"Look at Diamond Distributors' monthly list of the top 300 comics: one or two creator-owned books may find their way into the top 100 for a month or two, but the bulk of these titles dwell at the bottom of the list, selling a few thousand copies, and losing a few thousand dollars, per issue.

"Moreover, from Marvel's point of view, these books don't have much value, because most of the long-term upside opportunity for ancilliary revenues belongs to you, not us."

Jemas goes on to note that this doesn't necessarily mean that Marvel is against the concept of creator ownership, but with qualifiers like these they certainly aren't entirely behind it, either. It's a mixed message, and more than a little suspicious: the first paragraph is as weaselly a statement as you could hope to find, while the second surprises with its brutal honesty.

Take the first paragraph. The principal reason for the preponderance of company-owned titles in the top 100 Diamond bestsellers, of course, is that that's what Marvel and DC have traditionally been in the business of selling; because the overwhelming majority of the Direct Market's customer base is composed of Marvel and DC fans, those two companies have free reign to set the terms of employment for the writers and artists they employ.

This leads us to the second paragraph. Marvel currently has good reason to want those ancilliary revenues. The company is $151 million in debt, due to the gross mismanagement of previous owners whose efforts had left Marvel in bankruptcy court; the majority of those notes come due by the end of the decade. Marvel currently uses licensing monies from various sources (toys, film and television, mostly) to pay this debt down. The publishing division currently comprises just one-fifth of the company's income, and is thus ill-equipped to handle the financial burden independently. Without licensing, the company would likely find itself again seeking bankruptcy protection — Marvel needs that money, and only an expanding base of intellectual capital can keep it coming.

What's surprising therefore isn't that Marvel seems reluctant to publish creator-owned properties, but that it's willing to consider the concept at all. While the company has only recently begun accepting submissions, a few accounts of attempts by creators to negotiate with it have already surfaced. Take this one by writer Micah Wright, from Rich Johnston's comics-gossip column Lying in the Gutters:

"They also went On and On about the need to turn everything around for TV and Features, which, again depressed me because (a) what makes a good comic and what makes a good movie/tv show are not necessarily the same thing, and (b) they nimbly dodged all of my questions about 'so what if I create a new character for you that you turn into a Spider-Man sized film deal, what kind of money do I see for that?' I consider that to be highly shiver-inducing, especially after my exciting adventures in getting ripped off as an Animation writer."