I doubt any of you really care.

 

It's quite interesting that, suddenly, people are writing blog posts and making You Tube videos about how corrupt the comic industry is and how creators are being ripped off ("even by Marvel and DC!") by companies and threats to creators who threaten to expose this stuff that they will never work in comics again. Oh, and good quality creators having to take jobs in retail because the year has dragged on and they are not being paid. And, guess what? It's the creators' faults for turning a blind eye to all of this.

I was writing this stuff twenty years ago. Back in the late 1990s/early 2000s there were three businessmen (from outside the UK) who wanted to invest in a new comics line. One had their top man attend cons, speak to "creators" and see what was going on. The project was shelved because "the creators over their seem to be the nastiest, back-stabbing and downright poisonous people in any comics industry" to that was added "it may explain why the UK has no comics industry to speak of".  And he was right.

When a certain artist was mentioned to one of the creators as someone they would like to use that person was slapped down. All sorts of things were said.  What everyone found incredible was that these were 'friends' sticking a knife in creators backs.

One day I received an email from a publisher who told me that his bosses (the money men) would not be going forward with a certain project which would have employed several good artists because "Your old pal that you recommended as a writer stabbed you in the back. In fact he stabbed you in the back and twisted the knife in a piece of character assassination I have never seen the like of in comics before". I keep that email plus the forwarded piece referred to.

Well known UK comic editors (they are "legends" now) were ripping off new and established creators to line their own pockets and when I asked the late Gil Page about this near legendary "secret warehouse of comic art" that Fleetway had. He told me that only certain people knew where it was "the editors don't" because at the old one "editors 'borrowed' artwork  regularly. Those in comics and old enough will recall the tale of Brian Bolland's missing 2000 AD art.

When Egmont moved in and took over Fleetway I worked on Revolver and the editor was quite open about his deputy editor stealing my theme for a series of stories. And there were other dumb acts on his part. In fact, one day I had to travel from Bristol to London to Egmont offices with all of my receipts as I had been stiffed out of £5000 in payments. "Oh you need to take that up with the editor" I was told. I asked where he was and the response: "He doesn't work for Egmont any more so we could not tell you." The intimation was that they had been told I was paid by the editor -so where was the money??

Oh, and I am old enough now to admit I did hold that Marvel UK editor out of the window because he was incompetent and a crook.

With Art Wetherell and David Gordon I did work for Fantagraphic Books adult Eros line. We had a contract. First printing rights ONLY. 2nd, 3rd, 4th printings without consulting us and then a trade without telling us or renegotiating. I only found out by accident that there was a trade. Come the internet and quite by accident I find our books were sold to foreign publishers -expressly forbidden in the contract as Fantagraphics had first print, English language rights only. It took a lot of chasing and phoning and faxing then emailing and I was called all sorts of names (apparently "More Hooper hyperbole" was their way of saying "**** you"). I knew people in Fantagraphics warehouse who told me a new printed batch of the books had just arrived. Printing was moved to Hong Kong and Mexico to throw us off the scent. For the two French editions (France and Canada) as well as the Spanish edition (serialised in a magazine and then sold as a trade) I got the same as the artists £75.00 -totally incompetent publishers?

My work on US independents stopped as I was told that Fantagraphics publication and personal attack platform, The Comics Journal "could destroy us".

Gerald Swan published pulps from the 1940s to early 1960s as well as comic books. Do you know how he attracted so many writers and artists when Amalgamated Press and D. C. Thomson could not?  He paid on submission of work  not a couple months after. He may not have been fond of his comics later but he was competent and honest. My comic book relative Lou Diamond was screwed over by Amalgamated Press and they treated him badly.

There is nothing new in this and, yes, creators keep their mouths shut it will go on.  Fans or comic buyers don't care. A comic company is going out of business "So what -we'll still get the movies and TV shows, right?"  The fairest deal creators got at Marvel comics was under Stan Lee who made sure they got every penny they were owed because he knew them and their backgrounds and they were friends.

If -IF- you want to see comics continue then go to the small, independent companies. Not Image, not Boom!, not Valiant but the small companies where creativity is still ongoing. I have known big name creators who have even had to get a job cleaning toilets because the company he worked for did not pay and he was on the verge of homelessness.

But then, I doubt any of you really care.