Posts Tagged ‘FAN FROM HELL’

23 items.

Soliciting for me, but not for thee

by Colleen Doran on October 19th, 2009
Posted In: Blog, Culture, Comics, Culture, Culture, Fandom, Colleen's Work, Shows/Exhibits

This is made of odd.

There’s a good deal of bad blood between the New York Comic Con and the Big Apple Comic Con. Even though New York City has more citizens than some states, apparently some people think it can’t accommodate two conventions. I’m not sure it can accommodate two conventions in one weekend.

Big Apple Comic Con shot the first volley by scheduling one show directly against NYCC, then followed up by escorting NYCC employees out of the Big Apple Con, apparently, for “soliciting.”

OK, whatever, but I can’t recall attending a New York Comic Con where people representing Big Apple Con weren’t doing some soliciting themselves. Seriously, for three years in a row.

I remember the first time I was approached by someone from Big Apple. J. Michael Straczynski was doing a signing at my booth.

This guy comes up to me with a flier and a business card and says – I kid you not – “It’s finally happened. You finally made it. We’ve never asked you before, but now that you’re working with big names like J Michael Straczynski, we can finally invite you to be a guest at the Big Apple Comic Con!”

And I’m thinking, who the hell is this wiggler?

It went downhill from there.

It had to be the most ungracious invitation I have ever received in my life.

Needless to say, I did not jump at this golden opportunity. But I won’t soon forget this execution of manners which would have made Edith Wharton weep cool tears.


My friends Jozef Szekeres and Julie Ditrich were there all the way from Australia, and it was good to show them that no matter how well I think my career is going, there’s always someone ready to come up in public, give me a good kick in the teeth, and put me in my place. Keeps me humble.

Even if he thought I was merely an adjunct to more important people, the polite approach might have been to say, “Here is my card, here is information about our show. We’d be delighted to have you.”

Instead, I got rhetoric about how I was being invited because I had finally reached the superior status of a genyooeyene Big Apple guest.

I hang with all the right people.

Well, dang.

The exact same thing happened the following year at New York Comic Con, and if that’s not soliciting, I don’t know what is. Big Apple fliers were everywhere.

So, while I have nothing against the Big Apple show (though whoever it was they had approaching potential guests ought to be gagged, for surely he is one of the worst convention representatives I have ever had the displeasure to encounter,) I’m amused that they would be so disturbed that New York Comic Con employees would attend their show. And “solicit.”

I understand Big Apple is under new management, so let’s hope so.

Regardless, Big Apple Comic Con employees attended New York Comic Con and openly solicited guests and attendees right out in front of God and everybody.

Can’t we all just get along?

c

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And you thought your Fan From Hell story was bad.

by Colleen Doran on September 27th, 2009
Posted In: Blog, Creator Resources, Culture, Culture, Fandom

The story of GameUniCon beats them all. Well, so far, that is.

A video game convention becomes a big money pit for the Game Universe shop in Framingham, MA. The store manager claims he got rooked for big bucks by John Keough, who is now in the hoosegow, arrested for a home invasion robbery. According to this post by Jamie, store manager of Game Universe:

“John Keogh is a compulsive liar. Prior to the event he told us we had over 300 players signed up…hotel being paid off, and god knows how many other lies…

From what I understand, John Keough owes:

Hotel payment: $49,000
Prize Money: $10,000+
Game Universe: $20,000
Band’s fees: ?
None of the staff was paid, including us.

…Our agreement with him when running this convention is that he would be financially responsible for the event and would use our connections and name to get gamers to come…he said he would take $10,000 of his own money and $10,000 of his company’s money and run this event. HE NEVER HAD THIS MONEY.”

On September 29, Keough was arrested, and held on $500,000 bond. And boy, was everyone surprised to find out he was a felon:

Keough has a criminal record and served a 3- to 4-year prison term in Plymouth County for armed robbery related to a bank robbery, Brackett said.

(Assistant District Attorney) Brackett said the woman, a teacher who lives there with her husband and children, saw the defendant wearing a mask and carrying a gun running through her yard before he broke into her home.

Once inside the house, Brackett said he pointed a loaded .38-caliber pistol at her, told her to get on her knees and bound her hands before forcing her into a bathroom, where he bound her feet.

