Posted in: Comics | Tagged: clint, Comics, entertainment, Mark Millar

Third Time Lucky For Mark Millar Talent Contest?

When Mark Millar's magazine CLiNT from Titan Comics was published several years ago, it ran a talent competition called Space Oddities, where unpublished comic book creators were encouraged to submit short stories for inclusion in the magazine. Initially it ran smoothly for the first round, with a couple of people seeing their stories included. But even though a number of folk won a second round, they never saw their stories published, and indeed were only contacted by Millarworld admin staff to get their details after some prodding from Bleeding Cool. The third round never saw winners selected.

Eventually, those winners fed up of ever hearing from Mark Millar or Titan Comics, published their own anthology of their winning work, SPOD: Oddities From Space via Kickstarter.

This time last year, Mark Millar ran a talent competition to draw a variant cover of his comic book Starlight. It was criticised for encouraging people to create work for free and then underpaying the eventual winner. In response, Millar withdrew the competition.

He is now running a talent competition for writers and artists, in which he has certainly learned from the second time.

 Starting Monday and through Oct. 30, Mr. Millar will accept writing and drawing samples on his website, millarworld.tv. He will then pair six writers and six artists to create short stories featuring his characters. The teams will be paid an industry page rate and will have their work published next year in the first "Annual Millarworld New Talent Showcase." The book will benefit the Hero Initiative, which helps support comic creators in need.

The book will be feature specific Millarworld characters and story lengths…

KICK-ASS story set between Bks 1-3 (5 pages)
KINGSMAN story starring Eggsy (5 pages)
HIT-GIRL solo adventure (4 pages)
STARLIGHT starring Young Duke McQueen on Tantalus (5 pages)
AMERICAN JESUS set during first book (5 pages)
CHRONONAUTS set in the past, during first book (4 pages)

…and will be published in Millarworld Annual 2016. The pay will be $90 per page for writers and $120 for pencils and $80 per page for artists. While a cover artist will be sought, paid $450 for black and white, $600 for colour. Artists should submit three pages of sequential art, now. Writers will be asked to pitch short stories involving these characters, and entries will open next week. The forums are experiencing delays due to heavy traffic.

When asked on the boards about the CLiNT experience in reference to this competition, the issue seems to have come up internally. Millarworld admin Jim OHara replied confidently "There should be no concern at all. Mark is in full control this time so people should enter with confidence."

Which of course asks more question – wasn't he in full control last time? Millar certainly gave that impression. And Titan Comics seemed unaware that there were any unfulfilled talent competition winners last time. James Fosdike, who won one of the CLiNT Talent Hunts, but then never saw his winning work published, told me,

It's hilarious how the article is framed. I'm sure that reading it will put stars in the eyes of the desperate. "I'm gonna make movies with Millar!"

The reality of it is that he'll find good talent to work for a pittance on his I.P, and that's the best case scenario. That kind of situation is rife in the comics scene, there's too many talented people willing to work for nothing.

Having been in a similar situation, I'm happy with how it turned out. I could be one of those artists working for bugger all if Millar did what he originally said, instead I'm working outside of comics doing work that I'm proud of that also pays the mortgage.

Still, third time's the charm… Mark Millar genuinely does want to help encourage new and upcoming talent in the comics industry, even if it doesn't always go to plan. This is also intended to be an annual competition.

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