APE 2010 - MythEdge: Interview with founder Eric Rekow

Every artist and writer will find themselves struggling with getting into the business. It is not an easy thing to break into but that is where a cooperative like MythEdge will help anyone. At the 2010 Alternative Press Expo, RarityGuide found MythEdge and we had a chance to sit down and talk about a number of different things.



First we asked about the focus of Mythedge
“MythEdge is an online Co-op for writers and artist to meet, publish their work digitally, collaborate on various projects and gain exposure. This is a content-based approach to publishing.”

How did MythEdge start?
“That is a story of another creature. It’s about the fifth iteration of the idea, just the most successful version of such a thing yet. It started as a school club meant to gather writers and artists together to connect and find someone to work on their projects with.”

Just what do you mean by a new content-based business model?
“This way gives more control to the artists and writers. They retain all intellectual rights to their projects published on MythEdge. They will also receive revenue based on advertisements and prints done of their work. We believe, in the modern day, that it is possible to be published without having giving up your intellectual rights.”

How does this normally work?
“When a writer or artist signs with a big company like Marvel or DC for an original character, they have to sign away their intellectual rights to that character. Then, they can only work on that character for that particular company. This means the creator loses that particular character for the duration of the contract.”

So, they retain all rights, to the property?
“That’s right.”

In a sense, MythEdge, as a co-op, is a means of being published?
“Yes, it is one way to get your work out into the great wide world.”

What titles do you have lined up at this time?
“Right now, we’ve got four wonderful series, one of which is aiming to publish weekly. Those are ‘Aether Portal’ written by Kelly Gallagher, ‘Pliny the Elder’ written by myself and drawn by Connie Chin, ‘Mangus House’ by To-Be-Announced and ‘Dubious Company’ by written by Ben Hsu and drawn by Elaine Tipping. And be sure to include some links for people to find the comics!”