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Freelance story: One of my first publishers had a terrible rep for not paying their freelancers. I needed published samples so I painted a comic for them: 28 pages start-to-finish in watercolor & gouache. Sure enough, I got lots of excuses but no check. 1/6
2/6 After two months of futile nagging, one of their editors called…to ask me to pencil a comic for them. I said yes! Penciled it, waited until deadline, then FedExed an envelope. 22 pages of blurry xeroxes w/a fat red X drawn in magic marker thru each panel. Plus a ransom note:
"Pay me what you owe me or I won't sent the art." Missing ship-dates meant a lot more to a publisher back then. I prepared for their angry call by writing every possible thing they could say to me on notecards, w/ a snappy response for each one. 30 notecards. The call came.
4/6 Publisher was furious.
"Maybe I'll just cancel the issue. You get nothing"
"Then you didn't intend to ever pay me anyhow. I'll use them as samples & get work from someone honest"
"This is very unprofessional of you."
"A professional is someone who gets paid for their work."
"Maybe I'll just cancel the issue. You get nothing"
"Then you didn't intend to ever pay me anyhow. I'll use them as samples & get work from someone honest"
"This is very unprofessional of you."
"A professional is someone who gets paid for their work."
After 15 minutes of this, he got tired, told me I’d never work in this business again, but he'd FedEx a check tomorrow. He did. It cleared. I sent the art, book shipped on time with handsome inks by Tony DeZuniga. Publisher left the business a couple of years later.
I'm still here.
Credit: I learned the photocopies trick from a Tim Truman interview in an old @ComicsJournal. Later heard another artist tried it w/ another publisher, and they just printed the comic from his photocopies with a big x clearly visible in every panel. YMMV
