The question is, are we talking about the Robau of the Internet meme, who makes Chuck Norris cry like a baby, or the Robau of the actual movie, who was pretty much completely ineffectual and didn't even lift a finger to prevent his own death?
DC Star Trek Comic Series.
- Thread starter Tyjos Azari
- Start date
"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
A five-mile long Space Octopus attacks. A psychotic tattoed Vulcan politely asks you aboard. You are going to die today.
What does Robau do? Calmly informes George of the plan and then walks to a shuttle cool as ice while chaos reigns all around. Showing no hint of fear whatsoever he flies over (looking out with wonder at the Nerada in true Starfleeter "seeking out something new" fashion), and while surrounded in the lair of the loonies, locks eyes with Nero and asks "What gives you the right to attack a Federation vessel?".
Yeah, he's not the internet legend - but he was easily the coolest cameo captain ever. George Kirk was cool too, but he loses points for crying.
Where's that damn Kelvin book?
The internet legend would have flown up to the Narada in a space suit and kicked it's tentacled ass back to the 24th Century.
Good point. I'd read it.
Sorry this is a few days behind the curve, but I thought it needed to be said. I think here you're taking the ball and running in exactly the wrong direction. I didn't just say that IDW doesn't owe these creators royalties; I said that nobody does. I'm not aware of a single publisher in the history of Trek comics--including Marvel (twice), Gold Key, Wildstorm, Malibu, IDW, and yes, even DC (twice)--that has ever contracted to pay royalties to its Trek creators.
And, MUCH more to the point, I said that if anyone did owe royalties, it would be Paramount/CBS, which owns Trek (along with the artwork, stories, etc.), and not the comics company, which has simply paid Paramount/CBS for permission to publish/republish them. It would be like expecting the newsstand owner to pay the creator royalties--he doesn’t own the copyright, any more than IDW does.
This is a really easy mistake to make, since you make the presumption that the creators’ old contacts haven’t been honored. But this isn't what’s been said at all; in fact, the only person I'm aware of to raise this issue has been the inestimable Mike Barr, who said that IDW should pay for Trek reprint royalties not because of a contract, but because an "industry standard" has recently developed in which Marvel and DC sometimes pay creators for top-selling books.
This ignores the fact that Marvel and DC are the two company titans of the industry, with a collective market share of something like 70-80%, while IDW’s market share hovers between 3-4%. But, even more importantly, it ignores the fact that Marvel and DC own those characters, while IDW does not. A company like Marvel or DC pays royalties because it’s the owner, not because it’s the publisher.
So, as I have said before, the only company that would otherwise owe royalties is CBS/Paramount--but I somehow doubt that people’s righteous indignation will provoke them into actually boycotting Trek, which speaks to exactly how firm their moral outrage really is.
What’s a bit more tragic is that Mike, despite being an otherwise great guy, already knows all this. He’s been in the industry for ages--I first met him professionally nearly 20 years ago--and even contacted him while I was at IDW about possibly writing Trek for us. I like him as a person and love him as a writer, but none of this is a mystery to him. This is one of the situations where a decent and talented guy is simply wrong. (Or, put another way: if you had to mistakenly presume that IDW violated his DC contract before you could saddle up with his viewpoint, then maybe you’ve jumped on the wrong horse.)
As for comp copies, I’ve said this before too: During my time at IDW, I never saw them deny any creator comp copies, and they magnanimously comped industry professionals all the time, whether they worked for IDW or not. Though I’m just guessing here, I imagine that all Mike would have needed to do was ask.
