No More Journal Entries
I am stopping posting journal entries here. I decided to try writing these in 2013 and since that time not a single comment or like -in fact I doubt anyone has even read them!
Cutting back on that aspect of things means I have more free time so....hang on....no one will read this anyway""
The one thing I have learnt in publishing, particularly comics, is that the creator is the person who always gets screwed over. Did I start out thinking that I was going to be the new Kirby? John Buscema or Sal Buscema? Of course not. I am not that good. I just loved comics and my intention back in the late 1970s was to be a publisher of Independent comics.
I bought rights to characters and got royally screwed with that in some cases but things were going fairly well until I found myself writing scripts and having people ask if I could draw a 3-4pp strip to fill in a Small Press publication. That was how it worked up until the mid 1990s and Small Pressers kept in touch by letter or phone. I once put the word out that I needed a 4pp strip to complete an issue and within two weeks I had 20pp sent in. We all helped each other out and only ever expected a "Thanks" and copy of the zine in question.
The one thing the internet did was not just destroy real comic fandom but it killed the creativity and cooperation. Ben Dilworth, his work appeared in a lot of Small Press publications and he's worked with me a LOT over the last 30 odd years; he was known for trying new things such as printing comic covers on brown paper -the type used for groceries or envelopes. Together we put together Previews New Talent comic that got a lot of creators work and used a technique for the covers Dilworth had developed; we used sheets of acetate to put through copiers and beneath these were designs created with templates and auto spray can colours. That creativity is gone now.
The one thing I found was that two people working on a project where, if it sold, the money was split 50-50 is a thing of the past. One artist thought it was a great deal then, about ten pages in, he decided that he wanted paying from me for each page even though I had no money and we had made a deal. He also decided that if the project sold he wanted 60% plus the right to sell off the art ...and from there it got ridiculous. In the end he told me that he was aiming high and really did not need to prove himself; in three years he would be raking in money at Marvel Comics. 22 years on he has vanished from the comics scene.
I have worked with so many artists who all decided that 20pp per month was far, far too much. One I knew produced great artwork and I even got two publishers interested enough in projects to want to see more. One day I phoned him and his mother answered telling me he did not want to talk to me. I thought it was a mistake so I explained who I was. Yep, he did not want to talk to me -but why?? Well, if you work with someone as partners you keep them up-to-date on projects and who they have been submitted to because that is what you do. Apparently this artist only ever wanted to hear from me if there was success and he did not want to hear that a publisher had turned down anything. As far as I know he no longer works in comics which is a loss to comics.
Another I worked with and then he vanished but one day, sending a publisher a comic I had written and he had drawn I was told "Are you two trying to pull a stroke?" I was told that the strip was well known and had been submitted to himself as well as several other editors and publishers in the last year or so but under a different title -he even sent me scans of the other strip. I checked and the email for the artist was correct so I contacted him again. Oh, big mistake -if he sold the strip he was going to let me know so that we both earned from it. He never did explain why my name as creator and writer had been removed and the title altered nor why he had not told me about sending the strip to editors (I had sent him an email each time I submitted the strip and he confirmed having received those emails).
Another artist did not tell me that he had talked a deal out with a U.S. publisher. Well, when I write "talked a deal" I mean that he was told what the deal would be and rolled over to have his belly tickled. Basically, I had to sign over the rights to my character and remove his appearances in any of my comics which, as he was involved in long running plotlines was something I was not going to do. The rest of the deal was that this publisher would put out the book I had created and written and I had to sign away the rights for 7 years and after that point the publisher would decide what and if he was going to pay us. He had everything lined up -mugs, t-shirts, posters and he was basically one of those people who milked public domain images to make money. The character involved was based on a real early 20th century magician so there was plenty to milk and that included any TV rights (?). So; he got to use my -our- work for 7 years without paying us and at the end of those 7 years he would decide whether he was going to pay us anything BUT as I signed the rights over he could continue not paying us and using the work and profiting from it because we would have given him it all legally. Worse was that the artist told him "I think the writer is still contactable" (We were in weekly email contact) and took credit for the creation.
