Greenlighting Comic Book Pilots

Top Cow Productions, Marc Silvestri's studio and a comics publishing imprint/partner of Image Comics, has hit upon a fabulous business idea that invites fans to participate in publishing decisions.

According to an ICv2 website article:

For the second year in a row Top Cow has uploaded the first issue of six different comic series to its Website, emulating the TV networks that greenlight a number of different TV series pilots–with the big difference being that the decisions on which "pilots" to pick up for a full season (or in the case of Top Cow, to publish) are made in Top Cow's case by fans who vote on which of the six comic book pilots they would like to see become regular series, whereas in the world of TV it's the network executives who get to decide, not the general public.

This sounds like a great opportunity for emerging comic creators. We'd love to see the day when there's such a thing on television or the comics press as American Comics Idol!