Gun Nose: Taking aim at digital comics

In July 2011, creative artist and comic book writer Tom Carroll was seeking ways to monetize his ideas by partnering with others. He and his team wanted to capitalize on the growing trend of digital comics. Tom led a consortium of graphic artists and writers. However, they were inexperienced in the legal and business aspects of negotiating publishing contracts and licensing their copyrights and trademarks. And that inexperience could lead to future troubles down the road. Students are challenged to identify what sorts of problems Tom and his team could experience while launching their design consortium and recommend what they should do. Clearly, he and his team were aiming for digital comic book fame and royalties, but how could they reach their ambitious goals? Time was of the essence for Tom, as he had been made redundant in May 2010 from his job as a senior 3D artist by video game developer RockStar San Diego following the successful release of Red Dead Redemption. Tom was running out of funds to pay his mortgage and would soon need to land a big project or else go back to job hunting most likely outside the comics industry.