That is my New Year's Message

Sadly, a number of Independent comic publishers have vanished in 2022 and there are various reasons but lack of sales is going to be the main one. Piracy -illegally uploading new books and then illegally downloading them for free is a crime.  If you do this then you have no real interest or love of comics: uploader or downloader you ARE a criminal.

As an example: I had a friend who used to gather stats from illegal download sites and was looking at two books I wrote -one was drawn by the late Art Wetherell and the other by David Gordon. The illegal downloads for both ran into many hundreds of thousands...in fact...I am wrong. I posted this back at the beginning of the year:

 <I just wanted to update this post for a specific reason. Someone pointed out that one of the illegal download sites had passed the 4 million views of the first book I did for Fantagraphic Books' Eros line. The second book is just spilling over 3.5 million.

Now, that would have, if the books were purchased, have made myself and the artist involved on one book (the widow and family on the other book) millionaires...again. I only know about the updated figures as I had an email from someone who wanted to get a signed sketch of the characters. I asked when he bought his copy and was told "I read it after downloading it from ---------" So I responded "Are you going to buy a copy as I could sell you one signed?" and..."No thanks. Read it so just wanted a signed sketch".

My response was to explain that he was a thief. He downloaded a book that was illegally uploaded by people who are criminals (copyright and royalties theft) and he accepted the download knowing full well that it was an illegal download site ripping off creators -AND he wanted a free signed sketch , too!  Seriously, him not paying a penny even for postage because "I'm a fan". I told him: "You are a fan who never purchased the book and has no intention to: you are not a fan you are a thief. **** off!"

That was it.  These sites will not even charge 50 cents per book view to compensate creators -I know as I have contacted them and $1 per view was "too much" and 50 cents a view? "We'll have to think about that."

These people know that what they are doing is illegal and stealing money from creators who really need it. The people who download these illegal scans know that it is illegal. "I'll read it online and if I like it I will buy it" is absolutely a lie. They think they can justify stealing 

from creators that way. The illegal scanners (read the legal notices in the books) illegally upload the books so that thieves can download them.  That simple.

So, from someone who could well do topping up a 0 bank balance with £1 million back to the original post.

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Comics is a big rip-off industry. Very few involved in it at higher levels are honest because being honest ain't making you money,

I was checking on something this morning and saw comments about books I wrote for Fantagraphics Eros line in 1991 and 1997. Both top sellers but never made myself or the artists much money. This all led to my finding three site on which one of the books had been ILLEGALLY downloaded 3 million, 2.345,989 and 3,097,098 times.

So I reasoned asking for some payment would not be out of order.

I contacted the site owners and said that I, and the artists, would be happy to receive payments of $1 each for every download or deletion of the downloads.

My guess is that I am NOT going to see a payment of $8, 443,087 coming my way any time soon.

That was just three sites. There are others and £1 a download would make me very happy -in fact 50c a download would make me happy!!  But the filthy little crooks will move stuff to another site and those filthy slime ball criminals who download the comics for free will follow because they have no care or thoughts for the people who created the books -its free.

"I only download to see if I want to buy the book" is the BIGGEST lie from criminals who 99.9% of the time are NOT going to buy and never had any intention of buying. It is theft.>

Readers may gather that I was not a happy bunny when I wrote that in May, 2022. I have a leaking roof that cannot be repaired and debts...well. The thing is that we are facing the likelihood of many other small publishers going down that drain. My stats pal noted that none of them had as many illegal downloads as my Eros books but would be thousands of dollars better off and far from struggling to survive.

On the 22nd December, Publishers Weekly posted an item headed Indie Comics Publishers Face Year-End Financial Troubles https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/comics/article/91195-indie-comics-publishers-face-year-end-financial-troubles.html

There is a problem in defining an "Independent" comics publisher. These are generally small and Image and IDW are not Independents but worth a whacking load of money but like trading off the "Independent" title. In Calvin Reid's article he notes: 

"Aftershock Comics, an indie house based in Sherman Oaks, Calif., has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy citing $10 million to $50 millions in liabilities"

WHOAH! Take a deep breath and sip that coffee (or tea) really slowly. If you are dealing in millions of dollars you are not and "Independent" you are a publishing house. An Independent publisher would (hope) to be dealing in sums in the very low thousands but at best several hundred dollars.  Believe me, as the largest Independent publisher in the UK (200 books ranging from one off comics to comic albums and graphic novels) I am not even dealing with hundreds in profit.  My last payment for sales covering six months this year was £16.75 (roughly the same in dollars).  With no events that are affordable to even sell at and the internet getting me a couple million views in 2022 amounts to people looking but not buying.

That is how bad it is. You can see why I would not mind some of that money from downloads now.  The current excuse from some publishers is "Well the pandemic---" and I stop them there. People can sit at home during lockdown and order books and have them delivered to them so how did lockdown affect sales?  Now it's "Well, the recession--" and anything is blamed rather than telling the truth. The truth is that people in their hundreds of thousands would sooner download and steal new and old books than support the creators and publishers. That is a provable fact -just look for an illegal download site and see how the latest releases are available as well as hundreds of giga bites of old books. NOT A SINGLE PENNY/CENT of those downloads goes to a creator or publisher.

What is the most popular day in  the comic year? Free Comic Book Day when retailers have to buy in comics (yes, they BUY them) so that people who never visit their stores normally will try to grab handfuls and the store owners have gotten wise to this -freeloaders will visit several stores and grab comics from each only to put them straight up on Ebay where people will PAY for what were FREE comics. I have even heard retailers discuss how the freeloaders selling online have had the gall to argue that they want two copies of a free book or demand the books and some will even threaten to give a store bad publicity if they do not get what they want. Are those comic fans?

Last year I saw a Free Comic Book Day comic on Ebay for $10.00. It sold for $20.00 !

If you are a real comic book lover or fan then you need to start supporting the small Independents and stop saying "I always support Independent comics and buy some Image or IDW" -it shows you have no idea. Look around at shows or online for the small publishers struggling because even before the much blamed pandemic they were going out of business -and posts on that are still on CBO.

That is my New Year's Message. Sadly, everyone is completely deaf.