2008: The Year of Re-trenching
With the year coming to a close, many folks are looking forward to saying goodbye to a financially challenging 2008 and welcoming in 2009 with the hope of a new economic future and a completely redesigned financial landscape. Investment banks have disappeared after being in business over 100 years, others have been taken over by the government, while still others have become depository banks. The financial markets are unrecognizable! And the economy has been following suit from the very beginning of the year.
2008 also marks the year that Platinum Studios began trading on the public market. We have had our share of ups and downs but we have and we will continue to fight through the difficulties to increase shareholder value and enhance the experience for all of our employees, contractors, creators and business partners. We have made great strides this year in all areas of our business and this newsletter is the first of many communiqués we intend to distribute to summarize our progress and give some insight into the people who make Platinum Studios the great place it is. Our staff is made up of the most dedicated and committed professionals we have ever had the pleasure to know and their perseverance shows in every aspect of our business. Thank you for your continued support, faith and partnership. We are excited to welcome in 2009 and we hope to make it a Platinum year for all of us!
-Brian Altounian, President & COO
Wiseman books visit to Atlantis
Live Free or Die Hard director Len Wiseman has signed on to direct the big-screen adaptation of our Atlantis Rising comic mini-series. Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci will produce for Dreamworks.
Story at Variety
Atlantis Rising on Wowio
Atlantis Rising on DrunkDuck
Hero by Night goes (IM) Global
It doesn’t seem all that long ago that Platinum announced that D.J. Coffman won our first Comic Book Challenge® with his Hero by Night. Two years later, we are proud to announce that Platinum and IM Global have entered into an agreement to develop a live action television series based upon this story.
Hero by Night is the story of a young man, Jack King, who discovers the lair of a 1950’s superhero, the once-famous Hero by Night, who mysteriously disappeared while saving Steel City from destruction. Hoping to capitalize on the newfound treasures, Jack does what any good-intentioned young man might do in 2008 – he posts the Hero’s paraphernalia on eBay and inadvertently awakens the Hero’s arch nemesis, Iron Talon. Jack finds himself reluctantly embroiled in an age-old battle, leaving him with only one option – to personally take on the mantle of the new Hero by Night.
To find out what happens next to our Hero by Night, visit WOWIO.com for an online and downloadable copy of the story -- and hold your breath for the forthcoming TV series by Platinum Studios and IM Global!
Hero by Night on Wowio
An Interview with the mind behind the Pirates!!!!!
Megan Gedris: Creator, I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space!!!
So there she is, a recent college grad starting out in her first job as a secretary and getting ready to take the city by storm. Then her whole day falls apart when she is kidnapped by a bunch of women in bouffant hairdos. Even worse, the rogues who have captured her haven’t given her time to grab her shoe collection! When our heroine finally understands her situation she realizes it’s far worse then she originally thought. She has been nabbed by lesbian pirates from outer space, who took notice of her because she set off their “Gaydar.”
Wild questions arise from this rollicking tale: Will our heroine ever see her shoes and can she ever participate in a robbery without shooting her corsair comrades’ hairdos to pieces? Will Male Man ever find an unoccupied telephone booth in which he can change into his secret hero suit without having to accost anyone? Finally, can one successfully perform brain surgery with an ice cream scooper?
Get to know the cast and crew of this high space operatic caper at DrunkDuck.com and WOWIO.com and take a peek into the mind of one of Platinum’s favorite comic creators in our interview with Megan Gedris below.
Explain your creative process. What do you need to be surrounded with to be productive?
When I was in school, I doodled in class. When I got done with school and joined the workforce, I found a job that gave me free time to draw comics in. So most of my comics are done in a quiet, cold, dimly-lit office, which is how I like it! When they’re ready for coloring, I take them to my home computer. Now, I don’t think I’ve ever met an artist whose creative space was clean, but my computer desk is so messy, there are times when I can hardly move the mouse. There are stacks of drawings, CDs (I have to have music playing to think), various knick knacks (my pink-beehived bobble-headed skeleton ballerina figurine from Mexico must be on the desk to help me think), and there’s usually dirty cups and plates. It occurs to me that I should maybe clean it every now and then.
YU+ME and Lesbian Pirates have similar styles, but one seems very personal and the other more fun and out there… Why the extremes?
Drawing Lesbian Pirates is like drinking a strawberry daiquiri. It’s lively and fun and bright colored and exciting, and sometimes it makes me sleepy. I shouldn’t drive a car while I draw it, as I am liable to run you over. Drawing YU+ME is like drinking a nice cup of tea. It’s soothing and relaxing and at times, very bitter. I also shouldn’t drive while drawing this comic. What I’m saying is, each comic quenches a different kind of artistic thirst in me. I love daiquiris, and I love tea. I love Lesbian Pirates, and I love YU+ME.
And to people who say I should do crossovers between the comics, I do not like tea-flavored daiquiris. Blech.
