The Disney/Marvel deal was announced a few days ago and for the most part, I don’t know why anyone was really concerned. DC’s been owned by Warner Brothers for how long now? They’re doing pretty well and I can’t think of any negative consequences to that relationship.
But then a few artists on Ebay (that previously worked with Marvel) were shut down for doing unauthorized work, and that’s kinda iffy. Here’s a blog post that goes on about it.
http://cult-stuff.com/?p=79
I don’t agree with everything in that article, but it gives a decent enough overview. While it might be legally correct, I can’t say I agree with cracking down on artists like that. A lot of them make some decent side revenue to support themselves this way, and how many of them go back to working with Marvel? A lot of them, I imagine. It seems to me like it’ll drive away artists from wanting to work with Marvel and it’ll help promote DC (and other) characters online and at conventions.
Others are worried about cover sales/etc… but I can’t think of any legal basis for that. It’ll likely be restricted to public commissions like the ones above, private stuff should be fine too, people will just have to be quiet about it.
Either way, it really sucks for artists, we’ll see how it all shakes out over the next few months.
