CHAOS CHARACTERS SELL FOR $50,000

**MattBrady** · 10-01-2003, 06:32 PM

According to the office of Steve Brown, the attorney representing the bankruptcy trustee in the Chaos! Comics bankruptcy, the winning bid for the remaining Chaos! properties at today’s auction was $50,000 placed by Tales of Wonder.com, a Georgia-based Internet retailer.

As previously reported, Tales of Wonder (upon the Bankruptcy Court’s receiving the money) will receive all rights (with minor exceptions) to the Chaos! stable of characters, except Lady Death, which was sold to CrossGen just prior to the company fling for bankruptcy.

According to Andy Eaton of Tales of Wonder, the company plans to return the characters to print as quickly as possible. While Tales of Wonder.com is a retailer, one of the largest of trades and hardcovers in the market, Eaton said that they do not plan on publishing the comics themselves.

“Our intent is to bring these characters back to publishing. What we would like to do is license the characters to other parties or publishers who would be willing to publish the characters. We haven’t been talking with anybody yet, and I don’t think anyone even expected us to be a bidder. The best way to think of them is to think of the Chaos! characters as say, Conan, which is licensed to Dark Horse now.”

“Our first contact with Chaos! was right after the bankruptcy, and we actually purchased a fair amount of the merchandise out of the sale of assets. We got a lot of Chaos! merchandise, which we proceeded to sell. After doing that, we realized that Chaos! has a pretty loyal fanbase, and despite what the numbers were saying in the past, there’s definite value in the brand – definite value in the characters. We thought it was worthwhile to try and extract that value, to bring them back to print and some licensed goods.”

“Quite frankly, we don’t know what we’re getting – the nature of a bankruptcy auction is that it’s as is, where is, and we get what we get. It’s going to take us a little time to sort things out, but our intent is to move as quickly as possible.”

Studio D Comics · 10-01-2003, 07:31 PM

Wow!!

It'll be interesting to see what happens next...

later
don

Philip A Moore · 10-01-2003, 07:48 PM

50.000 is not that mutch some one got a bagin

djcoffman · 10-01-2003, 08:29 PM

But Evil Ernie wasnt' in there, right? Evil Ernie and Lady Death WERE Chaos Comics... Pretty much everything else sucked, right? It would be cool to do something to please that fanbase though

sythspawn · 10-01-2003, 08:29 PM

i wonder what publishers, if any, would be interested in publishing the Chaos characters and how they would be re-tooled/re-vamped.

mpg · 10-01-2003, 08:39 PM

i think they got ripped off. 50,000 for those characters? it says alot that pulido snagged lady death

KLitke · 10-01-2003, 09:04 PM

Actually Crossgen purchased Lady Death for 12,500 if I recall correctly. Pulido's merely writing the title...they have ownership of the property.

blankpoint · 10-01-2003, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Evil Ernie and Lady Death WERE Chaos Comics... Pretty much everything else sucked, right?

No, Evil Ernie and Lady Death sucked as well, and continue to do so.

Anyway, their niche has been takenover by Jim "so the 90s Catwoman really was naked" Balent's Broadsword comics. His title Tarot ("Witch of the Black Rose") makes a great topic for a psychoanalytical English paper, by the way.

Let's not forget the immense market potential of that ingenious psychotic button.

Jeremy Williams · 10-01-2003, 10:57 PM

I find that pretty funny. What would the Chaos! characters be other than Lady Death and Evil Ernie? After those two, can there really be any characters in that Universe to develop as properties with potentials? Why not creat new ones instead of wasting 50 thousand dollars(and this is by no means a jab at Brian Pulido and his talent).

jclem3 · 10-01-2003, 11:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by blankpoint
No, Evil Ernie and Lady Death sucked as well, and continue to do so.

Have you even read a recent issue of Lady Death, blankpoint? It doesn't exactly suck. In fact, it's a good book under CGE's Code 6 imprint.

Userama · 10-02-2003, 12:18 AM

Evil Ernie wasn't that bad, but the real highlight was the character design. He was a real grabbing visual. And when it comes to comic book characters, isn't that where the marketability is anyway? Lady Death was a little more generic looking, although I never read the actual comic.

Jim Kosmicki · 10-02-2003, 12:21 AM

How much are full page ads going for these days in CBG and Wizard? or banner ads on all the message boards?

I've been on-line buying comics for a long time and I hadn't heard of this supposedly "big player" until this story.

If they can license one character out to just ONE hollywood type, they get their 50K back in one fell swoop. This is a fairly easy call, as long as you have the money to make the investment in the first place.

and Evil Ernie SHOULD be included in this sale, as only Lady Death was sold before the bankruptcy, as I recall the stories at the time.

