Concept art from my new superhero comic

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

It's also a lot tougher for creators to get the big companies interested in taking on brand new characters, they seem more geared to getting artists to churn out 'template' variations of established successes: I remember bringing in carbon-copies of Bob Nixon-type drawings at DCT to one Editor, and this was very enthusiastically recieved, and circulated around 3 different Editors [including both the BEANO and DANDY] very quickly indeed.

Conversely, brand new ideas I took in were always dismissed outright as being far too 'un-commercial' , ie: totally unlike the Thomson house style of Baxendale or Nixon, and eventually I just stopped pushing my own characters.

Maybe the characters I made up weren't very good, however any brand new concept needs a decent time to grow 'legs":


witness many BBC comedies/dramas that take at least 2 series before they get decent ratings/find their feet-----the creative person has to start somewhere and this is still an extremely hard hurdle to conquer.

[Michael Anden]

I worked with a guy who struck a creator-owned licensing deal with Corgi at the '06 New York Toy Fair, where he was pitching at his stand. I guess that the whole merch thing can be done, provide you put yourself out there and say no to someone who wants 'everything'. I don't what kind of cut he is (or was) making but I guess any at all in the cutthroat IP world is good.

[Lew Stringer]

For freelance creative people, Lew, their intellectual property is their likely livelihood and it never makes any sense - except for the big company - to just give it away. No respectable company would ask for you to hand it over for nothing, and freelancers should pull this kind of illegitimate practice out into the light and refuse it.

That sounds very idealistic but in the day to day reality of being a freelancer the situation is entirely different. We're not "handing it over for nothing". We're getting a higher page rate than we would if we published it independently.

I know some creators negotiate a lower rate with certain publishers so they can retain the rights. (I know of one who supplied his strip for nothing so he could keep the rights.) It depends on the practicalities of each individual. Some artists have spouses and families to help pay the bills. Some of us don't. Some artists have 9 to 5 jobs and freelance in their spare time. Most of us don't.

I do own the rights to some of my characters from over the years (Combat Colin, Suburban Satanists, Derek the Troll, Brickman, etc) but I'll still sign away rights on some new characters if necessary if that's how that company operates. Refusing to do that and struggling to live would show a lack of common sense, not accepting their conditions and surviving.

[Raven]

That sounds very idealistic but in the day to day reality of being a freelancer the situation is entirely different. We're not "handing it over for nothing". We're getting a higher page rate than we would if we published it independently.

You're getting paid for the pages you do, but you're handing over your all-important intellectual property rights for nothing - which is actually short changing yourself financially, potentially to the sum of a fortune that could keep you in clover for the rest of your life. If your creation becomes the next Ben 10, and you're still struggling to pay the bills ...

This isn't idealistic - it's standard practice in every other industry, and becoming more so in comics. If you told a literary agent you'd just handed over your property, all rights, all control, forever, for nowt, she'd most likely fall off her chair!

I know some creators negotiate a lower rate with certain publishers so they can retain the rights. (I know of one who supplied his strip for nothing so he could keep the rights.)

Obviously one should never supply it for nothing - this is sheer exploitation, and any disreputable publisher wanting this should be shunned and blacklisted - but I'd say always negotiate the lower rate (if they can justify that) and retain the rights, because you just never know what's going to hit it big. (Who'd have thought Marvo the Wonder Chicken would have got a TV series? What if Dreamworks had seen it, and were interested in taking it further...?) Otherwise, work on the characters they've created and own.

Good to hear you do own lots of your characters! Do you try to exploit the ones from your back catalogue?

[Raven]

I worked with a guy who struck a creator-owned licensing deal with Corgi at the '06 New York Toy Fair, where he was pitching at his stand. I guess that the whole merch thing can be done, provide you put yourself out there and say no to someone who wants 'everything'. I don't what kind of cut he is (or was) making but I guess any at all in the cutthroat IP world is good.

Yes, and companies do increasingly try for "all rights" deals nowadays, whereas you'd ideally want to be able to sell every individual revenue stream: book rights, film rights, game rights, merchandising rights, foreign rights, etc. separately. The important thing is to properly negotiate any deal that's put forward, or, ideally, if it does look like something might be about to take off, have an agent or - even better -a solicitor (for a one-off payment, rather than a lifelong 15%) do so, but, basically, you do want counsel to make sure you don't get screwed.

[Lew Stringer]

Again, this is very idealistic stuff, Raven. Obviously I don't know your real name but if you've managed to carve out a good comics career whilst retaining rights to all of your characters then well done.

Yes, some UK comic publishers are more willing to talk about creators rights now. (I think The Phoenix may be one of them.) But for most of UK comics history, the publisher has owned all rights. This of course goes back to the days when characters would be created by editors, so the artist would obviously have no rights to it. The situation isn't quite the same now but I don't think it helps to say we lacked common sense.