Cornered, he held police at bay, fled across state lines, then took a dive in a river.

Keough is the president of Keough Enterprises and Keough Gaming. The convention took place on August 21-23. Apparently, Keough sought alternative financing.

Our sincere sympathies to the good people of Game Universe. The store may not survive this black hole of bounced checks and broken promises. And armed robbery.

Game Universe has no money and is on it’s (sic) deathbed…I love video games, I love the community. I have made so many friends running this store and Mass Madness and I am so lucky to be able to do something I love for a living. I am so sorry this happened to everyone and if I knew John was a friggin Con Artist I swear to you we would never in a million years thought of running this convention with him.

Mr. Keough is innocent until proven guilty, yadda yadda.

The message board thread has many additional posts by others claiming to have lost money to Keough, including references to a scheme to sell energy drinks.

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The Perils of Colleen Part IX Lives: There is No Publisher…There is Only Zuul

by Colleen Doran on July 8th, 2009
Posted In: Blog, Colleen's Work, Creator Resources, Colleen's Work, Essays, Creator Resources, Legal, Creator Resources, Publishing

None of this will make any sense unless you read the previous installments at the Very Bad Publishers Page.

Nice recommendation from Tom Spurgeon over at The Comics Reporter:

Colleen Doran is detailing one of those protracted publishing horror stories that has to be read to be believed and that everyone should read before fully committing to making comics with any sense of professional devotion.

Thanks.

Most of these posts originally went up nearly ten years ago, but today’s is new. I pondered a few days before uploading, then edited the heck out of it. You don’t need more of the wacky, and I don’t need to relive it anymore.

Man, reviewing all of this was draining…not nearly as draining as living it, though.

I appreciate the letters from Son of Tom, because they validate some of my memoirs, even though he disagrees on the role of Tom in the development of GN’s. As I said, didn’t really know the guy, and never worked directly with him.

One thing I did learn from all this explains the puzzling problem of people who bubble up from the oubliette to raise a stink now and then: they are frozen in time, and think you are, too.

Not necessarily referring to Tom here, but…

If they met you when you were 21, starting out, broke, then in their minds you are always there. No matter how much time goes by, how much you accomplish, they will assume you can still be had on the cheap, will sign crap contracts, have never done a thing with your life since they saw you, and have never learned a damned thing, either. They never do, that’s for sure.

Nothing is stranger than dealing with someone who saw you at a convention and can’t forget the sight of you in your Galadriel costume.

Just because they never change, don’t let that stop you from moving on, no matter how much they whine when you do. If they can’t keep up, tell them to enjoy the slower pace, and leave them behind.

I appreciate the internet, because back in the day, I couldn’t point you to this.

About a year ago, a case law website posted some documents from the lawsuit.

I’d say this pretty much backs up what I remember about it all. Keep in mind, the lawsuit was settled, so none of these people were found liable for anything. Our settlement was confidential, and not only have I never revealed it, I spent so much time trying not to remember it, I forgot what it was, except I was very happy about it.

Moreover, I haven’t a clue who most of those people are, and don’t know what role they played in all this. I suppose they could get mad at me for these posts, but in ten years, no one bothered to come to me directly about them, except for the Son of Tom. I sincerely doubt any of this could damage the principal players, since the imprint is gone and everyone associated with it is, too. Harming a dead imprint is not the purpose of these posts.

I have no hard feelings toward the company as it exists today. Those people didn’t do anything to me, and these posts aren’t about them. None of the people I once knew are with the company any longer.

The date here is later than I recall: 1992. Yet one more reason why my early years self publishing were particularly stressful. I started self publishing in 1991. This legal snafu ran on for nearly four years.

I also have no recollection of the court’s decision to split the suit between matters which required arbitration, and those which went to court.

A minor point; some of us had books reprinted with improper copyright notices. The book was published with an incorrect birth date in the copyright info. For years, someone spread the rumor that I changed my birthdate in a scheme to trick everyone into believing I was years younger than I actually am. Here are the court documents which show that not only did I have absolutely nothing to do with the edition of A Distant Soil that has my incorrect birth date in it, but I sued its publisher. (UPDATE: and because there are a lot of whackjobs out there, I no longer give out any private info. Including my real name or birthdate.)

