Flat Pyramid

This might be a useful site for artists: Flat Pyramid, founded by professionals in the creative media and corporate America, is dedicated to the creation, management, worldwide promotion, and distribution of digital content online.

The website provides an intermediary platform where digital artists, game developers and photographers generate revenue by selling their content online. Flat Pyramid's platform gives users instant access to affordable, high quality content to enhance their creative projects and meet tight deadlines.

It's early days but a quick poke around has unearthed some gems (I liked the "Comic Robot" for example, and like sites such as ComicSpace (which isn't as monetized), it's growing its database of digital content pretty quickly in four major interrelated categories including 3D Models, Textures & Digital Art, Games & Game Contents and Photo by Request.

Some things just aren't right...

Case in point: Bratz dolls. I can't believe I'm alone in thinking they're deeply disturbing in terms of look (quite frankly, they give me the heebie jeebies), and now Worth 1000's running a competition to turn the world into them.

Well, okay, they're really asking for manga versions of famous film and tv stars and the like, really, but it amounts to the same thing -- look what they've done to Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Michelle Trachtenberg. Very clever stuff, but ewwww...

... It's a slippery slope, I tells ya!

Comics International sells out

Just had an e-mail from Comics International editor Mike Conroy who tells me demand for its first issue of the new-look mag has been phenomenal and retailers around the UK are reporting a virtual sell out within the first four days of the 100-page#201 going on sale.

The issue includes a piece on TV's The Avengers by myself, Ian Wheeler and Dez Skinn, and of course I'd like to think it was this that boosted the sales, although it's more likely to be pent up demand for the delayed magazine -- it was worth the wait, though! -- and coverage of Frank Miller's stunning 300 movie.

Conroy advises that anyone requiring extra copies of the £2.99 issue are urged to phone 01621 877 231 as soon as possible. Publisher Cosmic Publications has less than 300 copies left in its warehouse and these are being made available for reorder to retailers on their usual terms. The minimum reorder quantity is 10 copies.

Comics International #202 is scheduled for April 13 and will include a Danger Man in comics feature.

Super Lawyer Required?

Talk about complex. Stan Lee Media, which the legendary Stan Lee no longer has any involvement with, is suing Marvel for a stonking $5 billion -- claiming rights to titles including Spider-Man.

Stan Lee Media was orginally co-founded by Lee, who created Spider-Man, the Hulk and other characters back in the 1960s, during the dot-com boom a few years back as a way of bringing superheroes online -- but the company went bankrupt and produced a litany of lawsuits and criminal charges in its wake involving stock manipulation schemes against the other co-founders of the company.

New media magazine and web site Red Herring has the most detailed report on this story, noting the company is back from the dead, having been reconstituted by Jim Nesfield (who describes himself as a "vulture" - has he been reading eraly issues of Spider-man in the run up to this suit?), who gathered a group of former investors, while he took charge as chairman, CEO, and president.

The suit is complex, but as I understand it, Nesfield has now filed a lawsuit on their behalf claiming claiming Lee signed his rights away to the company in 1998 and SLM a 50 per cent cut of profits from Marvel film licencing deals.

88-year-old Lee, who is now involved in POW Entertainment, has rejected the claim, as has Marvel.

In 2005 Lee had to go to court himself to win 10 per cent of Marvel's profits from the Spider-Man movies.

Seems to me that he needs some kind of super-lawyer to handle this one...