars along the way.  The difference between Platinum’s content and Disney’s is our library is much broader in scope, covering every genre such as action-adventure, horror, thriller, superhero, supernatural, science fiction, comedy and family fare.

As we’ve been building our company, expanding beyond the traditional comics-to-film media path to a broader reach, we have explored the Disney model and have discovered that our thinking about intellectual property exploitation is similar to Disney - in fact, more like Disney and less like Marvel (whose own business model is primarily made up of toys and merchandise licensing).  Our perspective on intellectual property is, like Disney, about a much broader approach.  It’s not about turning a comic book into a movie and then thinking about merchandise and other ancillary avenues after the fact.  We think about every avenue at the onset - all to enhance the experience for the reader and create a deeper relationship between the audience and the characters and creators.  In print, will this do better as a comic series or a graphic novel?  Is there an expanded universe that will enhance the material and have an online following?  Is there additional content that can be added to the digital files for the download version on Wowio?  If a project does not lend itself to film, would it be a good source for a live event or venue?  Is it a console game prospect or a “massive multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG)” or a casual online game?  What kind of merchandise would be best served by the storyline and characters?

If we are successful in our plans to expand beyond intellectual property ownership into development, production and, ultimately, distribution, we believe we’ll have great success, because, like Disney, we want to turn every one of our properties into a billion-dollar franchise.  Disney has been at it quite a bit longer than Platinum, but they’re a great company to aspire to - and with a $40 Billion market cap, I think it’s a hell of a target to shoot for.  On top of that, with an $83M opening weekend for the THIRD installation of a time-worn tale told in the form of a musical, they’re proving once again how to do it right.  If we achieve a mere 1% of Disney’s success, our stock would be trading at more than 30 times where we currently sit….not a bad target!

-Brian

Comics still a SCREAM!

Today’s LA Times contained an article on the 2008 Scream Awards, airing Tuesday night on Spike.  The bottom line:  comic-based movies are still topping the box office and even smaller, genre awards shows like the Scream Awards are now attracting A-list celebs and entertainment industry executives in droves.  Some highlighted sections of the article:

“…studios are scrambling to buy the rights to obscure superheroes, and there are no fewer than two dozen projects based on comic-book characters or video games that are in various stages of production…..”Iron Man,” “Hancock,” “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and “The Incredible Hulk” were other major hits in a season that might be remembered as the Summer of Glove. More than that, you have to go back to 1998’s “Saving Private Ryan” to find a year when the top movie wasn’t a hero movie or an animated film.”

Reinforcing our commitment to taking great comic book and graphic novel material and turning them into fantastic media projects, Gerard Way of rock band My Chemical Romance says: “The people that are making these movies are coming to it with a love of the comics and a respect for them, and I think that’s why the fans are so passionate about these movies,” Way said. “It comes down to the fact that for the first time, it’s fans who are making these movies, and that makes all the difference in the world. It’s not just capes that people like, it’s watching movies made with great ideas and imagination. That’s what makes them fly.”

2009 will be the year that Platinum joins the fray!  Read the enitre article here: http://tiny.cc/0IMpe.

-Brian

Focus on What’s Good

The blog “Do you have 16 boxes?” by Seth Godin was interesting.

He talks about not having to be perfect to succeed, and that human nature is that when something goes wrong – like when the economy is out of sync – we panic and tend to focus on the one part of our business or our life that’s wrong. Well, there are a LOT of parts that are right and can be improved upon and built up.

His theory is that “you have a 4 x 4 grid to fill with assets. If it’s a business, it might be location, reputation, staff, offerings that are in high demand and a sector that’s robust… if you’re doing it for yourself, it might include your resume, your network, your skill set, etc. When someone chooses you or working with your company, they’re considering everything you have to offer.”

The entire blog entry can be read at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/10/do-you-have-16.html

From Scott Mitchell Rosenberg’s Blog: https://scottmitchellrosenberg.wordpress.com

Equiti-Trend Analyst Report

We are pleased to announce today that Equiti-trend Advisors has put together a 6-page Company Backgrounder on Platinum Studios with a complete analysis and overview of the Companys business. That analyst report is available for viewing from our site at http://www.platinumstudios.com/docs/equititrend_report.pdf. We are excited to have Equiti-trend as our partners as they are providing communications support and new investor awareness services. They are a great complement to the support we have been receiving from Tom Becker in our Investor Relations office, someone many of you have spoken to over the last year and a half. We are confident that their team will perform diligently and that their program is fundamentally designed to meet our needs.

Equiti-trend’s representatives are available daily during and after market hours via the toll-free number listed below. Investors seeking information about this report or about Equiti-trend Advisors, should visit the companys corporate website at http://www.equititrend.com. If you are interested in speaking with representatives, please call the Equiti-trend toll-free number at (800) 953-3350. Of course, Tom Becker in the Platinum Studios Investor Relations department is also available to talk about the ongoing progress at the company and to answer any of your questions at (702) 478-7363 or via email at investors@platinumstudios.com.

Thank you for your continued support.