It still comes down to a freelancer needing to pay the bills. There are a lot of artists after a decreasing amount of work now, so get too demanding and the editors will simply look elsewhere.

Yes, IF a character becomes the next big thing you lose out, but of the thousands of British comic characters over the last 100 years how many have crossed over into other merchandise? Not that many.

[Raven]

Yes, some UK comic publishers are more willing to talk about creators rights now. (I think The Phoenix may be one of them.) But for most of UK comics history, the publisher has owned all rights. This of course goes back to the days when characters would be created by editors, so the artist would obviously have no rights to it.

Absolutely, they were mostly in-house staff created, but there's no justification nowadays for a publisher to say "I want you to hand over all rights to your original concept to us, and we're going to give you nothing for it in return."

Yes, IF a character becomes the next big thing you lose out, but of the thousands of British comic characters over the last 100 years how many have crossed over into other merchandise? Not that many.

Yes, not many British comic characters - though plenty of comic characters - over the last 100 years, but whereas UK comics used to be a fairly self-contained industry, there's a "multi-platform" sensibility now, where companies are likely to be looking into how your concept might play over multiple types of media from the start.

The freelance situation is fairly appalling in most media nowadays, unfortunately, but is wanting more than nothing for your creative property rights really being too demanding?

[Lew Stringer]

Absolutely, they were mostly in-house staff created, but there's no justification nowadays for a publisher to say "I want you to hand over all rights to your original concept to us, and we're going to give you nothing for it in return."

Again, if retaining full rights is working successfully for you then that's brilliant, but it's difficult being able to relate to your better situation without knowing who you are.

All I can do is reiterate that for many of us the harsh necessity of freelancing is that we go for the best thing we can at the time. Which often means letting publishers have the rights, rather than freelancers keeping the rights but accepting a lower page rate. We can always create other characters for our own projects if we wish to, but it's choosing the option that pays the bills that shows the "common sense" you think we lack.

[abacus]

All great art is based on talent and originality, artists that went their own way regardless of success.Examples such as Van Gogh, Lowry, Beryl Cook the list is endless.If you're tied in with a publisher and need to make a living it's tough, but if you are starting out and fear rejection or not, you might as well ignore whats gone before and do the work that you want ,with the hope someday it will be recognised.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

(Who'd have thought Marvo the Wonder Chicken would have got a TV series? What if Dreamworks had seen it, and were interested in taking it further...?)

In the early 90s I worked for Spielbergs' theatrical animation unit in London, at that time it was under the Amblin umbrella, and some of the bosses there are now still bosses, but at Dreamworks.

This outfit was definitely the most blinkered, non-forward looking 'creative unit' I have ever encountered, and is still likely run by seasoned hacks, who are not only exploiting the creativity of others, but are stifling real progress and are only interested in putting out tried-and-tested formulae: they make the conservative DCT look like a creative powerhouse in comparison.

[philcom55]

According to Mark Evanier Jack Kirby reached the point where he couldn't bear to enter a branch of Toys R Us because he got so upset by the sight of all the countless toys that were based on characters he'd created but for which he received no royalties.

- Phil Rushton

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Some commentators claim that George Lucas lifted [wholesale] much of Kirbys' imagery from his comic-books and supplanted it directly into STAR WARS, generating billions in the process.

I can see where this observation is coming from, but I never noticed this until it was pointed out.


In the meantime, here's a link to the USA AMAZON site where I have criticized [hopefully with some justification] a book put out by one of the Producers I worked under at Amblin, no response on this yet at the time of writing, but I hope this now-DREAMWORKS producer actually reads what I have written here,

[hope the link works]

My piece is entitled


If you Want to be the next Walt Disney, look elsewhere


http://www.amazon.com/Animating-Your-Ca ... Descending

[Raven]

According to Mark Evanier Jack Kirby reached the point where he couldn't bear to enter a branch of Toys R Us because he got so upset by the sight of all the countless toys that were based on characters he'd created but for which he received no royalties.

- Phil Rushton

It's extraordinary that similar conditions to those Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had to work under in the comics industry of 1938 still continue 76 years later - except much worse. It was little consolation when their creation started to make multi-millions, but at least Siegel and Shuster sold the rights to Superman for a measly $130 dollars, which would be worth just over $2,000 dollars today, and weren't expected to just give them away for free.

[Michael Anden]

Fundamental to Ryzar's conquest of the universe's oldest surviving planet is the lifeforce-shielded, endless labyrinth of rock encasing the dark god's Command & Control Centre. Every shard-laden turn among its stratosphere-scraping mesas leads to a warren of searing defense mechanisms and spectral sentries with which evolution never intended to burden the world.



"You have no cause to hide. We know you want peace. We seek only to bring you that gift."

[Michael Anden]

Much of the ubiquitous and seemingly homogeneous debris roaming the cosmos is abundant with bounties of which man knows nothing, but the war machine of Ryzar's Black Legion knows plenty.