At the risk of kicking up too much of a kerfuffle, I think Friend of HI and Hero By Night creator DJ Coffman could use some moral support right about now, if not a good lawyer to do some pro bono creator rights work on his behalf…

A long story short, I had emailed the folks at Platinum to inquire if there had been any movement about the rights issue so that I could possibly get moving and publishing at least the webcomic on my own before the audience that we built for 2 years completely dropped off. I pretty much got this form letter sounding reply that included this statement:

Please be advised that due to the controversy stirred up as a result of your recent blogging and interviews, all discussions between us regarding any potential licensing back to you of limited rights to Hero By Night are on hold. At this time, we cannot say when those discussions might be resurrected. – Brian Altounian

To summarize, “we were gonna, but you talked, and now we’ve changed our minds.” Fantastic!

Read more about it at DJ’s blog.

Here’s hoping Platinum comes to their senses and starts treating their talent with the decency they deserve—they have no reason I can see to withhold publishing rights from DJ, other than being bastards, especially since any work he does to continue to promote and produce the work will only help any efforts Platinum may undertake to sell the property in Hollywood.