I decided to break the CrossGen at MegaCon into two articles. There are two reasons for this. One is that there was a slightly different panel of guest artists each day, and second because Mark Alessi answered a significant number of questions in the second session, where Tony Panaccio lead the discussion the first day.
The picture is from the CrossGen booth on the floor with (left to right) George Perez, Laura DePuy, and Ron Marz.
Here's the discussion from the first day.
Tony Panaccio, Vice President of Product Development, gave some background about life at CrossGen Comics:
Tony - At CrossGen comics, creators work in a studio system. This means that artists and writers come to work (8 to 5?) weekdays and get paid a salary.
Mark Waid - I was looking for any reason not to like the studio system. I could not find a reason. At other places, you judge your work by other people's failures. Here (at CrossGen), it's a mutually supportive system.
Scott Eaton - If Steve puts out a good page (of artwork), and I say that it is his best work. I mean it. The book has been on time so far. I am proud of his books. We have a commitment to ship on time one hundred percent of the time. We come up with ideas (on the art and story) on our own, and we try it.
Tony Panaccio - Between (the big publishers in comics) there have missed over 1100 ship dates last year. Zero (late shipments) belong to CrossGen. We have all comics people, and no suits.
Question - (for Mark) What is the difference between working for Image and working for CrossGen?
Mark Waid - One of the differences between Image and us is that Image is creator owned, where we (CrossGen) are company owned.
Tony - There is one position that we don't have (that other companies do). And that is "Editor". There are no editors at CrossGen. The creative team gets together to resolve problems and encourage each other.
Question for Drew - What are some of your reasons for working for CrossGen instead of another company?
Drew Hennessy - At other companies, some hires are for some reasons, and other hires are for other reasons. At CrossGen, there is a first a commitment(to get work done) and second a commitment to quality (work). (I am personally) looking to do a book a month for the next ten years. I worked at "First" and "Tekno" and they didn't have that type of commitment.
