PETROL HEAD, the creator-owned scifi series by myself and Pye Parr about an obsolete dragracing robot in a Climate-Emergency future, which was published this year by Image Comics, was recently optioned by Mr B Films. It’s currently being developed for a movie. And very exciting all that is. But what does it actually mean, once you peel back that announcement?
Many comics are ‘optioned’ (you get some money), even more get the slightly more underwhelming ‘shopping agreements’ (you get no money. Initially, at least). Comics are ripe for picking for other media, as we are all very aware in these streamer-y times, and Production Companies and Producers and sometimes even writers (the worst!) may drop you a line out of the blue saying they love your comic, want to make a movie or TV show out of it, and will sell you dreams of homes in the Hollywood Hills and riches and, who knows, maybe even something even more wildly far-fetched like ‘creative involvement.’
Believe all this when the cheque clears, and not before – if I have any useful advice about dealing with Film and Television companies, it’s probably this.
But I was thinking, when I started out in writing comics, that it would’ve been useful to read a piece where someone a bit bruised and battered with the odd missing tooth and wonky glass eye (alright, you get the metaphor) with some experience explained how all this works. So, here I am, doing you a BLATANT deal. You buy the PETROL HEAD TPB and I’ll be your slightly enebriated college lecturer. Ideally a bit like Donald Sutherland in Animal House. God, he was great, wasn’t he? Especially in the 70s. “I’m not joking, this is my job!”
Anyway, buy the PETROL HEAD TPB. It’s got drag-racing robots, a sarcastic robot bird, a Satnav who speaks in Cockney Rhyming Slang, kinetic racing action and it looks PHENOMENAL.
Here’s a UK link to buy the PETROL HEAD GN:
Petrol Head with OK Comics Exclusive Signed Print by Rob Williams and Pye Parr
And here’s a US link to buy:
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Petrol-Head-Volume-1/Rob-Williams/9781534397330
Some beautiful Petrol Head pages for you there… All featuring Pye’s glorious design, colour work and general visual storytelling.
You can check out signed issues, prints, t-shirts and loads of other merchandise at: https://www.petrolheadcomic.com
OK, you’ve all bought the TPB and lots of sweet, sweet merch now, right? That was the deal. Now back to how a comic gets optioned for Film/TV. The best way to do this is to have an AGENT for Film/TV work. They will take your finished comic, send it to Producers/Production Companies to try and garner some interest – so you’re getting it on potential serious buyers’ desks. If they’re interested, the agent will then, in a perfect world, negotiate the deal on your behalf, make sure the contract doesn’t screw you down the line, and take something in the region of 10% of your income from the project as their payment. NB – agents cost nothing up front. They only take their cut out of any deals they help negotiate/setup on your behalf. Any agent who wants you to pay something up front – dodgy. Avoid.
I should also say at this point that there are really two markets for selling to Film and TV – LA and the UK. A British agent will usually sell to the UK market. A US agent to the US. Each continent has different buyers, sometimes from the same company. Apple and Amazon and Netflix have an office in London, an office in Los Angeles etc. So don’t expect your London agent to sell to the States and vice versa. Some agents can cover both. More likely, in an ideal world, you have a rep in both cities. But that would mean giving away two 10%s on any sale. There’s plusses and minuses to this.
But that’s all fast-forwarding a bit. How do you get an Agent for Film/TV? It’s a bit chicken and egg. Many Agents will want you to have interest from a Producer or Production Company before they’d consider taking you on. But I’d suggest, if you have a creator-owned comic from a decent-sized publisher on the market, contact Agents and say you’re looking for representation for selling your creator-owned comics to Film/TV. Every other show on any streaming platform is derived from a comic these days. The Boys and The Walking Dead have been two of the biggest shows in the world. Agents may well be willing to at the very least discuss this with you. There’s money to be made, even if the streaming and film market is a bit hamstrung right now.
If you can’t get an agent to take you on, you can go DIY. Look at shows similar in tone and scope to your creator-owned comic that have been derived from comics, find out the Production Company who made these shows, write a covering letter explaining what your comic is about and why it’d make an amazing TV show or film, pop a copy in and send . You’ll be way further down the reading list than if it comes from a recognised Agent, but it’s worth a punt.
Another absolute rule going into this world – ANY Creator-owned contract with a comic publisher should have an Agent or a Lawyer check it over on your behalf. You will invariably regret it down the line if you try to save some pennies at this stage of the process. From my legal neophyte POV, the language in these contracts is deliberately labyrinthine in order to hide where you’re getting your kneecaps knocked out. Get an expert to guide you here. You might thing you can read a contract and spot the pitfalls – you almost certainly can’t.
Another top tip to look at when at contract stage – make sure there’s a good REVERSION clause in there. The exciting new comic company publishing your comic or the company developing it for Media might well not exist in 4 years. It’s a very tough business, right now. The Film & TV world aren’t buying as many properties as they were 5 years ago. So – make sure you can get the rights back if that’s the case.