And whoever said that the psycho smiley button alone has licensing potential is right on the money (literally)

EMeadow · 10-02-2003, 01:53 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by djcoffman
But Evil Ernie wasnt' in there, right? Evil Ernie and Lady Death WERE Chaos Comics... Pretty much everything else sucked, right? It would be cool to do something to please that fanbase though

No Ernie is part of the package. These guys got every single Chaos character cept for Lady Death. And you know they will I'm sure try to get Pulido to continue to help with this stuff. I woudln't be even surprised if they somehow get Crossgen somehow involved so Lady Death gets to be used.

djcoffman · 10-02-2003, 07:51 AM

If Ernie was included in the mix, then in that case, that could be taken a retooled a bit. Ernie and the button could work again. Don't really need Lady Death in there-- and if properly represented, that could easily be sold as a film. I just think the stories needed punched up a bit.

I heard the Hughes family might be looking for half the copyright on Evil Ernie though-- that would suck to get embroiled in that mess.

AnthonyL · 10-02-2003, 09:28 AM

I used to be a huge Chaos fan until the franchise went to crap, but I just want to insist upon that a large female faction of the Chaos Fiends love Chastity. I'm only saying that because i've seen a lot of "Lady Death and Evil Ernie" as the only valuable properties. Don't underestimate the revenue potential of Chastity while you're "discussing" these matters.

Anthony L

pmpknface · 10-02-2003, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by AnthonyL
I used to be a huge Chaos fan until the franchise went to crap, but I just want to insist upon that a large female faction of the Chaos Fiends love Chastity. I'm only saying that because i've seen a lot of "Lady Death and Evil Ernie" as the only valuable properties. Don't underestimate the revenue potential of Chastity while you're "discussing" these matters.

Anthony L

Thanks Anthony. And dont' forget Purgatori either. I'm glad that this chapter is over, and hopefully we'll see more stories with these characters again soon.

skip · 10-02-2003, 10:33 AM

CBG for ad rates.

Email cbg@krause.com

Or call 715-445-2214 with your queries.

Ask for Norma Jean Fochs or Shannon Piotrowski. They'll take care of you.
(mccormickk@krause.com) or (piotrowskis@krause.com) respectfully.

for WIZARD ad rates call 845-268-3907

**MattBrady** · 10-02-2003, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by pmpknface
And dont' forget Purgatori either.

I think Purgatori, as drawn by Steven Hughes accelerated many younger male Chaos fans right through the other side of puberty. After Hughes' many tried, but there was always somehting missing...

MattB

djcoffman · 10-02-2003, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MattBrady
After Hughes' many tried, but there was always somehting missing...

MattB

Maybe.. a plot? hehehe

Seriously though--- those characters did have merit to the fanbase. But the heart Chaos, the thing that REALLY set it off was Evil Ernie, Smiley and Lady Death. To NOT Have Lady Death in the Evil Ernie story would be, well not Evil Ernie, if you knew the plots you know what I mean. So it would make sense to make up a new character maybe called "Mrs. Agony" or something.

pmpknface · 10-02-2003, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MattBrady
I think Purgatori, as drawn by Steven Hughes accelerated many younger male Chaos fans right through the other side of puberty. After Hughes' many tried, but there was always somehting missing...

MattB

The Jim Balent issues were the best, actually. Hughes drew Purgatori in the Lady Death series' but Balent did her first 2 solo arcs. Oh, and they were pretty good too. After that the arcs weren't nearly as good.

majorjoe23 · 10-02-2003, 12:16 PM

Did Tales of Wonder move? I know at one point they were Tampa based(when I lived there, anyway).

JackHoff · 10-02-2003, 01:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jim Kosmicki
How much are full page ads going for these days in CBG and Wizard? or banner ads on all the message boards?

I've been on-line buying comics for a long time and I hadn't heard of this supposedly "big player" until this story.

That's because these people are FAR from a Big Player in the Comic Industry.Any retailer that is half way successful can go to the bank and get a $50K line of credit very easily.Cars cost more than 50K it's not THAT much money and you certainly don't have to be 'One of the largest Comic Retailers" to have that much money laying around or be able to secure a line of credit to make the purchase.By the way I don't think this deal has been done yey TOW still needs to PAY for the 50K bid.You've never had some shlub bid on something of yours on Ebay and not pay for it?

And when was the last time a small time success like Chaos! (who really only had one or two big sales years and then their titles slid back to like #500 on the sales charts))was able to revive the characters YEARS after they last published anything? If Hollywood wanted ANYTHING to do with these charcaters you don't think they would have just bid on them themselves? 50K to Hollywood is lunch money.

vanian · 10-02-2003, 03:58 PM

So they just got $50k, does that mean Brian Pulido is going to pay back all the creators he owes money to now? I'm sure the total for all the creators isn't too far off form $50k. >:-(

nacdeadking · 10-02-2003, 04:34 PM

when chaos went uder there was so many stories in mid story and well never find out what will happen from that. im just kinda interested now with the new owners with the rights to the chaos world will do with them( minus lady death). but i can still see maybe a crossover with her at some point perhaps.

mpg · 10-02-2003, 04:39 PM

so who did crossgen buy lady death from? who got that dough?