And The Beat Goes On….

…which some may think is a double entendre but it is not.  I’m referring to the fact that people seem to think I’m a multi-millionaire and will work for free.

Firstly, as noted over the last 3-4 years here on CBO, I get requests for help/info from students working on degree papers -their chosen subject being comics.  I’ve not heard from any of the six I helped but I have found some of their papers online quoting me but not giving any credit.  In educational circles such as universities this is seen as a definite “no-no!” You MUST reference your sources. So, thank you to the four who took up my time and never credited me.  You’ve insured that no other student -Arts/media or otherwise- gets help.

Then there are emails from people who requested scripts from me and for who I broke the rules and wrote scripts.  They then vanished.  One I have found peddling my script/story with his art as wholly his. A quick message and that has stopped.

But others of that ilk who just dropped projects and left me in the lurch a few years back are now asking if I’ve any projects they can work on with me. I was blunt and plain. No. And the artist out there who drew that 20+pp horror strip I wrote and is trying to peddle it under a different title as his own work. I know what you are doing and the word has been put out.

Also, I am not helping artists families any more.

And as for the publisher from the US who seemed to think that flattery would work (on me????) and that I’d….well, basically givie him a publishing plan and market report for absolutely nothing.  Go play with yourself.   I get a lot of these requests from people in the UK and US but I’m not a free service.  I need to eat and pay bills.

There is also a very strong rumour from a good source that a certain Scottish company is planning another relaunch of a comic I do not care about.  The sooner they fold and the editorial staff are out of work the better. Mind you, incompetence seems to be swomething publishers look for these days.

I had a neat email exchange with “Secretsquirrel” (no, not the animated character…I don’t think) yesterday and he attends all the conventions in the US and as these bloggers all tend to hide who they are they get a lot of gossip. At one convention he heard people from Marvel saying “Thank **** the movies are working or we’d not be hear next year!”  One of his pals actually recorded (it circulates on their little “secret goss(ip) network” as a download but I’m not American so, apparently, I can’t join it!) some DC people in a restaurant discussing DCs next big cross-over and also the fact that “DC HAS to come up with a winner movie or the crap is going to hit!”

Firstly, nothing I’ve not heard before.  However, I made it very clear that it was wrong to record peoples private conversations whether they were in “a public place” or not.  We are talking comics here and to claim using such methods or overheard/recorded conversations is your “duty as comic journalists” is pure crap.  There are things I’ve heard as well as seen from UK/US companies that could quite literally put them out of business or make investors think twice.  I DO NOT use that info.  The very few who have seen my bulky IPC/Fleetway file are amazed I have never used the documents in my possession -some of it is so “explosive” that it led to the joke about my body one day being fished out of a canal!!

In 35 years I have never ever broken my word or a confidence given either in comics work or my “officially unofficial” work.  I’ve no intention to do so now.  Anything I have is to protect myself and when someone crosses the line then I use it.

If people put a quarter as much energy into comics we’d have a good industry. As it is anonymous sniping seems to be the focus of those energies.

Now, I have some reviews to sort out in the next few days and, for once, no planning for the upcoming Expo!!

Comics.