What’s an ‘Option’? It means a Producer or Production Company will pay you a fee to have exclusive rights to develop your comic for Film/TV for a period. Sometimes 18 months. Sometimes 12. This can usually range from £1k to £35k. But if you’ve never had a TV show or Film derived from your work before, you can expect the offer to be on the low side. If the Production Company want to keep the rights, they pay you another cheque once the option is up. And so on and so forth until they eventually make the Film or TV show. Or they don’t want to keep the rights to your comic after a point and will let the Option ‘lapse’. In which case you get the rights back.
Your comic being optioned is merely Level One of it becoming a Film and TV show. The Producer or Production Company will probably attach a recognised TV or Film writer to adapt your comic into a screenplay, write up a ‘Bible’ for the project (a pitchdeck with visuals etc). They put together a package to try and get buyers excited. You can certainly say you want to write the screenplay yourself. They may even be agreeable to that. But in majority of cases they want a trusted hand in Film or TV circles to do this to alleviate any fears the prospective buyer may have over a rookie writer in this field. Buyers are just looking for reasons to say no. “Oh, this writer’s great but they’ve got no previous credits in Film & TV” is just one such reason.
An Option does not necessarily mean your comic WILL be a Film or TV show.There are several serious story obstacles to be overcome on your comic’s Hero’s Journey before it’s up there on the Cineplex (or streaming on Disney +). Don’t get carried away at this stage. Listen to renowned writing mentor Han Solo’s advice here: “Great, kid. Don’t get cocky!”
My social media thriller, the Vertigo series UNFOLLOW, has been optioned now… maybe 5 or 6 times (I’ve lost count). It is still yet to be made. But myself and the co-owner Mike Dowling get a cheque every now and again. Very welcome that cheque is too. From making a freelance writing life work perspective, these option cheques dropping periodically help keep your work going. Help pay the bills, give you the breathing space to be working on the next creator-owned book etc. They’re important. And the Company paying the Option fee means they’re still trying to get it made, in whatever form that might take. For the most part, companies don’t spend money unless they’re serious about developing something. So, option fees = hope.
You can buy UNFOLLOW here. It’s extremely good, contains guest issues by artists like RM Guera, Simon Gane, Marguerite Sauvage and Javier Pulido, and it might just be a TV show one of these days: https://www.hatchards.co.uk/book/unfollow-tp-vol-1/rob-williams/9781401262747
I was told a story a few years ago regarding Options and something actually being made. A well-known comics writer had written a creator-owned book. Every year it would get optioned. Never made. A nice cheque would show up every 12 months. When a very famous Film Director eventually made the comic with some major movie names in the film, the writer, rather than being delighted, was a bit gutted. because it meant the nice Option cheques would stop turning up…
There’s another conversation to be had about this regarding something called ‘The Purchase Price’. Your Producer/Production Company will pay you Option fees while developing the Film/Show. If somebody – a studio or a streamer – actually buys it off them and it’s going to actually be made – they will pay you a Purchase Price (this will be a figure stated in the contract). Don’t expect life-changing sums of money here. It’ll be a very nice, welcome cheque, far bigger than the option fees. But no gold yachts will be bought with the proceeds. I won’t name names but I was told an anecdote of two famous comic creators discussing their films about to be made, where one experienced creator told the other of the purchase price “It’s considerably less than you think.” And if you’ve not had your agent/lawyer check the contract very often the Option cheques will all be slowly coming out of the Purchase Price along the way. Sneaky things, contracts…
The ‘Shopping Agreement’ is essentially the Option Cheque but there’s no money. This is a very low risk endeavour for the Producer/Production Company. It costs them nothing to have exclusivity of your book for 12 months, say. They’ll try and sell it, and only pay you if someone shows genuine interest. Sadly, there are a lot of Shopping Agreements offered these days. If it’s the best offer you have, do some dilligence about the people you’re entering into a Shopping Agreement with. See if they actually have a history of getting things made – things you’ve heard of, ideally. If they do then, yeah, it’s worth a shot. If no better offer is on the table. Don’t sign a long one though. 6 month Shopping Agreements aren’t unusual. That would incentivise the Producer/Production Company to try and do something with it.
I’ve been contacted in the past by screenwriters who want a shopping agreement to try and develop “your awesome comic” to try and sell it. Again, check their credits. If it’s someone who’s just written Dune or something high profile – definitely worth a punt. If they have two credits you’ve never heard of with an average of 3.2 stars on imdb. Pass. Similarly, see how detail-heavy they are about your comic in discussions. Do they really love it or are they just trying to get the rights of as many comics as possible for no outlay? There’s screenwriters out there who send the same form email to multiple creators claiming they’ll develop your comic for film if you give them the rights for free… There’s zero risk for them doing this.
