Writers Strike - Go read your TV
During the writers’ strike our favorite shows are running out of new episodes. Some eagerly anticipated ones may not show up this year at all. Meanwhile, episodes are being sold online with a pittance going back to the writers who thunk ‘em up, or streamed online — in essence, a rerun — without paying the writers anything.
Which puts us in a dilemma. We want the writers to get their fair share, so we’re willing to wait as long as it takes for that to happen. But we also want new adventures, new stories in our favorite worlds. Where do we go?
Well, there’s always comics.
TFAW.com is promoting their TV- and movie-tie-in comics. Serenity, Buffy, Angel, CSI, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Star Wars, Supernatural, The Simpsons, Alias, and many more are all there in brand new adventures. Granted, not all of the writers get paid for each one of those sold, either, but those deals were known ahead of time. And some of them do. Personally, I hope Joss gets rich from the record-breaking sales of Buffy, Angel, and Serenity. It might encourage him to write a few more…
Then there’s the tie-in novels. Buy his Buffy book, for example, and Keith R.A. DeCandido gets a royalty. See how easy that is? Support a writer and go read some Buffy
Me, I’m holding off on buying any epsiodes from iTunes or Amazon’s Unbox, and I’m avoiding the networks’ websites. Books and comics will hold me for awhile.
If you need more suggestion on ways to help writers during the strike, head to www.fans4writers.com . You’ll find a lot of people there with great ideas, and the occasional visiting writer or showrunner.
