Pow! Biff! Zowie!

Was talking to artist andi jones today, and he pointed me to Marvel Comics new Epic imprint (well, a resurrected old imprint). Anyway, they're looking for creative teams - writers, artist, inkers, letterers, the whole shebang - to do their own comics and then have Epic print, produce, and distribute them. Kinda cool.

I downloaded their pdfs, and amidst all the legal mumbo-jumbo it sounds doable. My only concern came when I read the "Technical Specifications" pdf. What a NIGHTMARE. It appears that I (or someone on my "creative team") would have to own Adobe Illustrator 9, Quark 4, and Adobe Photoshop 6, at the very least. Spendy stuff, that. Anyway, the whole technical layout thing was comlex. It's not like "turn in your script and we'll help you make a comic" - it's "turn in a fully laid out, inked, colorized, lettered comic, in our format as we demand it, and we'll sell it for you." Geh.

Lemme quote:

The EPIC creative team will be asked to provide the following digital files on CD:
Cover Files
1) QuarkXpress file containing the composited cover
2) 600 dpi file in .tif format for the black and white cover scan
3) 400 dpi CMYK color file in .tif format
4) Logo file in .eps (Illustrator) format or 400 dpi CMYK .psd (Photoshop) format
5) Illustrator files in .ai format for any cover lettering
6) Illustrator files in .eps format for any cover lettering
7) All font files used for cover lettering
Interior Files
8) QuarkXpress file containing all composited interior pages
9) 600 dpi files in .tif format for each interior black and white scan
10) 400 dpi CMYK color files in .tif format for each interior page
11) Illustrator files in .ai format for each page of interior lettering
12) Illustrator files in .eps format for each page of interior lettering
13) All font files used for lettering and sound effects

Good grief!

Maybe it won't seem as complicated by the light of day, but at 1:00 o'clock in the morning it seems daunting.

I wonder if Robin Laws jumps through these hoops when he writes Iron Man...