Posting Stories on MySpace.com

[Linalover]

I am an aspiring comic book writer hoping to one day open a comic book company with me as the head writer. My head is full of ideas and characters, and I'm anxoius to get them out there to the public. I was planning on posting my ideas in blog form on my MySpace page, with each blog concentrating on one character. But I'm afraid of someone steeling my ideas. So, for that longest time, I have chosen not to post up my ideas until I get them copyrighted. But then I was told that having a timestamp on my blog would be all the protection from idea theft that I need. With a time stamp, I can prove that I was the one that came up with the idea first and that the would be thief stole some of my intellectual property. Is this true or is the only true way to be protected is to only post up copyrighted character ideas. Please let me know. Thank you for your help.

Sincerely, Robert J Cuffe.

 

[jacksgal]

Whether thats true or I cant say but I would reframe from placing non copyright material on myspace. Show friends and family but placing this where anyone can se it could prove troublesome. Example long before Mickey Mouse Walt Disney created a chracter, Rabbit I think, called Harvey. The company he pitched Harvey to took the idea not Walt.

 

[jacksgal]

Just for reference my husband has created several comic characters. One is very original however he has never shown those in public areas only to friends and family. He once tried to contact DC and marvel about his ideas without saying much about them but they do not take unsolicted material.

 

[Linalover]

Thank you for your response. It's as much as I suspected, but I just felt that it was taking too long to get any of my ideas copyrighted and I wanted to find out what the public thought of my ideas. Do you know about how much it costs to get character ideas copyrighted and what I would need to do so? Would I need a picture of the character? Can I do bulk copyrighting?

 

[jacksgal]

No as I said my husband just does this for his entertainment and frinds. Outside of contact DC and Marvel he has never pursued anything more with it.

 

[CdwJava]

I have a couple of friends in the comic book industry, and one that publishes his own on-line to a select group of friends - to hone his craft, so to speak. He hopes to self-publish the book and see what happens, and is soliciting feedback on the art and story from several of us.

My two friends in the industry do not put any of their stuff on line. In fact, most don't as what ends up getting published is the work of three or more people (someone comes up with the story, another does the pencil or sketch work, another does ink, and yet another does color). If they pitch a story, When they DO pitch a story, it's a story and some sketches, not the full thing. One of these friends does contract work for both DC and Marvel, but his "day job" is doing graphic design for a company that makes CGI and animation for a company that produces arcade video games.

It's a difficult industry to break in to, but there are some people who make a few dollars doing on-line publishing or self-publishing.

- Carl

 

[jacksgal]

Carl that was one of the problems my husband ran into when people pushed to pursue his work. All he had was a story. He has some crude drawings but he is no artist. He can barely draw a straight line. Needles to say with raising a family etc it was too time consuming to do it for anything other than enjoyment. However I have yet to see anything even closely similar to one of his characters. He was advised once to not place his owrk on internet or any public area wher ehis ideas, especially the one, could be stolen. I know you talk to my husband Carl maybe you and he should talk