Were the characters in Lesbian Pirates pirates or lesbians first? What are the inspirations for the specific characters, Male Man in particular?
I’m pretty sure they were born lesbians AND pirates (just wait until you see their home planet!). These girls love women and thievery to the very bones of their souls.
Inspirations for specific characters were for once not based off anyone I’ve met. They’re walking satires of stereotypes and old cartoon characters. I read a lot of 1950’s pulp novels and comics, where the men are strong and capable with chiseled features (and very big jawlines) and the women are curvaceous and concerned more with shoes than anything else. While every female has had to put up with a Male Man in their time, Male Man himself was more based on Superman and Batman and all those other superheroes that saw every woman as a damsel in distress.
What’s been the biggest achievement for you in life… comic or non-comic related?
I don’t have a biggest achievement of my life; I have a lot of big achievements that have come together quite nicely. Placing in the Comic Book Challenge. Winning a self-publishing grant. Getting a great job. Living in my own place and not starving to death within four months. I am in a wonderful place in my life, doing what I love, and making a living at it. I could ask for more, but I’d be greedy.
I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space on Wowio
I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space on DrunkDuck
It Came From Content Development!
The Content Development department has been hard at work on a wide variety of undertakings. Pretty much everything Platinum does, we’ve got our hands in the pot one way or the other. The department is always involved in reviewing and providing creative comments on scripts for projects like the upcoming Cowboys & Aliens (in conjunction with DreamWorks), Dead of Night (with Hyde Park), and Magdalena. We’re collaborating with international publishers who are taking our content out to ever-widening markets. Currently the department is working feverishly to edit several exciting new series like the 2008 Comic Book Challenge winner, The Armageddon Chronicles, the recently released Night School and the upcoming 1999 (by a comic legend to be announced soon!!!!).
Beyond just our daily grind of working on individual properties the Content Development Department is overseeing the development of a platform that will bring DrunkDuck to an entirely new playing field. Further, we are working with numerous game companies to develop games and related interactive entertainment foundations based on our upcoming films and comic books.
The Content Development Department is hard at work feeding things out to every branch of our organization and, all the while, continuing to develop great new content.
Keep an eye out for an announcement soon about a book we’ll be doing with the estate of one of the biggest rock legends of all time!
Corporate Gifting Just Too Cheesy for you This Year?
2008 has been a financial disaster on Wall Street as well as Main Street. Revenues are down and profits are darn near non-existent. Yet here we are again with the Holidays upon us. You want, NO, you NEED to send out holiday gifts to your cherished clients, referral sources and vendors and yet, the corporate controller is telling you that the gifting program has got to be slashed this year to $ZERO. So what are you going to do? Traditionally, holiday corporate gift programs have created a sizable dent in promotions budgets. Even worse, the folks at corporate are demanding quantifiable proof that your holiday gifts are leading to a true return on investment for the dollars spent. It’s a heck of quandary. However, Platinum Studios’ subsidiary, WOWIO may have the answer.
WOWIO is an e-book distribution platform that Platinum acquired earlier this year. Since re-launching the site in August, we have been reconfiguring the strategy to provide greater access for existing customers and to create greater synchronicity with our corporate partners. In November, 2008 we launched our WOWIO corporate gifting program. This program allows our corporate clients to send e-books as gifts on a minimal or mass market basis. The program has tons of flexibility allowing for the clients to send specific books, choices of category or choices of any book on the entire site. We can tailor a gifting program specifically to your needs, including a charitable piece should you so desire at no extra cost.
Further, unlike most other gifts, every time your e-book gift is opened, a short, mostly non-intrusive, reminder of the sponsor (you) will run across the recipient’s first page. We can even include a link to your website. And the best part? You only have to pay for the gifts that are actually opened!
We ran a sponsorship program for EA Sports earlier this year and the feedback was tremendous. 94% of all e-book gift recipients remembered the sponsor – that is incredible recall success! Further, the truly exciting news about WOWIO is that the e-books are now downloadable and readable by almost any device - no $300 Kindle required, just a computer device with typical PDF software installed.
Finally, the cost is very low, particularly compared to typical gift baskets and boxes of candy. In many cases, these high quality downloads cost less then a single holiday card while getting your message across to your clients all year long. Try WOWIO for yourself or better yet, call Sheena McGinnis in the Platinum offices at (310) 807-8102 and let us send you a sample e-book to enjoy for yourself.
Corporate Development Department Report
Platinum’s newest division is its Corporate Development Department. Corporate Development has been assigned multiple missions, all of which are aimed at increasing the company’s revenues, strategically positioning Platinum for future national and international growth and expanding our lines of business.
The department is actively seeking financial partners to work with Platinum in increasing our access to the private and public capital markets along with providing us with a greater depth of resources.
