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yeah, that scared and then puzzled me for a moment there, too… but i guess it’s not too much different than Darick Robertson continuing The Boys at Dynamite Entertainment while still exclusive at DC.

…then again, i guess it is pretty different because, y’know, it’s Dynamite Entertainment.

I don’t think its that silly at all. “Exclusive” creators are granted permission to do their previously established creater-owned stuff all the time. While doing a book for Vertigo isn’t exactly the same thing, it’s close enough.

If anything, I think its pretty cool that Marvel is allowing Aaron to do this (or for any creator to keep working on their previous book). I think it shows a nice committment to the readers.

Besides, its not like he is writing Justice League and Marvel is saying “Oh no, its okay, keep writing our competition’s top selling book!” That would be silly.

Yeah, it makes good business sense to have exceptions for creator-owned work because otherwise you’d be pissing off the fans of the very guy you’re hiring by making him stop what is probably their favorite work by him…

Like Kirkman, exclusive at Marvel, but still writing WALKING DEAD, INVINCIBLE, and that wolf-man book.

Quite prolific, isn’t he?

I agree. It makes perfect sense. Moreover, I’m willing to believe that Aaron may have asked Marvel for that, rather than Marvel offering it. Either way, it shows some good logic by Marvel.

Just imagine… if DC and Sean McKeever would’ve worked out a similar deal, he might still be writing Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane! I can only dream…

I think the main point is that Marvel doesn’t really care about the creator-owned stuff, since it’s not going to be in competition with anything they produce. They just want to keep him from writing Batman or whatever.

Which brings up an interesting point (one I blogged about just last night)… Why is it Marvel always seems to grab the Vertigo guys? Aaron, Carey, Vaughn, even Brubaker to a certain extent (Sleeper was Vertigo-ey), did little or no work in the DCU, but Marvel handed them some pretty hot properties.

If Marvel likes Aaron enough to put him on Wolverine, you’d think DC might want to give him a few Batman issues or something.

Bru did little or no work in the DCU? Bru revived the Catwoman title with his masterful work.

Okay, I forgot about Catwoman. And I know he did some Batman work, but it never seemed to be very high profile.

At any rate, it’s not quite on the level of “Hey, we want you to write X-Men and kill Captain America.”

Vertigo usually has terrific writers like: Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman, Mike Carey, and so on.

A lot of their series are to comics as HBO/Showtime series are to tv. Dark, edgy, thought-provocating, even disturbing and erotic (at times).

All of these elements are often what Marvel solely lacks, which is why they like to cannibalize DC/Vertigo writers with exclusive contracts.

Besides, its capitalism at its best!

How about Ellis? He’s exclusive at Marvel too, but is writing more books at other companies that he is at Marvel, in which the only ongoing he’s working at is Thunderbolts, which is constantly delayed because of him.

For sometime now, exclusive means don’t do superhero work for the competition. Also, unfortunely, Scalped sales are closer to that of indie book than what one might expect for Vertigo. I only hope that Aaron writing Wolverine will tranalate into a sales increase to Scalped.

Brubaker wrote Batman for DC, right? One can’t get more high-profile at DC then that, the problem is he wrote Batman at the end of Carlin era where every DC book was quiet (he actually got kick out the book, so Loeb and Lee could do Hush, which might argue was the begening of current DC). But yeah, DC seems very unable to make good use of the talent at Vertigo.

Which brings up an interesting point (one I blogged about just last night)… Why is it Marvel always seems to grab the Vertigo guys? Aaron, Carey, Vaughn, even Brubaker to a certain extent (Sleeper was Vertigo-ey), did little or no work in the DCU, but Marvel handed them some pretty hot properties.

Joey Q has gone on the record as saying that he was not a big fan of Marvel’s books in the late 80s and early 90s, and that what brought him back to comics as an adult was Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns and the Vertigo stuff.

when he became EIC, it seemed a major point of duty for him to snag Ennis, Morrison, Gaiman, et al, and there was talk of courting Alan Moore with the promise of reprinting Miracleman at Marvel, restored to its original form as Marvelman.

basically, whatever Joephisto thinks about the DC Universe, he’s always held Vertigo and the talent it produces in high regard.

Okay, so now “exclusive” has gone from meaning “you can work for anyone else, you just can’t work for DC,” to meaning “you can work for anyone else, including DC, you just can’t work in the DC Universe.”

I really think it’s time to just start calling them “long-term employment and benefits packages.”

Out of curiosity, do any Marvel exclusive writers work for Wildstorm on the side?

Warren Ellis does. In theory, anyway, with Planetary and Desolation Jones.

I think Wildstorm officially still publishes Ellis’ Desolation Jones, but I don’t think it has an issue out in real long timr (then there’s also that final issue of Planetary). But i don’t think there’s any marvel exclusive has a current title at Wildstorm that comes out in any regular fashion (but Wildstorm has almost no creator-owned titles write now).

Planetary: Hopefully, John Cassaday will work on this when he’s finished with Astonishing X-men.

Desolation Jones: The Maker-of-us-all-in-the-sky knows when the next issue will come out. Hopefully, before 2010, or whenever Ellis hands in his scripts. I’m really hoping that DJ will NOT take as long as Planetary took.

I’m not one for Scalped to be honest. Maybe I should give it another go…

While I have you though Brian – any “Judging Books by their Covers” going up soon?

I’ve been having some trouble with my ftp, Andrew.

Without ftp, I really can’t do the cover bits, because it’s way too many files to load manually.

I’m working on it!

Maybe I can do March and April all in one week!!

Thanks for the response – I look forward to it either way.

I visit this blog daily as it is.