Best,

Brian Altounian

Wowio visit

I spent a couple of days this week in Houston, TX, visiting the team at Wowio and seeing firsthand the vision and talent behind that organization.  Jason Leon, who will be overseeing the sales and marketing effort for Wowio, accompanied me for our brief two-day jaunt and we both came away incredibly impressed and wowed!  The world-class team of technologists behind Wowio are lead by company founder Will Lidwell, who is at once a philosopher, psychologist, engineer, visionary, designer, artist, professor, and author.  Did I mention he used to lead a team of NASA engineers?  I don’t think there is anything this guy can’t do!  And his Wowio team is made up of a number of those same former NASA engineers and former students.  I’m feeling pretty good about our ability to scale this system to accommodate a larger worldwide reader audience and a broad base of publishers.  And if that weren’t enough, the Wowio CEO is Dr. David Palumbo, Will’s own professor at University of Houston-Clearlake, a brilliant strategist who talks with his hands as if he’s constantly writing on a whiteboard.  A one-time division president at McGraw-Hill and with past stints as a Professor and educator, he played major roles in both start-ups (Humancode) and public companies (Sapient) where he led teams of 1,000s.  One of the most apt descriptions I’ve read about him is that he’s “dedicated his career to leading organizations at being the best at the business of learning.”

The thing that struck me the most about these folks is that even with the pedigree and technological prowess they master, THEY LOVE LITERATURE!  These guys love the written word and making it available to everyone in such a way that everyone wins: readers, authors, publishers.  They also understand that the new medium of digital distribution provides for an expanded offering.  This isn’t just e-book distribution as an additional channel to sell the same product - this is about offering products with additional original content to make draw a deeper relationship between the reader and the material.  To see an example of this, I’d like to suggest checking out the Wowio version of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. The content had originally been distributed in 1897 in a series of magazine articles in Pearson’s Magazine and Cosmopolitan, if you can believe.   The popular version was released in novel form in 1898.   Wowio’s version combines illustrations from the Pearson’s Magazine monthly and the novel.  In addition, Wowio has added the original radio broadcast of  Orson Welles’ famous radio broadcast from 1938 AND a Universal newsreel clip of the aftermath of the hysteria that the radio broadcast caused.  Finally, also included in the pdf download of this classic is an interview with both Orson Welles’ and H.G. Wells in their first public meeting about the piece and the hoopla created 40 years after the material was originally published!!

As we move into this new era of digital distribution at Platinum Studios, we sought a partner who loves content as much as we do and who understands that there is a deeper connection that can be made between the creator and the reader when broadening the scope of the elements.  DVD distributors have been doing this with movies since the first disks hit the market - the “additional features” section of the DVD is often some of the most compelling content that strengthens the affinity relationship between viewer and filmmaker and/or subject matter.  I’ve kept many DVDs for the extra features more than the actual movies.  Download “War of the Worlds” and see for yourself - it’s a free gift this week thanks to the folks at EA Sports!  We are going to be encouraging our publishing partners to provide additional content to enhance the reading experience as we continue to grow.  Hopefully, they will embrace this digital arena more quickly than their brethren in the music industry because at the end of the day, we all want more content to be read and viewed by as many people as we can possibly reach.  www.wowio.com.  Enjoy.  if you like what you see, gift a PDF to a friend or a loved one and share the joy of Wowio today.

-Brian

MicroCap Press pickup

One of the many recent press pickups on Platinum Studios: 

http://www.microcappress.com/blog/reader-submitted-micro-cap-idea-platinum-studios-pdos/404/

An excerpt:

“Working with leading companies in the entertainment and new media sectors, Platinum Studios is emerging as one of the front-runners in the creation of new content across ALL media platforms. The comparison being made most often is to Marvel Entertainment (MVL), which started out as comic book company. In only a couple of decades though, Marvel has become an entertainment company…to say the least. By the way, Marvel’s stock is only worth about nine times what is was a decade ago. 

Platinum’s learning curve may not even be that long, since many of the special effects and movie technology advancements have only been made on the last six years or so. Toss in the fact that Platinum has an even larger library than Marvel, and it makes you wonder where it could all go.”

A Brief Anthropological Study: The Comic Fan

As one of these bizarre creatures, it’s often difficult to obtain perspective on the characteristics of this species, but recently I was given a brief moment of clarity followed by a more astounding follow-up moment.  Allow me to share:

