Claims
1. All claims are made in the Monthly Claim Thread (MCT) and the availability of characters can be checked in the Master Claim Thread (MLC). All claims must be made prior to the release of your first issue. Once your first issue is posted, your claims are frozen until you are eligible to make new claims. Please check the availability of the characters prior to claiming.
2. Character claims must be in the following format:
Character:
Title:
Role (Hero, Villain or Support)
Title requests must be made in the following format
Title:
Writer(s):
Subtitle:
Heroes:
Villains:
Support:
Wallpaper:
3. Roles are defined as:
Hero(es): The stars of the book. So yes, villains can be heroes depending on the book.
Villains: The antagonists of the book. Yes, heroes can be villains depending on the book.
Support: Characters who do not fill one of the above roles
Wallpaper: These are support characters that are tied to a character or mythos that when removed, lose what makes them unique. Characters such as Perry White, Lois Lane, Vicki Vale, The Baker Family, ect are wallpapers in this respect. Or they are characters where they are essentially the same character as a previous version such as the first Black Canary and Hippolyta.
Characters who are under two mythos, despite their role being wallpapers must still be claimed.
Wallpapers are semi-arbitrary and the final rule will be based on the decisions of the admins. Therefore wallpapers must be claimed at the time of the title request.
4. Any unclaimed character can be claimed for a title, except sidekicks, legacy characters or closely associated (as outlined in rule 5). Certain characters may be required to full the role of a hero or a villain rather than support. However, all reasonable claims will be accepted, especially where declaring such a role may be a spoiler to the story. Some characters may be reserved for board wide use. These characters are not eligible to be claimed by individuals, but can be used with permission.
5. Sidekicks, legacy characters, and closely associated characters are not eligible to be claimed, except when given permission by the main character’s writer. Let’s say, Star is writing Superman. If someone wishes to do a Supergirl title, they have to ask Star’s permission. If someone tries to claim The Joker, it has to be approved by the Batman writer.
Note:This essentially gives dibs to certain writers for certain characters, but it doesn’t give them the right to hoard the dib. They must claim the character in a reasonable amount of time.6. Characters can only be claimed for an ongoing series. If you wish, you may do a mini series, but you can only use characters that you have claimed or gained permission to use by another writer. Writers must have one title in continuity before they can write a mini series.
7. New solo titles are allowed to have 17 characters while new teams are allowed to have 20. To ensure claims are getting used, hero and support characters must be used within the first 8 issues or they must be reclaimed by the author as one of their monthly claims or will be returned to the unclaimed character pool. Villains must be used within 12 issues or they must be reclaimed. Every reclaimed character is only worth one half of a claim.
Note: Please fill out your claims list with characters you will use. We want you to have a varied claims list to tell varied stories, but there is nothing more frustrating for a new writer to see a character just sitting on someone’s claim list not being used.7a. Spinoffs are different in terms of claim, since you’re allowed to get them earlier. It will be 10 characters for a solo spinoff, 15 characters for a team spinoff.
8. In some circumstances, groups and organizations can be claimed in one slot, such as H.I.V.E. or The Royal Flush Gang. In other cases, they’re not. Sometimes you have to claim a few members before claiming a whole team. This is on a case-by-case basis. All questions can be PMed to an admin or asked in the MCT.
8a. For the most part, you will need to claim the leader and then the name of the group, if there is no main leader, claim one member and then the group name. Again it depends on the group. If someone is writing Batman and then claim Catwoman and then try to claim the Secret Society of Villains, that won’t fly.
9. After you have released two issues of a title, you may claim 2 additional claims per month. You may only claim characters for the title that is eligible. Let’s say you write Batman & Teen Titans. If Batman is eligible for additional claims and Teen Titans is not, you may not claim new characters for Teen Titans.
9a. Under certain conditions, you may gain an additional claim if you make multiple reviews of substance (more than I liked it or I didn't like it) for the month. One way is to review seven issues. The other is by reviewing half of the issues for the current month posted by the 21st of the month. This does not mean you get two claims. One or the other. The reason for this is because we have many members who are up to date and current with our titles whereas some are behind because they are new or otherwise behind and can review their backlog for the total of seven.
9b. If you are writing two or more titles, you are entitled to one additional claim. All other claiming rules apply to that one claim.
10. You can only make additional claims when all of your titles (not counting co-written tites) are for that month released.
11. You may post claims for properties outside of the DC Universe, but they will require pitches and approval by the admins. Some creator owned work will be taken off the table entirely.
