Picture this for a webcomic site:

The site is a PAY site designed to cut deals with established publishing companies (Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse etc.)to allow amateurs to do fanzines of their copyright characters (Spider-man, Batman, Hellboy etc.) in exchange for a share of the profits.
How it would go is in this procedure.
1. The fan must submit a COMPLETE comic story of any page length (minimum 20 pages preferred.) for consideration. The comic is reviewed by the company owning the character in question. If it is accepted it is put up for sale on the site as a pay-per-view comic.

2. The length of the comic will determine the price (color comics being twice as much in price as a B&W of the same page length.

3. A three to five page teaser is allowed to be viewed for free and further viewing will cost the listed price. Once a person purchases the comic it is his to view at any time desired from then on. Consequently a free membership and account must be had to make purchases.

4. The profit is divided between the publisher, the site and the fan author.

It you think about it, it would be a no-lose situation for everyone concerned.
If the comic doesn't sell, its no loss, and if it sells then the publisher makes a little money and the fan author gets recognition.

Cross-overs however would be tricky. The two publishers concerned would demand equal share and so therefore a four-way split would be required. (i.e. Batman vs. Spider-man)
But an in-company cross-over would'nt have that problem.
(i.e. Scooby-doo meets Batman would be acceptable as they are both owned by Warner Bros.) But in that case the copyright owners would get a 50% split.

I know you could pick this proposal apart for a million reasons, but I'd like to hear them nonetheless. And how many of you out there at least agree its a heavenly idea, just probably unlikely to see the light of day?

It is a nice idea. I like it, that is for certain, I would be willing to work at something for such a site. I think it would more likely happen with each company doing there own version of it.

Still not sure if it would ever happen though.

I can't see too many people aside from hardcore DC/Marvel geeks paying to read crappy fan comics when there's already plenty of crappy fan art available for free. It's a neat idea, but you'd probably have to make money off of advertising if you plan on drawing in an audience.

That's why the comics would be screened before being released.
No crappy comics, half-hearted pieces of work.

Or the price could vary according to quality as well as page count and color/B&W.

they have that it's called licensing. there's probably something like that on their websites somewhere, but as to why there's not some hub website to make the deals easier for artists.....well, the companies demand a lot to insure they retain total rights to their characters, and licensing is very, very expensive.

I'm going to have to concur with El Cid on this one. Most superhero fans wouldn't put down the coin in order to read comics like that. They wouldn't bother with "fan comics", even if they were of high quality.

Sure, there would be the matter of there being tons of other fan comics you can read on the internet for free. However, there's also the bit about the comics "not counting" in terms of the official continuity.

Look at the kids lines that Marvel and DC put out. (Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam, etc.) Even though they are done by the major publishers, their sales are in the sewer. It isn't a matter of quality either, because a good number of those comics are fantastic. (Track down the Jeff Parker scripted issue of Avengers where the whole team is turned into MODOKs. It's great stuff.)

Even anthology books that take place in the main continuity tend to fail. Most superhero fans want their spandex-clad comics to have an "impact on the universe at large". (Whatever the hell that means) Not enough of them will plunk down their sheckles for something like this, since they think it "won't count".

Yeah don't know why but Japanese and American audiences are different. Fan comics, i.e. doujinshi, are a major cottage industry for amateur manga authors in Japan. They have their own conventions and stuff, they make (some) money, the copyright holders look the other way even as these amateurs charge money for their fan comics, and the really good amateurs can even use that route to break into the pro world.

Air Raid Robertson
Look at the kids lines that Marvel and DC put out. (Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam, etc.) Even though they are done by the major publishers, their sales are in the sewer.

they're being marketed poorly. grocery stores have pretty much done away with comic sections because of the late 90's -early new millennium where they made all those variant covers that led to a sharp upswing in shoplifting because they were "rare and valuable" and it's not like most kids didn't just read them there and move on as it was. so insted you see them in comic shops (not the place to attract new blood, since just being in there means you're already likely hooked) and sometimes in larger stores like target, that hide them away in some magazine isle that the kids will never stop at.

(Track down the Jeff Parker scripted issue of Avengers where the whole team is turned into MODOKs. It's great stuff.)

personally, hated it. i blame the fact i hate MODOK.

mlai
Yeah don't know why but Japanese and American audiences are different.

it's a lot easier to lose the rights to you characters that way in america, land of lawsuits. they're doing it to keep from getting sued by some asswipe.

To elaborate on what Orin said, the biggest problem you run into for a concept like this is licensing definitely. As an illustrator myself I can usually expect to make between $1200 and $2000 for a full-page section spread ( about 13"x20" on average) in a newspaper, depending on how well I can negotiate and how much the AD ( art director) wants my work. That's one image from an almost completely unknown artist for a city newspaper with a readership of bewtween 150,000 and 400,000 depending on the day. Web publishing will run you a significantly higher fee to earn the publishing rights because of how many people can be expected to see it and how easy it might be to steal the image. Further, since this is in effect spec work ( speculation work, which is something wherein the illustrator/designer does the work first without knowing if they will be paid for their time. ) the price that these companies want is going to go up even further since they can't be sure that they'll ever get anything from the royalties.

Comics have almost the same turn around time ( The total amount of time you have to finish and send in the work.) in my experience and are considered much more skilled work, toss in the rights related to the character/characters, royalties and any other miscellaneous fees like editing, lawyers ( the copyright issues alone could tie up a project for months in a case like this. ), royalties, etc. and it adds up. There' s also the important fact that more often than not you're going to have a lot of creators who will veto your projects based on the fact that they don't like what you're doing to their character in the story or in general and a huge number of your proposals will never reach the drafting stage. For every story you do make, the publishers and creators are going to have a massive laundry list of things you can and cannot do in regards to their characters. In the end, after you pay off all the people necessary, go through the editing, revision and legal stuff and actually publish the comics, you're going to be very lucky if you or the artist actually get paid.

I have to agree with the general view here that (a) DC/Marvel readers are not going to pay to read stories by unknown creators and (b) the major publishers aren't going to be interested in devoting resources to it, either in terms of cash or people. I'm guessing from the "but would probably NEVER get done" part of your heading, however, that you pretty much recognise that already!

The basic idea isn't a non-starter, though. Forget about the money-making side and there's no reason why you couldn't run a Community Project here at DD, specifically for people to contribute stories featuring established DC and/or Marvel characters.

That way the creators here who are hoping that one day they might have a career with one of the Big Two (many aren't, of course, but some are!) will have somewhere to showcase their work and the opportunity to receive feedback from the DD community to help them develop. Simply knowing there's an audience out there can be a great incentive to get stories completed and thereby build a portfolio.