Despite your excitement at someone saying the words ‘your comic’ and ‘movie’ in the same sentence – do your research on the person approaching you. Ask yourself – can these people actually help get this made? There’s a LOAD of chancers our there in Film & TV. “Money talks and bullshit walks” – as Fran Drescher from Spinal Tap says. And she’s now President of the Screen Actors Guild, so she knows.
But this is all dependent on you owning 100% of the Media Rights on your comic. You can’t “shop it” to Media Buyers if you don’t maintain all the rights. With Image Comics and Petrol Head, we own the book entirely, so we could shop it via an Agent. That’s one of the attractions of publishing with Image Comics.
There’s a lot of Creator-Owned deals out there where you effectively own 50% of the Media Rights. There’s varying flavours of this sort of deal – different percentages of ownership – but that’s the general headline on this sort of thing.
OLD HAUNTS was recently optioned for Film by AWA Studios. It’s a ‘Ghost Story for Gangsters’ creator-owned book I did a few years ago with Ollie Masters, Laurence Campbell, Lee Loughridge and Sal Cipriano. The deal we did with AWA was similar to ones done by other companies such as Boom, Mad Cave, IDW etc. AWA paid us a page rate while making the book, in return they alone could shop it or try and set it up in Film/TV and they get 50% of the money from any such deal they set up. That’s the shorthand version, anyway. In such a case, it’s all out of your hands. You don’t have to put any work into shopping your comic via agents or personally. The publisher doesn’t want you and your agent out there muddying the waters for them. So: feet up and hope for the best. Low maintenance. But you also have handed over your agency on the project.
There’s positives and negatives to this. The major positive is that you’re getting paid to create the comic and not spending time on trying to sell it to Film/TV afterwards. Normally, you keeping 100% of Media Rights means you’re receiving some, little or no money to create the actual comic. In an ideal world you do want the 100% ownership, and control. But we all have mortgages and bills to pay. You can get a pretty good page rate and 50% of any Media Money on these sorts of 50/50 deals. But you’ll also largely find yourself shut out of the process creatively throughout.
We always thought Old Haunts would make an amazing movie. Sort of Michael Mann meets David Lynch. Fingers crossed it happens.
You can buy Old Haunts with an Exclusive Signed Print here: https://okcomics.co.uk/products/old-haunts-with-ok-comics-exclusive-signed-print-by-rob-williams-and-ollie-masters?_pos=1&_sid=6f3c562e6&_ss=r
The first comic I ever wrote in 2001 – CLA$$WAR from Com.X, a dark political superhero tale with certain thematic similarities to Homelander from The Boys – was being developed for film at one point. I’d just started out in comics so this was very exciting. There was a story in the Film trade Variety so it had to be real, right? I remember being told that a copy of Cla$$war had been given to Samuel L Jackson – this was before all that Nick Fury stuff. But the Cla$$war deal all went away eventually… No movie was made. Sometimes companies will announce something in a publication like Variety to try and get buyers excited. It’s part of the sales pitch.
Believe it when the cheque clears…
Your can buy CLA$$WAR here: https://okcomics.co.uk/products/cla-war-by-rob-williams-travel-foreman-and-trevor-hairsine
Another point on CLA$$WAR. I had a meeting with a Hollywood showrunner at one point about a different project and at the end of the meeting he said in passing “Oh by the way, I wrote a screenplay for Cla$$war a few years back.” Eh? Turned out that an LA producer had given him a copy of CLA$$WAR, had said it’d make a great film. The writer agreed to write the screenplay on spec (no money) and they would then pair up to try and sell it in Hollywood. They’d only actually buy the rights off us IF someone made them an offer… Great. Thanks…
From a comics community point of view, if you get any interest from the land of Film & TV, ask around your peers for advice. Protect yourself and your project as best you can. People might be able to recommend Agents (if there’s genuine financial interest, Agents will be interested), Managers (a bit like an Agent), Entertainment Lawyers. Or you can learn a lot from others’ advice and pitfalls along the way.
Remember that there will always be places in contracts where you can push back and get better deals for yourself and your collaborators. You’re not being pushy in asking for contractual changes, and they won’t walk away if they’re truly interested. This push and pull is just part of the business. They’re only willing to pay for your comic because they believe it could potentially make them a good deal of money. Why shouldn’t you get your share of that?
The main reason to make a comic is to create a great comic, not to try and get it turned into a Film or a hit TV show. If such interest comes along – great. And it’s fine to get excited by this – if we can’t get excited by the progress of our own projects, why are we doing this? And making money from such avenues is part of trying to make life as a freelance writer or artist work. This is a creative business we’re in, but it is a business.
All that said, we are very excited about the PETROL HEAD deal. It could easily be an AMAZING movie, which would also help us sell lots of the Graphic Novels and would allow Pye and I to carry on making lots more Petrol Head comics. I am happy to be excited about the potential of this. But I will also believe it when the cheque clears.
PS – Buy Petrol Head.
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