Chairman Scott Mitchell Rosenberg claims he’s simply following the Platinum Studios slogan of “Comics Fueling Media Everywhere.” To accomplish that, he purchased the Web comics hosting site DrunkDuck.com two weeks ago.
The acquisition represents a new direction for Platinum, which made its name pitching under-the-radar comic book characters to movie studios. The company sold the hugely lucrative “Men In Black” film franchise to Sony Pictures Entertainment and produced the “Witchblade” films. It currently has two high-profile projects in development: the sci-fi movie “Unique” at Walt Disney Co. and spoof “Cowboys & Aliens” at Sony. But Rosenberg sees the real future in digital entertainment.
“There is a quiet revolution that is happening in the comic book industry, as broadband and mobile delivery systems become more accessible,” he said. “Comic creators are independently producing their properties and bypassing the traditional hard copy publishing.”
In exchange for an undisclosed sum, DrunkDuck.com will give Platinum a window into the digital world. The site hosts about 3,500 comics stories established and updated by user-creators. Buying the site doesn’t include rights to those stories and characters, although a noteworthy property can be pursued.
The key to the acquisition could be the access that it provides Platinum to DrunkDuck’s audience. DrunkDuck.com has 1 million unique visitors a month not a big number for an entertainment site, but Rosenberg refers to these people as buzz makers. He points to his experience at his previous company, Malibu Comics, which was the launching pad for a slow-selling comic book called “The Men in Black.” Those few comic book readers represented a core audience for cutting-edge fantasy and science fiction, and their buzz helped push the MIB project to success. “Hitting that subculture has always been our specialty; now we can build out from there,” Rosenberg said.
Digital distribution brings bigger opportunities. First, “the audience for this material is not just 18- to 34-year-old males,” said Brian Altounian, Platinum’s president, citing the typical comic book buyers. “It’s 15- to 50-year-olds and beyond.”
Rosenberg’s research indicates only 7 percent of comic book readers are women; for online comics, the number rises to 48 percent. In terms of genre, most print comic books still focus on superheroes, whereas only a fraction of Web comics feature spandex-clad crime fighters. Fantasy, romance, comedy and slice-of-life series tend to work online, in keeping with the gender statistics.
To monetize the investment in DrunkDuck, Altounian plans to use an advertising business model. Platinum considered the subscription or donation models utilized at competing Web comics sites such as Keenspot.com or ModernTales.com, but decided to make the entire comics free for Web surfers. That decision puts Platinum at odds with traditional comics-publishing giants like Marvel Entertainment and DC Comics, a division of Time Warner Inc., that post only a few pages online. “All the major publishers put up previews that promote a print comic,” said Rosenberg. “We see it like a radio song. You play it for free on the radio and that sells more albums. We believe the comics market is a model just like that.”
Altounian ranks as a newcomer to the comics world, having spent his career in tech-related positions at Lynch Entertainment, Time Warner Interactive, and National Geographic Television. Before joining Platinum last year, he served as chairman of XsunX Inc. and on the board of early-stage tech firms Machine Talker and Cereplast. Last month he invested $1 million of his own money for an equity stake in Platform.
“As a serial entrepreneur, I looked at the content and the digital media market for entertainment as a whole. I saw a lot of repurposing of existing material,” Altounian said. “A TV show airs and the next day you can see it online or on an iPod. But no one was generating original content for these outlets.”
In contrast, Rosenberg has a long history with independent comics. In 1992, as founder of Malibu Comics, he engineered a deal that allowed seven top Marvel artists including legends like Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee to go independent and create Image Comics. Soon Image books like “Spawn” and “Youngblood” broke records by selling more than 1 million copies per issue.
In 1997, the same year that Sony released the first “Men in Black” movie, Rosenberg founded Platinum Studios. The company now controls a library of 3,800 characters, mostly from small publishers. The highest-profile characters available digitally include Barry Ween, a vulgar child prodigy created by former MTV star Judd Winick; fallen angel Avengelyne, created by Liefeld; and tPatrick the Wolf Boy by Art Baltazar.
By centering its strategy on characters rather than a specific medium, Platinum hopes to duplicate its comics-to-film successes in all directions: toys, video gaming, wireless, online and even apparel. “That’s where the entertainment industry is going,” Altounian predicted. “Our acquisition of DrunkDuck is such a foray. We will take an independent community and infuse it with capital to allow these independent folks to capitalize on their creations.”
