Archive for June, 2009

54 items.

Pirate Bay Folds

by Colleen Doran on June 30th, 2009
Posted In: Blog, Creator Resources, copyright/trademark, Creator Resources, Creator Resources, Legal

The Pirate Bay – the bit torrent site whose founders were recently found guilty of criminal copyright violation – has folded. Or sold out, depending on your point of view… The BBC reports the site has been sold to a gaming company for over 7 million.

The new owners vow they will pay royalties to copyright holders. The site has over 25 million users.

Pirate Bay founders appealed their sentence, but the appeal was rejected by the Swedish court.

The four men behind The Pirate Bay, Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde, were sentenced to one year in jail and told to pay damages of 30m Swedish kronor (£2.3m, 2.7m euros) to entertainment companies such as Warner Bros and Sony Music Entertainment.

In response to the ruling Peter Sunde said The Pirate Bay would now file charges against Sweden for violating the human rights of the defendants.

Meanwhile, at the world copyright summit:

Rights holders were dealt a blow Wednesday when a French court struck down the country’s “three strikes” law, saying that “free access” to the internet is a human right and cannot be withheld without a judge’s order, and that the new system presumes guilt, instead of innocence. It is anticipated that the government will introduce a new version of the bill with the same “graduated response” approach, but it may transfer some of the administrative powers to a court.

”This isn’t over yet in France by a long shot,” said Shira Perlmutter, executive vice president of global legal policy for IFPI – as well as a name said to be under possible consideration for President Obama’s IP “tsar.” “In general, the French approach was a very important step in just recognising we need cooperation by ISPs.”

Must read for those interested in IP issues.

Thanks to Jeremy for the link.

└ Tags: , , , ,
Comments Off

And then the clouds parted and the birdies sang, and we all had ice cream

by Colleen Doran on June 30th, 2009
Posted In: Blog, Colleen's Work, Culture, Comics, Culture, Literature, Fantasy, Culture, Film and Television, Creator Resources, Legal

James Owen has written an excellent post about the whole “selling out” thang, and why we don’t spend more time doing our more personal projects, like A Distant Soil and Starchild. I do hope you read it. Click the link he provides and read that, too.

We haven’t sold out by doing work which provides us a living. We’re just focused on different projects right now. The perception that I’ve (largely) moved away from comics is just that – I still love them, I still want to do them. And it’s not as if I’m slacking on the IG novels. One a year, fully illustrated, is a decent pace. That’s a lot of material. And as I said, I’m building a bigger audience to whom I can sell other work.

I love to create these books. I love the stories I’m telling, and I love it when one of the illustrations simply sings from start to finish. I’m thrilled that so many readers all over the world are enjoying them – and perhaps moreso that I have a publisher that does.

As you can see in my previous essays (scroll down), I have sacrificed plenty for A Distant Soil, and as much as I love the book, there is only so much I can reasonably do to keep producing it full time.

Working on A Distant Soil is a joy. I absolutely love it.

Who wouldn’t? Look at those glam guys in their costumes. Somewhere, Michael Jackson is looking down and wondering who pinched his jacket.

I love A Distant Soil so much, I am willing to do the next 200 pages of it with absolutely no guarantees. No guarantee anyone will like it, no guarantee anyone will pay for it. And I am going to have a very, very good time drawing it between the projects that pay me more money. And they are outstanding stories. I hope you will love them, too.

And now, a few posts you may want to read:

Daryl Cagle on the Future of Political Cartooning.

JK Rowling gets sued again by another wannabe. Don’t you wish people would leave that woman alone? How can she possibly have stolen Harry Potter from THAT many people?

This is about a month old, but in case you missed it, here’s a Doctor Who funeral.

I just heard this morning that Tori Amos: Comic Book Tattoo was nominated for Best Anthology in the Harvey Awards. To go along with that Best Anthology Eisner nomination. Go us! And congrats to all the nominees. And I confess I have read almost nothing else on the list, so can’t comment…though I am sure everyone else will.

