OFFICIAL Top Cow Talent Hunt 2015 Discussion Thread

[CBR News]

Hello!

This thread will serve as the Top Cow-sanctioned official discussion thread for all matters relating to Talent Hunt 2015. Feel free to discuss your submissions with your fellow participants, or ask questions of Top Cow President and COO Matt Hawkins -- who will stop by this thread periodically as time allows.

Full rules, submission agreement and sample scripts are available for download here.

Thanks, have fun, and good luck!

[Bevan]

Previous talent hunts have included particular guidelines about the format of the story, such as it being a story told of a past Darkness or Witchblade wielder or the tale of a minor artifact wielder after reality was rewritten. I don't see any such story guidelines this time. Does that mean that we have free reign to tell any kind of story we wish as long as we restrict ourselves to the particular characters on the list?

[hotroddii]

Does the link work for anyone?

Computer says "NO" to me :-(

[Pauul]

Previous talent hunts have included particular guidelines about the format of the story, such as it being a story told of a past Darkness or Witchblade wielder or the tale of a minor artifact wielder after reality was rewritten. I don't see any such story guidelines this time. Does that mean that we have free reign to tell any kind of story we wish as long as we restrict ourselves to the particular characters on the list?

According to the pdf (click the link in the article to download) we can use any character; past, present or future.

Also, along with the Artifact characters (Witchblade, The Darkness, The Angelus, Tom Judge etc) we can use any characters featured in the 2012 - 2014 versions of Cyber Force and Aphrodite XI.

My question for Matt is... does this mean characters from earlier versions of Cyber Force and Aphrodite XI cannot be included? Obviously, these characters are no longer in continuity, but can we reinvent characters from the previous series and use these new versions of them?

Now, time to do some research and formulate some ideas.

[adamsoandso]

According to the pdf (click the link in the article to download) we can use any character; past, present or future.

Actually, Pauul, it says you can use only those characters listed but past, present, or future VERSIONS of them are allowed. Not any character at all. Still a pretty big list.

[flashparker]

The pdf doesn't specify how many sequential pages should be submitted by artists. Is there a specific amount or range?

[jmo]

Hey Matt, have a question, for artists, do we need to draw the full script or just certain amount of pages?, also, in case an artist participate in another contest, lets say in the spawn fan art contest and he win, does that makes him unable to participate in the talent hunt?

[Pauul]

Does the link work for anyone?

Computer says "NO" to me :-(

I'm not having any trouble downloading, but here is some of the information included in the document.

Actually, Pauul, it says you can use only those characters listed but past, present, or future VERSIONS of them are allowed. Not any character at all. Still a pretty big list.

While Cyber Force and Aphrodite XI are specific characters, the thirteen Artifacts have had multiple bearers.

Unless you thought I meant any characters at all? Then yes, it does say they need to be Top Cow Universe characters. No Batman, Superman etc.

As with the last Talent Hunt, you can create original characters to feature in the story but you are discouraged from doing so as your script will be considered derivative work and thus, Top Cow will take ownership of said characters.

You're also encouraged to focus on a single character.

The list of characters that can be used are;

Witchblade
The Darkness
The Angelus
Heart Stone
Wheel of Shadows
Coin of Solomon
Ember Stone
Pandora's Box
The Glacier Stone
Spear of Destiny
The Thirteenth Artifact
The Rapture
The Blood Sword
Aphrodite XI
Cyber Force

Script should be twenty-two pages long, no synopsis to be submitted.

There are sample scripts included for artists, but obviously I can't re-post those here. However, if you're a writer and are having trouble downloading, that should be enough to go on for the moment. The pdf is pretty similar to the previous versions of the Talent Hunt. If anything, we just have more freedom.

Yeah, that's a lot of characters. I'm somewhat overwhelmed with all that we can choose from. This should be a lot of fun, though.

[Harry Koverr]

The rules about which "characters" we can use are a little confusing. At one point the PDF says that any submissions that feature "those characters [listed] AND other characters not on the list will not be reviewed and their submission will be disregarded." Taken literally, this would suggest that there can't be supporting characters in the script that are not existing Top Cow characters included in the list given. Can this actually be what is meant, or am I taking this too literally? (When the rules say that violations of the rules won't even be reviewed, and will be thrown away, it makes me want to make sure I understand the rules properly!)

Then later it says "In past years I've been asked if writers can create new characters. Yes you can do this but you are STRONGLY encouraged NOT to." Now this, taken literally, not only seems to give permission (even if it's discouraged) for "new" supporting characters, but it could even be taken to mean "new" LEAD characters. And yet that would contradict the rule that only characters from the list can be used.

A further source of confusion is that "artifacts" are being called "characters". Obviously a past or future bearer of an ARTIFACT as is probably a new CHARACTER--in fact, IIRC, last year we were supposed to make up a "new" past or future bearer of one of the artifacts. That's certainly what I did. And yet other people in this thread are saying things like "As with the last Talent Hunt, you can create original characters to feature in the story but you are discouraged from doing so..." This makes me wonder if I misunderstood the guidelines last year. Were we strongly discouraged from creating original CHARACTERS (not ARTIFACTS)? I thought we were supposed to create original characters using existing artifacts.

I'm not trying to seem difficult here, I just find that there are a lot of nuances here to keep track of, and the use of "characters" and "artifacts" as interchangeable terms doesn't help.

I just want to make sure my entry isn't discarded without even being looked at. At this point I'm not even 100% sure that isn't what happened last year.

[AlexThompson]

Will there be another major discount at the Top Cow store for those seeking research material? I think last time the code was "TAL3NT14" and ran from Sept to Nov?

[Harry Koverr]

Another question. Last year someone asked in the forums if we are allowed to submit more than one submission. At first the answer given was "no", and then this was retracted and changed to "yes". I've just looked through the guidelines for this year and can't seem to find this addressed, so I'm wondering if multiple submissions are allowed again this year.

[prismablue]

Do artists need to work from a sample script?

[Javia]

Couple of questions. How many pages are we allow to summit? How many time can we summit work? Whats the deadline?
I already downloaded the documents and I didn't see any info on those questions.

[Shawnmilazzo]

Dear Top Cow Team, I was wondering if I could use parallel realities for my writers submission. I see that the rules are "We've decided to open it up a bit this year and your submission can feature any present, past, or future versions of the Top Cow Universe characters using 13 Artifacts from this list or any of the characters featured in the 2012-2014 publications of Aphrodite IX or Cyber Force." But was wondering if a parallel universe could be allowed? Specifically a past use of an artifact with a new character set in a parallel world.

[Andrew1]

Hello, for the sample scripts for the artists to work from, most of these are full length scripts, except for Artifacts 6 which is 6 pages and Artifacts 8 which is 10 pages. Were there page ranges for the others you guys had in mind but got missed or are you waiting to see how many people hand in something that's not Artifacts 6?