For a long time Sony held the rights to Frank Cho’s Liberty Meadows series, but now it looks like Cho has the rights back, and can proceed with new stories and issues.
Yes, Liberty Meadows is alive and well. I’ve been quietly working on it since I got my rights back from Sony. Issue 38 will hopefully come out end of this year.
Let’s back track a minute. About 3 years ago, Sony got the rights to Liberty Meadows to develop it as a downloadable original cartoon series for their new Sony Digital division. I wrote the original pilot episode but it was rejected for being too “risque”. So other writers were brought in to tone it down and make it more kid friendly. Once I read the rewrite, I thought it completely missed the point of Liberty Meadows. So I rewrote the rewrite, and this went back and forth couple of times until we reached a compromised script. We turned that script into an traditional 2D animated pilot episode.
Enter Sony Television division. They saw the pilot episode and liked it. Liberty Meadows get bumped up to their television division and a TV series is planned. However there is one request, Sony Television people wanted Liberty Meadows to be more “risque” with adult humor like the “Family Guy”. This is the point where I rip my hair out in frustration. Sony Digital people rejected my original script for that very reason, for being too “risque”.
So I go back and re-polish the original script, adding more scenes to make it longer to fit the television episode time frame. As I’m doing this, a new Sony television contract is being drafted to replace my Sony digital contract. Then the recession hit. Then the three Sony executives who were shepherding this project along since the beginning leave Sony. The new guy who takes over have no interest in projects started by his predecessors. Thus Liberty Meadows TV show goes into limbo… and we wait and wait. Ultimately under the inactivity clause, all the Liberty Meadows rights revert back to me, and concludes my 2 year journey at Sony.
Now Liberty Meadows is back home, firmly under my complete control again.
Will I turn Liberty Meadows into a movie or a TV show? Sure, if the right offer comes along. However until that offer comes, I’m going to enjoy writing and drawing the next misadventures of Brandy and crew at Liberty Meadows with no suits looking over my shoulder telling me which market I should target.
Well this is nothing but good news, as far as I’m concerned, Cho’s series is one of the best drawn strips, with some very funny storylines, and I for one can’t wait for it to get back on the store shelves.
6 Comments
Good to hear he’s coming back. I can see where the animal characters in Liberty Meadows would adapt well to animation, but I’m not sure about the human ones; part of the humor is the juxtaposition of the more “real” Frank & Brandy with the critters. Seeing it vanish from the funny pages helped to shove it towards its long-overdue demise (along with some subsequent cancellations, while zombie strips shamble on & on without hope of end), so I’m glad it’s out of rights limbo.
Hallelujah! Since the comics were recyclings and revisions of the old strips, I thought Monkey Boy had just run of of material and let it die, but this is excellent news.
Now all we need is another Jungle Girl run.
I never knew this kind of red tape could tie up a series for so long. I guess that’s the tradeoff for getting a fat wad of cash to sell your creative property to be butchered by a souless corportation that will find any which way to mangle your creative vision. But, a lot of money would ease the pain.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!
Don’t get your hopes up too high.
I’ve talked to Cho a couple of times in the past where he’s promised another issue “by the end of the year” or so. Once he started working for Marvel, his Liberty Meadows came out painfully slow. He put out what, maybe 3 issues in 4 years or something. Even when he was reprinting stuff that was already done for newspapers, it only came out once every 2 to 4 months.
Cho gets paid much more by Marvel than what he makes on Liberty Meadows, so don’t expect a new monthly comic here. I’d be supprised if more than one issue every nine months or so.
At this point, any new Liberty Meadows would be welcome.
And I meant to ask, is that a new sketch? I don’t recall seeing it before.