Strategic partners are always critical to a successful business and we are aggressively searching for collaborative opportunities, both domestically and internationally, to aid us in further exploiting and distributing our content through a variety of channels.
Platinum is also striving to increase our partnerships with advertising, marketing and public relations firms. Our massive library is a treasure trove of comic content that can provide them with demographic specific entrées into various markets. Whether the marketing firm is looking for a hip hop hero for the 18 – 25 male market or a super genius young child for the “Tweens,” we have the content and back stories to support their campaigns. Further, Platinum can provide private label comic books, online animation, casual games and digital design services customized to meet their client’s needs and achieve their marketing goals. Not so long ago, the Los Angeles Kings Hockey team came to Platinum to aid them in their desire to really build their fan base. Platinum designed the mascot “Bailey” for the Kings, and the result has been that Bailey is now an integral part of their fan development and affinity programs. Further, Platinum recently re-purposed characters from its popular Hero By Night property to create anti-drug educational pamphlets aimed at K-12 students and simultaneously created a brand new hero mythos for similar pamphlets in Nevada and Orange County. The program included the creation of a series of custom comic books for each age group and the campaign was a huge success.
Our recent acquisition of WOWIO, an e-book distribution platform, has provided us with a fantastic opportunity to distribute both our own content and literature from all genres. WOWIO has proven to be an effective channel for major advertisers in getting their message out in a manner that is both green and encouraging of literacy. In addition, advertising on WOWIO and/or sponsoring e-book downloads may be one of the least expensive but most effective ways of getting the word out to clients, partners and vendors. We are aggressively expanding WOWIO’s reach and depth.
Heading up the Corporate Development Department is Mark Burton, who joined Platinum in late October. Mark formerly oversaw legal and corporate development for a national mergers and acquisitions firm, and has over a decade of experience in the M & A, valuation and business development for professional service fields.
The Comic Book Challenge®
Over 7 million web site hits, thousands of International and National Entries, fifty Finalists, coverage by the NY Times, LA Times, Boston Globe and many others, and 1 Winner with international exposure and appeal. It’s almost time to set the stage again for the next incarnation of the biggest comic book competition around. It’s only a few months away from The Comic Book Challenge. Started by Platinum Studios in 2006, the CBC led to thousands of entries from over 30 countries and six continents. When AT&T was our host, they received over 7 million votes on their site, the AT&T Blue Room. The companies giving prizes to the champion and runners up were big winners as well. Today, Hero by Night, the inaugural winner of The Comic Book Challenge is about to become a TV series by Platinum Studios and IM Global. Other frontrunners, including I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space (currently in development as a Broadway show), Illegal Aliens (in development as a film with producer John (Shrek) Williams) and many others have seen rapid growth and world-wide recognition as a result of just being part of the contest.
Believe it or not, it’s time for Platinum to choose the next host of The Comic Book Challenge and the companies that will provide prizes to the front runners. Never heard of The Comic Book Challenge? Think American Idol for comic books and comics, as we know, are one of the major interest areas for the prime 12-35 year old demographic. Need more proof? Recent big wins by comics translated to live action on the small and big screens include Iron Man, Spider Man, V for Vendetta and 300.
In these very tough economic times, competition for the teen and young adult market is fierce. Exposure is critical. As Platinum prepares to find our 2009 champion why not consider partnering with us in supporting young artists and potentially driving millions of young consumers to your website? Call Dan Forcey (310) 807-8125 or Mark Burton (310) 807-8119 to discuss partnering opportunities.
Goings on about the Studio
Brian Altounian, Platinum’s President and COO, just completed a 13-week promotional campaign on MoneyTV and continues to spearhead the Investor Relations program for the company. In 2009, he will be speaking at numerous conferences, creating awareness for Platinum Studios and its properties and projects.
Newly joined Mark Burton, Director of Corporate Development, was just named to Co-Chair the Los Angeles chapter of the Alliance of Merger and Acquisition Advisors (AMAA). The AMAA is an international organization of professional service providers such as private equity, attorneys, CPA’s, investment bankers and funds providing merger and acquisitions services to middle market, micro-cap and small cap companies.
Gioy De Marco, who oversees Platinum’s foreign library, along with Dan Forcey, Platinum’s Vice President of Content Development, are teaching a Comic to Film course at the Otis College of Arts. On Dec. 4, 2008, their class will be presenting their final course projects to Platinum’s CEO, Scott Rosenberg. The final will be structured as though it was a real “pitch” meeting.
In the Spring of 2009, VERN, an international art collective, is slated to have two exhibitions, one in London and the other in Lima. Gioy De Marco, an active VERN member, will have her art displayed at both events.
On January 8, 2008 at 6 PM, Platinum Studios will play host to the AMAA’s first meeting of 2009. Mike Nall, the AMAA’s founder and past president will be flying in from Chicago to speak to the local chapter regarding the state of M&A and the private capital markets in the first quarter of 2009.
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