Congrads to Platinum Studios on selling Cowboys and Aliens to Hollywood, I'm sure the movie will suck as bad as the webcomic.  

Nah, that started off too negative.  This blog is supposed to be about hope.

Anyway, in my first blog about Platinum Studios and their treatment towards me (which was lousy) and my creation, Weird Adventures In Unemployment, which got a fair amount of attention, I ended it by saying my dream was dead.

As read here...

 http://comixtalk.com/strangqnever_sign_a_work_for_hire_contract_with_platinum_studios

I had made the decision to give up trying to be a comic book writer. It’s been a week since I said that and I had a lot of time to think about my goals in life while posting my tale across the net.

First off, big ups to Heidi MacDonald for running a piece about my blog here on Comixtalk.com.

 http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/06/20/breaking-work-for-hire-is-bad

Platinum Studios response to the fuss I caused was a no comment. I take that as “we’re so embarrassed we don’t know what to say cause it‘s all true”. DJ Coffman will probably chime in with a reply to this blog once it’s posted and tell you Platinum was too busy to comment because they were on a peace keeping mission, adopting orphan silver back mountain gorillas and giving them scholarships because they are such humanitarians.

I’m expecting that and I don’t care. The right people heard what I had to say.

I got the word out to a few people and hopefully it will keep them a little more honest in their future dealing with creators and creators to be a little more cautious about who your dealing with. Nobody wants to get “Mike Strang’d.”

To get to the point this blog, it isn’t about throwing more dirt at Platinum Studios. It’s about your average everyday dude who hit a big bump on his journey to achieve his dream.

THIS dude proclaimed his was over after that bump. I even skipped going to the comic shop on Wednesday because I couldn’t bear to read another one. World War Hulk came out for Christ’s sake, and I didn‘t even want to be bothered. Comic books bring me too much pain.

A lot of the feedback I got from people after the stink I caused was that I was giving up. “You can’t give up, it’s you dream!”

After the blow up, I started to consolidate all my stories I had written onto a thumb drive and file them away in my desk drawer for posterity.

In those files I had a finished presentation I was too scared to send out fearing rejection. The longer it sits on a file in my computer the longer I can hold onto the hope it will become the next big sensation before getting a rejection letter in the mail telling me it isn‘t. I also had a few unfinished stories. When I’m bored at my job I work on them in my head to pass the time instead of waiting on customers. Yes, I work retail.

It got me real sad. I’m giving my glorious fantasy land because of some bad dealings with some Hollywood dillweeds? (All right I’m slinging a little more mud, but did the world really need another stupid Kiss comic, really?) Things felt unresolved.

Maybe that presentation was the next big thing. For my unfinished stories, how is my World War One soldier ever getting home from the battlefield or who exactly is the sick demented nemesis for the super hero I created, because he needs one? If I give up, I’ll never know.

Even though I skipped the comic shop, my love came to me. I finally got an issue from my subscription to Detective Comics in the mail. Issue #833. It would have been a shame not to read it. I did, and it ruled.

I can’t give up comic books. Can’t give up reading them, can’t give up writing them.

If I ever make it or not, I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t matter. I realize I should write now because I like to write and only because I like to write. Accepting that train of thought feels freeing. Trying to write the perfect presentation is not enjoyable. Trying to come up some marketable concept just to make tons of money doesn’t intrigue me on an artistic level. So why try? Trying to “make it” has been driving me nuts for years. From now on, let success find me like a happy accident, if at all.

If it doesn’t, whatever. Platinum Studios bastardizing my creation would stink, but giving up comics and writing would be the real tragedy.

Now that I found a small level of infamy though, I’ll have to get a pen name…

Yo!

Mike f’n Strang