With Fantagraphic Books I found that a contract meant nothing. I did work for their adult Eros Comix line and the first book, Two Hot Girls on a Hot Summer's Night was not just credited as having a strong storyline but was their biggest seller and ran into several reprints and then graphic novel form. Apparently I was a pain in the arse in negotiating and I and the artist got 8% royalty (there is no completed work fee) and we got screwed on that. Also the contract stated any reprint would be subject to negotiation but they simply reprinted without asking or telling us. Permission was ONLY for English language editions yet when the internet became a thing we found the company had sold rights to Spain, Canada, France and elsewhere. We got toilet paper after confronting the company. With the second best selling book, Maeve, we gave up after a couple of years. Illegal downloads of both books run into the millions and the publisher had no interest in stopping this. Where I contacted uploaders I explained that it was copyright theft and that this was our work and even offered them a deal of 50 cents and $1 a download...they simply moved the downloads to other sites so while I and the artist still living struggle to pay bills just that 50c would have made us multi millionaires by 2018. If you download comics it is theft and you are robbing independent creators.
I could go on and on, including a certain UK company (Fleetway) that stiffed me out of £5000 worth of payments but told me to contact the editor involved who it seems took the money (apparently the company had no way (convenient) of contacting him) but all of these problems led me to take full responsibility for publishing my books as a black and white independent. Ben Dilworth is the only person I work with these days because, unfortunately, I have no trust in current creators.
So if you want a career in comics do not expect to become a Marvel super star or DC big earner. Very, very few achieve that and it involves a lot of brown-nosing and even stabbing friends in the back.
Do it your way and, please, try not to screw creators over.
Rheumatoid arthritis crippling the hands, fibromyalgia racking the old bod (I said "racking the old bod" not "rocking"), eyes fecked and online tech problems then I get this in my email:
Dear Lulu User, Effective 1 August 2021, there will be an update to our pricing. This affects any new projects created and printed after the effective date. An overview of these updates is below: Our print facilities have experienced an increase in all areas of the supply chain over the last 12 months and we’ve done our best to absorb as much of them as we can. Manufacture rates across all product types have been updated, which represents an average price increase of 8.5%. Existing projects will not experience the pricing update unless a revision is made or the price is edited by you. Thank you for your continued support as we help your books reach customers across the globe!
In case this is all new to you it isn't to me or people who use print on demand (POD). Irt has happened five times before and let me explain what this means.
No, the price of current books will not be affected. How this works is that the "difference" is taken out of sales money for those books. Considering that I have deliberately priced all of my books as low as I can and get (after the POD and Printer and in the US the IRS take their cut) ....well, to be honest only a few pence on some books and selling one of the 300+ pp books with the low cover price of £20 makes me £1.95 (just think of that as being in $s).
I am seriously left with a few options.
One is to withdraw the books from sale and considering all the pain the POD has put me through in the past to get the books uploaded...no.
Leave the books priced as they are and basically give them away for free.
The other option is one I do not like but that involves pushing up the cover prices before their date of reckoning to a truer commercial rate.
Therefore it is option 3 as it is the only real choice I have. So if there are books on the store front you have been thinking about buying best to do so before the suddent dumped on us 1st August.
A reminder that you are not paying extortionate international postal fees when you order online, Print on demand books mean that you order them in your currency and they are printed IN your region and so your regional postage rates apply. This is why the books can get to you so fast -its all regionalised around the world -Japan, Australia, Malaysia, any part of Africa or Europe. Easy. https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/hoopercomicsuk
I have to keep making this all clear. But I have until 1st August to start working out the new higher prices and after that......
Looking glass
I know what you are thinking: "Looking Glass was the Fleetway character project, wasn't it?"
If I'm going to be honest with myself I doubt you are thinking that -unless you've read past posts or are on the Face Book group?
Anyway, Looking Glass was a project for Marvel UK that disappeared up some editor's bottom. I then used the title for this series, written in the early 1990s and guess what? I know who the artist is!
I always insisted that artists do the simplest thing so they got credit and their pages could be easily identified (at one time I got between 30-70 art packages a week). Only two artists ever bothered. No name on this art but I have my synopsis with the artist's name -Simon Russell.
I cannot remember whether it was Fantagraphics or another US Indie publisher but the series was grabbed and...guess what? Yep, the artist vanished without trace and left me in the lurch. I loved the art style and the characters came out even more eccentrically than I thought they could.
Basically, childrens author "Tez" is not having a good time and is rather startled when his own reflection gets "shirty" with him. Our hero (in the loosest term) finds himself in a mirror world...he hopes. If it is not an insane mirror dimension then our lad has truly lost his marbles. https://blacktowerbooks.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-look-into-past-part-2-looking-glass.html