I have been asked twice now so will respond.
“What deal did you have with artists -financial and creative?”
Right. The deal was usually that any money made would be split 50-50. The artist, obviously, retains all rights to the artwork but not to publish as a full book. Usually artists can sell pages of artwork which makes up for no big earnings. This is comics after all. In the past I have given artists who were struggling a 70% deal so I lost out.
I create characters, write the scripts then do any editing and then push any finished project to publishers that pay. All of the costs of doing this come out out my pocket. I kept artists informed of who packages went off to, when that publisher received the package and as soon as a response came back.
There are no ifs, buts or maybes and if you work with someone you have to be 100% honest and up front.
Unfortunately the biggest, only really, thing that has gone wrong originated with artists. I have worked with some that find completing 20pp of art per month “too much”. I have worked with artists who have fallen behind on work (big time) as they “had a skinful with some mates so took a few days to recover” -yeah, a publisher will say “good for you” if an artist falls behind on work because they spend most of their time getting drunk!
Another artist working on a four issue mini series was very happy when I got a deal for us and he had 9 months to produce issues 2, 3 and 4 (I never pushed a project unless issue 1 was fully drawn). So I waited. I waited some more. The publisher asked how things were going? I checked with the artist who took a lot of finding (he moved without telling me) and I asked how far he had gotten with the work? “Is that still a thing? Have we got any money?” he replied. I had to explain to the publisher that the artist was no longer interested. How do you make money from doing nothing??
Another artist had a great style. Another publisher loved it and the look. We got a deal for a six issue series. First issue done. Second issue done. Then silence but I let the fella get on with it until I had a phone call from the publisher asking what the hell was going on? I asked “in what sense?” I was told there had been a complete style change and “it’s goddam awful! Its crap!” I was faxed a copy of one page. The artist had bypassed me completely and sent issues 3-4 directly to the publisher and had decided that a form of abstract style was best. I explained that he could not do that as we had a deal based on what we presented to thye publisher. “It’s my artwork and my style they can publish that or nothing”. Nothing.
How many times have I had artists doing “the dirty” on me? A few times. I submitted a one off 23pp story to a publisher and got an email back saying this strip had already been submitted twice. I phoned him and said that he must be mistaken as I had never submitted it to him before. He then told m,e he had been talking to another publisher and shown him the strip and was told “Oh, yeah. I’ve had that submitted a couple of times this last year”. I asked whether he could send me a page of what had been submitted. He sent me the full pdf. Yes, it was the character I created, the story I wrote and it was drawn by the artist I worked with. However, he had removed my name from the credits and had himself as creator/writer/artist. When confronted he told me “I didn’t know how to contact you and thought you’d left comics” which is pure vbull shit as I am the easiest person to find on the internet. He then went quiet.
Another was making a deal behind my back with another leech publisher (someone who grabs the rights to anything he can then exploit for t-shirts, mugs, posters and more) and was quite willing to sign away all rights for nothing except a promise of any money made “might” be forwarded based on what the publisher thought it deserved -or not because signing away the rights and him publishing for 6 years meant it was ‘his’ property. This happened twice and in both cases the artists had “no idea if he (me) is still contactable”…..
The final straw was when I found that Fleetway had artists submit my created work. Gil Page actually showed me the letters from the artists and the photocopied art.
Publishers you keep an eye on as they will screw you over but when you cannot trust the person you work with….
An answer and a moan!
Comic Bits 
