If there is one thing that I have learnt over my many years in UK comics it is that there is no "one thing" wrong with it.
Comic publishers were businessmen and only produced comics to make money and they knew all the tricks of double and triple book keeping. Doing hand shake deals with distributors so that comics were hardly delivered. "1% of books returned" -cancel book and merge it with another for the tax benefit and all the other little "perks" that came with it.
It took me thirty years of speaking to former comic management and bosses before it all made sense. With 1% returns of a title the company was STILL making good money -what was the sense in cancelling a book making money? WHY was distribution, even into the 1980s so bad? The books went out so where were they?
Spot a kid who can hardly draw -get him onto 2000 AD, say he's "hot young talent" but don't say you are only paying him less than half the pro going rate per page (that goes into your pocket). Kid vanishes because he started asking for more money as he was a "hot young star". Next!
WHY did I and other script-writers have to produce a second copy of our work to accounts? Because there was so much fraud going on they wanted to make sure it was actually work they were paying for. Why was the warehouse where IPC/Fleetway kept all the original art unknown to editors or people below management? Theft. Or as it was explained to me "original art walking off". There was quite a bit of trade in stolen comic artwork.
And who replaced the tried and trusted, dependable, professional script-writers and artists? People with over blown egos, mates of mates -all of who were willing to be a great pal....until the chance came to stick the knife in the back -even of people who helped them.
Not greatly talented "yes" men who sucker up to editors and put a few very bad words into the thick editorial ear to brown-nose even more and to kick the real talented pros who made British comics what they were out of work. Little fat heads who declare openly that they never asked for "creators rights" and that the "bosses should pay what THEY think is fair even if not much because they are the bosses". Dregs.
You point unfairness out to these little back stabbing turds of poison and they try bullying. They alter emails, they hide comments that counter anything they say. And if that does not work then they, and their equally slimy little pals of low IQ, will launch a trolling campaign. They do not just inundate your email inbox but they go onto every UK comic site they can where they lie outright and malign peoples character and work. Complain, as a few have found, to those sites monitors and they will defecate themselves in fear of getting the same treatment. Or, they are a part of this cowardly system and state it is "free speech" -but you cannot respond.
There are people out there who have no career and will start these flame wars and fan those flames because "I was merely stating a point of view" and so it goes on.
Most of this small group of Z list creators profess to be the "nice guys" of comics. They smile and shake your hand but they've just slandered you to a group of other people. They are known by everyone who works in comics for more than a month. Here is the thing: those who know will sit back, they will not speak out. They allow friends and people who have helped them through very hard to be maligned. They will not speak up. They sit back. Some will even agree with the ugly little wretches "because" they do not want to get the bad treatment. These little dregs do not control UK comics or the industry because there is no UK comics industry.
These people are sitting back and allowing this to go on. I hear from people who get this bad treatment. Those who know or turn a blind eye to all of this are nothing more than spineless cowards and UK comics have paid the price of all of this.
They conspire and trash talk people on their private blogs and groups and here is the other thing: many of those organising UK comic conventions know all of this. Yet they give free passes to these people to continue their bullying and harassment at those events. These organisers are also cowards.
Do not contact me privately and ask me not to cite you as an example. Speak out on your own blog. Your Face Book page or even in comments on CBO. I am no longer interested in your "I don't want to be bullied any further" -you can get legal protection from internet bullying and even report these people to their ISPs. You let them get away with it then you must like it. You are adults. Act like adults.
If you want to get into comics then self-publish. Have nothing to do with UK comic sites. Be your own boss and all that entails. This is 2016.
Leave the untalented little men to live in their own little power fantasy worlds because they have no careers. Most of them are stabbing each other in the back -I get the emails and it's almost comical.at times. Their worlds are collapsing around them.
You do not need these people to produce and sell your own comics. Kablam!, lulu and other print on demand companies are out there. Until the cowards speak-up the UK comic scene will remain stagnant and dying.
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