Seven Seas Rewrites Its Manga Pacts

by Calvin Reid, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 11/14/2005

In a gesture that will have some comics publishers scratching their heads, Seven Seas Entertaiment, a small U.S. manga publishing house specializing in original English language manga, has ripped-up contracts that specified joint copyright ownership with the manga artists, and offered the creators new deals with full ownership.

Jason DeAngelis, founder of Seven Seas, has acquired the book publishing rights to three very popular, long-running webcomics with plans to publish them into graphic novel format in 2006.The webcomics are Earthsong by Crystal Yates (earthsongsaga.com); Inverloch by Sarah Ellerton (saraph-inn.com); and Chugworth Academy by Dave Cheung (chugworth.com). But after getting signatures on two of the contracts, he decided he was going to change how he did business.

Some backgound. Although much has changed, for decades the U.S. comics industry was notorious for unfair contracts. But the joint-ownership deals offered by publishers like Tokyopop are far better than the work-for-hire deals of the past. Young, unpublished artists see these new contracts—generally offering advances and guaranteeing promotion, marketing and licensing in exchange for joint-ownership—as a fair exchange in order to get a start in the business.

So a strange thing happened after two of the webcomics creators happily agreed to Seven Seas's joint-ownership contract. DeAngelis began reading the online debates arguing the pros and cons of these contracts. "I started to reflect on it and feel downright guilty," he said. He explained that previous Seven Seas titles had been generated in-house with DeAngelis (who has also written several Seven Seas titles himself) finding artists and writers for new projects. "For properties that were already written and illustrated without any input from Seven Seas, how could I justify asking for partial ownership?," he said. "So, I contacted the creators and told them I wanted to redo the agreements in their favor and give them 100% ownership."

DeAngelis said the primary reason for the contract do-over was, "to give creators a fair deal," but he acknowledged that, "if all this results in more creators wanting to work with us, all the better."

Launched in 2004 Seven Seas is looking to grow.The house started with seven titles in 2005 and will publish 30 titles, including its first licensed Japanese manga, in 2006. Seven Seas is also looking to turn its properties into films and it is represented by Circle of Confusion, a management and film production agency with offices in New York and Los Angeles.