Every Wednesday, like most comics fans (Genus: Homo, Species: h. sapiens, Subspecies: h. sapiens fanboy.)  I make a pilgrimage to my local comic book store to pay homage to the publishing gods and bring a little joy into my life.  My particular alter of worship is a little place called Comics, Inc. in Culver City.  The head priest at this particular alter is a man named Steve and his acolytes include a midget, a rastafarian and a man who pretty much personifies cool.  Each Wednesday, the midget mans the counter and hurls insults at each person’s purchases, mocking them for wasting their money on the latest X-book or the latest weekly mega-series.  Invariably, a crowd congregates around the midget to witness this litany of insults and attempt to add in or rebuff his abuse.  This was the case a few weeks ago, when I was finally able to step back from the crowd and observe this bizarre interaction.  It wasn’t so much the insults or crowd that turned a light on in my brain (first one in a while, I admit), it was the fact that I was holding in my hands the same books the crowd was ranting about and threatening to burn the moment they had read or, the ultimate retaliation, blog about.  Looking down at the books in my hand, on the top was a copy of Trinity #3.  Looking at the book in everyone else’s hands, they also had a copy of this book in their hands.  It wasn’t that I had enjoyed #1 or #2.  Heck, I hadn’t enjoyed 52 weeks of Countdown.  I hadn’t even enjoyed 52 weeks of 52.  It was then that I realized that the real reason I consumed every weekly book for the last two year, every X-book for the last 20 years and every cross-title summer crossover (yes, even War of the Gods) since Secret Wars and Crisis first appeared on the shelf was that I didn’t want to miss out.  I didn’t want to be separated from the pack.  I wanted to know what the cool kids were talking about and, invariably, ranting about.  It was the same reason I suffered through every episode of Alf when I was in grade school: I didn’t like it, I didn’t laugh at it, but I wanted to be a part of the conversation that would inevitably pop up the next day at recess.  Somehow, I’ve left all of that need to be a part of the group behind me in other parts of my life (I’ve never seen an episode of The Wire, I hate Pink Berry, and it took me 3 weeks to see Dark Knight), but it had stayed with me in my comics buying life without me even realizing it was even there. 

Now, we all have childhood holdovers.  There’s nothing wrong with it and it’s natural.  I still watch Barry Gordy’s the Last Dragon, Weird Science and Blazing Saddles on a monthly basis and enjoy all three the same as I did when I first saw them.  The problem comes in when we allow it to shape our industry and continue to cast our “votes” (i.e. $$) for things that we simply don’t enjoy, just to be a part of the conversation.  I’m sure if you Google the word “bad”, one of the top ten results will be a blog or podcast or review screaming to the heavens how bad Marvel and DC books are and how the state of the industry today strangles independent publishers and makes it impossible to eek out a meager existence in this business.  (And I’m not saying I agree with that, there are some really good Marvel and DC books)  But the truth of the matter is that each of those blogs or podcasts or reviews paid money to be able to read that book and rail against it.  The fanboy subspecies is unique in that it will pay money to be able to complain about something week after week.  Restaurant officianados don’t go back to the same restaurant every week in order to complain about it in their column again and again.  Car people don’t buy crappy cars over and over so that they have something to talk to their friends about.  But every month, the Top 10 comics are invariably from the Big 2 (with a very few exceptions).  Does this mean that the ten BEST comics put out every month are from Marvel and DC?  I think the average fanboy will tell you absolutely not and insert 2 or 3 of their favorites at the top of that list, maybe even a full ten. 

Going back to my epiphany, I looked around at the crowd of my brethren and was glad that a herd of lemmings didn’t rush through on their way to the Santa Monica pier at that instant.  I did end up putting back Trinity #3 and that series won’t be receiving a dime from me this year.  I grabbed a copy of Walking Dead (which I usually buy in trade) and ended up trying out Invincible and PVP for the first time instead.  I actually enjoyed them both immensely and felt much better about it at the end of the day, knowing that my dollars were speaking for quality and not a desire to be in the loop.  I encourage my fanboy brethren to do the same. 

The follow-up moment I mentioned earlier occurred shortly after Comicon, while reading people online complaining about how much Comicon was not about comics any more and how terrible it was.  And yet, somehow, it was sold out for four days and there were quite a few jedis and Marvel Girls walking around that I’m sure weren’t movie execs horning in on “our event”.  <sigh>  Your dollar is your vote, my people.  Let it speak for you more than your blog does.  It’ll go a lot further in the long run. 

Gonna go watch a little Bruce Leroy right now. 

Cheers, Dan.

WOWIO Countdown is on!

As we edge closer to the relaunch of the Wowio website this Thursday, we are getting more and more excited about it.  We have had some great response from publishers in both the comic book and traditional book segments and we are looking to add some new categories that will really enhance the offering for readers.   The new revenue model should make it very attractive for publishers to add a supplemental revenue stream from a truly global distribution outlet.  Some of the restrictions on downloads were self-imposed and others were restricted by pre-established agreements that some publishers had with their distributors.  We think we’ve solved that problem with the new ad-supported preview section. 

In addition to offering multiple opportunities for distributing content, we are also looking to bring some brand building into the equation here as well.  We think our audience will want to see extensions of their favorite brands and so we are envisioning an extended e-commerce storefront where our publishers can offer other wares and products to expand their reach to their readers and fans.  Of course, this is all part of the next iteration of Wowio…first, we relaunch Thursday with new features, more publishers, additional categories, and an expanded global audience.  We are excited about this new world of possibilities for Platinum, the Wowio team and our publishing partners.

Explore the new Wowio experience starting at 10:00 am PDT, this Thursday, July 31, 2008 at www.wowio.com.