I guess posting complete stories online for anyone to see (which has always been the purpose of SpinachChin.com) devalues the work, at least according to Harlan Ellison. He posed the question – what value does our work have if we give it away for free? Easy for him to say, since the financial status from his work is “not inconsiderable” (according to his intro to Astro City: Family Album, which for me was the weakest of an otherwise exemplary series).
But ideas have cachet too – and we have been recycling those for years. How many times have episodes from The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits been recycled into movies? You know M. Night is trolling the archives, desperate for a hit. Maybe he should try a “remake” of A Boy and His Dog. It would be easy for him to repackage it as his own brilliant creation. That would really piss off Ellison.
