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Platinum Studios is all about comics, but it's not aiming to become the next Marvel or DC.
"Some view us as a comic book company, but we're really not," says Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, chairman of Platinum Studios. "We're a studio with lots of different areas, all with comics fueling them."
Los Angeles-based Platinum Studios is devoted to developing and adapting comics and graphic novels for movies, television, games and other media. It has worked with independent comic-book creators and small publishers to form what it calls the world's largest independent library of comic-book characters - more than 3,800 characters in a variety of genres and styles.
Platinum has about a dozen feature films in development. The company also brought "Jeremiah," based on the comic book by Belgian author Hermann Huppen, to the small screen; 35 episodes aired on Showtime.
Now, 10 years after Rosenberg founded Platinum Studios, it is also venturing into publishing. Its first graphic novel, "Cowboys & Aliens," hit comic-shop shelves last month.
"Cowboys & Aliens," however, debuted online months earlier, appearing in installments at DrunkDuck.com. Platinum Studios bought the site, devoted to Web comics, last fall. Future Platinum titles also will be released online before they reach print.
"The online reading audience, I believe, can actually increase the sales of the print comic," Rosenberg says.
He compares it to hearing a song you like on the radio for free, which leads you to buy the album.
Platinum Studios last fall also launched its mobile division, making comic-book images, sounds, animations and games available for download on mobile phones. It's all part of what Rosenberg calls "full circle commercialization."
"The character's in the middle and there are spokes that come from that: a spoke to a comic book, a spoke to a T-shirt, a spoke to a movie."
Rosenberg is no stranger to Hollywood or comics. In 1986 he founded Malibu Comics, which published Lowell Cunningham's "Men in Black" after dozens of other publishers turned it down. Rosenberg also brokered the deal with Sony Pictures to turn the comic into a movie.
"Men in Black" became a billion-dollar film and television franchise. Malibu, meanwhile, was sold to Marvel Comics in 1994.
"I've been a geek forever," Rosenberg says. "To me, one can focus on anything to make into other stuff, but for me I just like it coming from comics."
Jim McLauchlin came aboard as editor in chief of Platinum Studios Comics in November. Though the company's motto is "comics fueling media everywhere," McLauchlin lets Rosenberg and others worry about the other applications.
"I'm focused 100 percent on comic books," he says.
For fans who complain that other publishers are too focused on superheroes, Platinum will provide welcome diversity, McLauchlin says. "We'll have some superheroes, action, mystery, Western, sci-fi, you name it."
The line will focus on limited series and one-shot graphic novels. Among upcoming titles:
-"Hero by Night" is written and illustrated by D.J. Coffman, winner of the 2006 Comic Book Challenge. Platinum Studios held the contest in search of new comic-book talent. "Hero by Night" is the story of Jack King, who discovers the secret lair of a long-vanished 1950s superhero. When he decides to sell the hero's gadgets and artifacts, he draws the attention of an old arch-nemesis.
"So suddenly he's thrust into a spot where he's just a normal Joe and he has a supervillain coming after him," McLauchlin says.
-"Blood Nation" is about the rise of a vampire plague in the former Soviet Union. A top-secret strike team is sent to control the threat.
-"Unique" tells the story of a man who finds he has the ability to cross through other dimensions - a unique talent that also makes him a target.
"We'll be a small publisher," McLauchlin says, "but we'll be a very interesting publisher."
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(CONTACT THE WRITER: comics@gazette.com. For daily developments in the world of comics, go to www.gazettecomicsfan.blogspot.com.)
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(c) 2007, The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.). Distributed by Mclatchy-Tribune News Service.