A bit of an odd story about Louis Vuitton being sued for fraud. The Murakami prints used in gallery exhibits are said to have been culled from Vuitton handbags. Murakami is known to the geekarati for his striking manga-influenced pop art.

Paul Schimmel, admitted that he was “surprised” that Murakami “took the materials that he had printed for various [Vuitton] products . . . and he had them stretched like paintings and made into a very large but numbered edition” of prints to be sold in the boutique. Schimmel had invited the artist and Louis Vuitton to set up the store inside the Geffen exhibition — a rare, if not unprecedented, move for a major art museum.

Just keep telling yourself it’s all about context.

A masquerade ball in LA based on Labyrinth, the Henson film starring David Bowie.

Masquerade_2008218

Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball – 2009 – labyrinthmasquerade.com

Two Enchanting Nights within the Court
July 10th and 11th 2009
The Labyrinth of Jareth Fantasy Masquerade Ball

At the historic Henry Fonda MusicBox Theatre
6126 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028
Join our mailing list to get an inside glimpse of 2009

masqueradeball

└ Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off

06/30/2009

by Colleen Doran on June 30th, 2009
Posted In: A Distant Soil Webcomic
06/30/2009
└ Tags: , ,
Comments Off

The Perils of Colleen Part III: When the Comics Industry Outscrewed Motown

by Colleen Doran on June 29th, 2009
Posted In: Blog, Colleen's Work, Culture, Comics, Culture, Comics, Comics History, Creator Resources, Colleen's Work, Essays, Creator Resources, Publishing

Many professional artists – including cartoonists whose names you know well – have day jobs. And this post will give you some idea why.

Commercial artists don’t get a lot of commerce. Last time I looked, the average income for a professional artist was only about $15,000.

These events happened between 1986 and 1989. First posted about ten years ago, I’ve tried to edit for clarity and spelling.

I pondered weak and weary whether to dredge all this stuff up again, but I am frequently contacted by creators who have signed contracts that had the same clauses in them that mine did 20 years ago.

“Creator owned” contracts and the companies that tout them may leave with you a copyright (or a portion thereof) and nothing else. “Creator owned” for many is not about fairness, or making good books; it’s a marketing tool. And you, the creator, are buying it.

The comics industry is everything you ever heard about Motown, only without the glitter

The good news: remember, these sad events took place 20 years ago. Now I have great work, good friends, terrific publishers, a comfortable studio, wonderful books to work on, and sometimes…every once in awhile…OK, there’s even a little glitter after all.

Look out for yourself, and don’t give up hope.

Now, on to today’s nitty gritty.

Creative Accounting

In the old days of comics, the work for hire contract was simple. Working for Marvel meant you got a little stamp on your check that stated Marvel’s rights to your work, or you got a payment voucher that you signed when you turned in your pages. Two weeks later, you got a check.

Beyond your initial page rate you were unlikely to see any more money on your book, nor did you expect any. A decent page rate at a major publisher could be solid money for an illustrator. At the time, The Graphic Artists Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines stated that the average American illustrator pulled in less than $10,000 a year. So a decent comic book artist who could pull in $40,000 or more a year was doing better than OK. And $40,000 went a lot farther in the 1980′s than it does now.

The simplicity of comic book agreements that reserved all publishing rights for the publisher in exchange for a guarantee of upfront income left most comic artists unprepared for the complexity of the retail trade publishing paradigm. When I got into comics, publishers were only just starting to pay royalty rates!

In standard book publishing, no page rates were paid. Instead, an advance fee was paid against royalties; the author/artist gets a flat amount of money up front that is deducted from later book sales.

Say you agree to do a book for $3,000. If the book sells a lot of copies, whee! You get more money. If not, $3,000 is all you will ever see. If you spent six months working on your book baby, you just worked six months for $3,000.

↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , ,
5 Comments

06/29/2009

by Colleen Doran on June 29th, 2009
Posted In: A Distant Soil Webcomic
06/29/2009
└ Tags: , ,
Comments Off