Comic Books

London horror comic #10 is up for sale. Might have went up last year, and I missed it. haha. Just talked with the studio heads about making sure we are kept up to date with street dates.

Chaotica #1 for Coffin comics is finished, and kickstarter for that should be shortly.

Void said:

September 13th. Didn't realize you guys were working with Coffin Comics again. I remember you saying they were tough because they had very tight deadlines and a lot of work, or something like that. I still love their shit and get every new issue, although anything not Lady Death does significantly less earnings.

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yeah... no idea why they accepted the contract again... same problem. Kristy said they begged, and agreed to higher rate... "to be determined" at the time. that rate ended up to be pathetic again. 30% higher. We were supposed to have the book turned around months ago. may iirc? Other members of the coloring team kindof flaked. its unclear why. working part time, and couldn't put in the time for this very labor intensive, and poor pay pages? in the end, I personally did over half the pages. Again, I don't really blame the coffin crew people for this bad deal, its on our lead for accepting it. I spoke with the team lead again and made it clear, 300% increase to accept again.

we don't get royalties or anything, so won't really see any benefit from profits. But still, want to see the work get out there, and see projects we work on to be successful. also actual profits are, who knows? management team, art team, advertising, high quality printing, shipping, statues, etc. People see kickstarters make 30-300k and think the creator is rolling in money. but really, much of that goes into the production.

Void said:

That definitely sounds like a your company problem. I'm clearly not in a position to know all the details, but in general I can't see accepting a contract with a "to be determined" that large in it. We bid work here (construction related) and tell them exactly what it will cost. Occasionally we negotiate a little, but by and large it is determined before any contracts are signed. Honestly I'd be a little concerned with the management of your company accepting work like that, but that's none of my business.

That being said, Coffin definitely puts out what the people want, and if you could get what you considered a fair wage for their work I'm sure it would benefit you guys a lot as well. People go fucking nuts for Lady Death stuff. I know, I have a fuckload of it too.

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yeah. the comic industry is pretty small. everyone friends with friends. it runs on nepotism, and networking. its why the blacklisting and cronyism can be so effective and destructive.
I would suspect the agreement was something related to this. favor for a friend. like, the studio has been working with Billy tucci for 20 years. theres a certain level of, "we'll do the job, hammer out the details later" from that familiarity. and/or doing the work now, secures work in the future. having your name in good graces, get you referred to others, or gets you on the top of the list for future work.

Caliane said:

yeah. the comic industry is pretty small. everyone friends with friends. it runs on nepotism, and networking. its why the blacklisting and cronyism can be so effective and destructive.
I would suspect the agreement was something related to this. favor for a friend. like, the studio has been working with Billy tucci for 20 years. theres a certain level of, "we'll do the job, hammer out the details later" from that familiarity. and/or doing the work now, secures work in the future. having your name in good graces, get you referred to others, or gets you on the top of the list for future work.

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How do you feel about Comicsgate?

They seem to be making money on their comics, thought it's usually Indiegogo not Kickstarter.

Japanese and Korean comics seem to be thriving, the entire American model from concept through to sale seems broken.

Chris said:

How do you feel about Comicsgate?

They seem to be making money on their comics, thought it's usually Indiegogo not Kickstarter.

Japanese and Korean comics seem to be thriving, the entire American model from concept through to sale seems broken.

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We've worked with Tucci. did Shi with him. aaron loprestri we've worked with a ton over the years too. tested for wraith of god, he went with someone else.
I don't think I've ever worked with Ethan. maybe once.

ya boy zack has his people. not sure what his pay rates are. never talked to him about it. but he's made comments in his vids. saying how people are asking too high of rates for a dead industry, and he won't pay those rates. makes me wonder..

Kristy does the booking, and I'm not sure who she goes to specifically looking. in general they do have ties to a bunch of the guys.

the crew in general is fairly small, theres just not that much work to go around in comicsgate. and the money they do get isn't going to the colorists, im sure. writers/producers/pencillers. much of the indigogo/kickstarter funds go directly to 2-5k original cover art pencils.
same with eric and Isom. its one book.

and sadly, comicsgate/eric etc are youtubers first and foremost. this is not a knock on their art/products. I'm just saying they are successful, because they live on twitter and youtube podcasts promoting themselves nonstop. I can't do that.

Caliane said:

and sadly, comicsgate/eric etc are youtubers first and foremost. this is not a knock on their art/products. I'm just saying they are successful, because they live on twitter and youtube podcasts promoting themselves nonstop. I can't do that.

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Why not? You may be surprised by what you can do once you find a niche.

stop watching zack a while back over some stupidity he said. one of the things that cracked me up, for a while he kept trying to play off comicsgate. would say something like, it isn't 2018 anymore no one should give a shit about it. then would watch evs yelling, "we are comicsgate kings"

Void said:

Caliane

Chaotica KS started last night (I'm sure you knew), backed it like I always do. And chose the Sun Khamunaki cover like I always do. Love her artwork and she's pretty hot herself so win/win. I would imagine you probably haven't worked with her because she just does covers (that I'm aware of anyway), but maybe? I know her "brand" has done a couple, Ormus and Pumpkin, but I'm pretty sure she didn't do the interior art.

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Alisson Rodrigues did the interior art. Who is apparently a guy. hahha.

Terrible. Just terrible. I've been flipping through the original X-Force series and let's just say I don't enjoy the art quite as much as I used to as a young kid.

Here's a interesting little documentary on Rob Liefeld that I got sucked into the other day.

one of my friends has a huge collection, 82+ long boxes. 80's to present, mainly marvel/dc. had to move and doesn't have room for collection. been talking to a guy about buying it for about a month. dude been talking about coming to look at them etc, finally said his offer would be $50 to $100 per long box.
that is less than flea market prices for loose commons. hell, box/bags/boards cost like $40 per long box now.

Good little video. One thing I will absolutely give Liefield - as the guy mentioned - is his page layouts. They were very action oriented, even if you did end up in situations with a character having a 30 second monologue while jumping through the air. Or was that Silvestri? Damn it's been a minute.