Listen: "Hello -I hope you are all doing well" can be taken out of context. This is the internet.
I have noted this before many times but just for the hard of understanding and IQ impaired. One more time.
The deal I have/had with artists is simply. Any profits it's a 50-50 split, though in the past I've tended to let artists have any profit because profit is rarer than (think of something funny to put in here) ! But I do all the leg work and out of pocket expense stuff and..,and I think I may have been selling myself short on this deal!
Characters are my copyright -with the exception of those created by people such as John Erasmus, Tom Elmes et al who created their own characters/stories. Those creators own copyright to their characters and art and can sell off and use their art as they please. Character copyright is mine for my characters only and in this case the opriginal art is the artist's but he cannot republish it as a full story without credit and permission (for obvious reasons).
These days I never take stories featuring original characters belonging to other people. The horror stories I could tell you but I cannot without citing the names and that I just cannot be bothered with any more.
In one case even getting a book back into print so that an artist's wife could get money from sales resulted in me getting abusive emails and legal action threatened against having the book published...by the widow who (after a lot of headaches over her actions) then aid it was okay to publish. I refused and put a legal binder on her so that the book could not be republished without MY approval. Basically: a person is drowning and you throw out a life jacket and they throw it back at you.
Even though two other creator gave approval for me to take over using their characters they passed away and I decided that when it came to relatives wanting to make money it was too much hassle so changed the names.
Then we have three -3- artist who produced strips for publicatio0n. Were very happy with the e4nd product. Then, some time after, demanded that they ought to be paid and that their characters were being developed into ones that could be picked up by Marvel, DC or Image (yeah, they thought Image paid!) and go on to be optioned for movies. Yes, they were bthat egotistical and after ten years their names have vanished from comics. As for their contribution I removed them all immediately that they started their games -a benefit of print on demand.
Unless things are in writing I say "No!" but even then I've known a few twisters so I avoid other peoples characters.
So, I accept contributions but I have to either go "Wow!" when I ee the art or get grabbed by the story -as with Dilworth's Silvermaine twist at the end or the Halcon werewolf story twist.
It' a hard, lonely, poor life being a comic and book publisher and those lottery numbers never come up!
ps. Since writing this I have been told that I need to buy lottery tickets in the hope of winning. Damn.
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