NYT comics industry specialist George Gene Gustines has a story this morning about Zudacomics.com, the upcoming online venture from DC Comics which will enable aspiring cartoonists to submit samples of their work to be judged, American Idol-style, by DC editors and fans, with the winners receiving one-year contracts to develop their webcomics further. "We're going into this with no ego," says creative services director Ron Perazza. "We can't possibly know what an entire community will want to read."

In a conversation with Newsarama's Matt Brady, Perazza expands on that statement: "The internet community is pretty critical to the success of a webcomic, and we want to invest a lot in that community and grow that community and work with that community to determine what we're going to publish, not just publish stuff to give to them." Brady had several questions about the specific nature of the contracts DC would be offering its webcomics artists, most of which were deflected with promises that the terms would be made transparent once the site is officially launched. "This is us really recognizing that there is a lot of material out there, and a lot of creators out there that are really good, and we want to do business with," Perazza emphasized, "and we're okay with investing in that, in time, effort, and money, for the future."