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Terry Hooper-Scharf

Saturday 4 April 2015

I Need To Supply China With 50,000 comics!

You know how I said that it did not look like comics were going to earn me enough to pay for my retirement?  Well, I opened up my email this morning and found this:

"Dear:

Hello,

We are a Chinese company, now we need order some comic books. The products
informations are as follows:
Quantity:50,000 Suit for the children of 6-12 years old for reading.

The main content are pictures, the character should be less

If you are interested in it ,please contact us. Looking forward to our cooperation.
Thank you
Contact: zhao hong zhu
Address: shen zhen bin hai road 1006 # in china"


Well, I guess my business finally took off. I mean, this is from China. Genuine...right? But the thing that struck me right away was as plain as a boil on the tip of the nose: they wanted me to supply them with 50,000 comics.

Just to make that even clearer: a Chinese comic company wanted me to supply THEM with 50,000 comics.

Why do I not think this is genuine?  Because Chinese companies are run by very efficient business people.  Someone at a company would have checked Black tower out and rather than "Dear....." my name would have been there.  I would NEVER contact a Chinese company with a letter or email reading "Dear---" and even if I could not find the name of a person I would address it to the right person of authority and apologise for not including their name. 

It's rude.

Besides, google (if you must) Terry Hooper/Terry Hooper-Scharf/Black Tower Comics etc and all my info is there.

Also, as I wrote, the most obvious blunder is in that line.  China has an incredible printing industry that puts Western printers to shame.  Check your graphic novels, trades and see where they were printed.  China is cheap and VERY efficient.  So WHY would a Chinese publisher ask ME to supply them with a huge and bulky 50,000 comics (if only!)?  It adds to their costs.  If they asked for pdf of books to decide which they wanted to publish they would pay for licensed publishing in China and go to THEIR printer.

As I write, bad research because any serious company would see from a brief check that my supplying 50,000 copies of a comic based on no real idea of what they want is insane.

And do you know what?  I think I just talked myself out of believing my financial future was secure.  No retirement home in the German countryside.  Bum.

4 comments:

  1. But on the other hand at least you won't have to be in the German countryside. Is that supposed to be an enticing retirement location?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Absolutely. Grew up a lot of the time in a German village and if there are forests nearby -I'm happy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We've got the same mail and the boys here also... https://www.facebook.com/odenthalillustration. Looks a bit like spam. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I know. They are everywhere! Who can you trust if not someone from China asking for 50,000 comics? It was tempting to respond with a request for 50% "advance payment"! ;-)

    ReplyDelete