In this week's New York Times Magazine, which was devoted almost entirely to films, Ben Ehrenreich took a look at the business model of Scott Mitchell Rosenberg's Platinum Studios.  Specifically Ehrenreich examined the 'strange' case of Cowboys & Aliens, a supposed 'comic book' property that was sold to the studios years before it ever saw print.  As Ehrenreich points out, although Platinum had been pitching projects including Cowboys & Aliens to Hollywood since its inception in 1997, 'Platinum didn't bother printing any of its comics, in fact, until late last year.' 

Perhaps because Men in Black, which Rosenberg published at Malibu, was a mediocre-selling comic at best before it and its sequel sold nearly a billion dollars worth of movie tickets at the box office, Rosenberg doesn't seem all that interested in being just a comic book publisher.  He certainly doesn't appear concerned about the controversy surrounding Entertainment Weekly's anointing of Cowboys & Aliens as the #1 best-seller on its comic and graphic novel list (now there's a real 'stealth hit').

A property's comic book origins are now something to be trumpeted rather than hidden, with many writers from the worlds of movie and TV now writing comics, and a number of studios and Hollywood money men investing in comic book publishing companies.  So now the relationship between the worlds of movies and comic books has become so incestuous and complex that the 'real' origins of new comic book/movie properties may soon be as difficult to decipher as the Rosetta Stone.