It’s odd that some see a conspiracy in a typo. Stop sniffing the loser dust, people.

I also want to emphasize that Tom was gone from the publisher years before the suit, and is not named in this document.

Reading the letters from the Son of Tom, I am happy to know this kid didn’t have a clue what was going on. I repeat, his dad had nothing to do with the legal stuff.

A lot of the treatment I received at the old publisher was bizarrely unprofessional in a FAN FROM HELL kind of way. I’ve said over and over that real fans are never a problem, it’s the pros (including aspiring pros) you have to watch out for. It is highly doubtful your editor at Harper Collins (I know, I worked there, too) will induce you to draw slash porn for them on the sly in exchange for food, or will publish and sell fanfic, but Starblaze was that kind of place.

It’s not that I’m close-minded, it’s just that I subscribe to the wisdom of the Five Geek Social Fallacies, which should be required reading for anyone who comes anywhere near fandom. Just because I don’t want to draw slash for my editor for food does not mean I am making a judgment on people who enjoy kinky manga…except for the Loli and tentacle stuff. Ew.

My connection to this publisher came about in part because the man who created the Starblaze line was my mentor, Frank Kelly Freas. Kelly was discreet to a fault. Though he had a bad split with Starblaze and another Very Bad Publisher, he barely mentioned them until after I had signed on with them. Then he couldn’t shut up about them. Too late!

The Woman waged epic battles with fellow employees that were so hideous and personal I won’t go there. Let’s just say that at the moment we begin the sex change operation adventure – EDIT: which I decided not to elaborate upon, but cannot resist a momentary mention of, because that place reached stratospheric heights of uberdrama, and that should give you some indication of same – the whole epic jumps the shark and I don’t want to ski with the Fonz. I have decided not to link to blogs that do because they don’t address issues about contracts and publishing that will be of any use to you. However, I admit it was strangely comforting to discover that I was not the only one revolted by the personal dramas.

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The Perils of Colleen Part V: The Dish Best Served Cold, and I Don’t Mean Borscht

by Colleen Doran on July 2nd, 2009
Posted In: Blog, A Distant Soil Blog Posts, Blog, Colleen's Work, Culture, Comics, Culture, Comics, Comics History, Creator Resources, Colleen's Work, Essays, Culture, Fandom, Creator Resources, Legal, Creator Resources, Publishing

For previous installments, click VERY BAD PUBLISHERS. These tales are lessons I learned from The SECOND worst publisher I ever worked with.

Anyway, this company is no longer in existence in the form I knew. It has completely shut down its trade divisions and only does “specialty market” books. It no longer publishes fiction of any kind and the people I once knew are no longer there. It does not use its old trade division name in any of its literature anymore.

There is no mention whatsoever in its marketing information or company history that it had ever published trade book lines or graphic novels. I guess they have decided to leave that bit of the past in the past.

And since they are no longer in any position in our market, and the people that once caused these problems are no longer there, I publish this tale as a warning to creators who might encounter these interesting contract difficulties elsewhere.

These posts were originally published about ten years ago, and cover my publishing history with this company up to 1989. The lawsuits mentioned further down began sometime in late 1990.

OK, this epic missive is a bit rambling and redundant, but what the heck. Here’s where all of the disparate elements come together.

When a publisher announces signing a contract for reprint editions of your book, sometimes it’s good news. Another publisher buys hardcover or foreign rights, you reach a new audience, and there’s a little bit more money in your pocket. Most authors don’t make much on foreign rights, but they still cash the checks, you know?

But expanding the audience with reprint editions wasn’t what was happening here.

I told you of how one day my old publisher had me in the office and bit my head off, told me I had no talent, and then told me to get out of the business.

Mere days later, I was his bestest little artist, like a daughter. He loved me and my work, denying everything he had said before. Either he had schizophrenia or something was up.

Something was up.

The publisher was in financial trouble and had been for years, sinking into debt before I even got there. They had been bought out by their printer quite some time ago because they couldn’t pay their printing bills and even though the long departed Woman claimed their graphic novel division had more gross revenue than any other division of the company, gross is nothing. Net is everything. The net was in the red and had been for years. (At one point, they had also sunk huge sums of money into a travel quide book scheme that had bombed badly. So, their GN division wasn’t the only trade book line that was sinking the company).

My publisher was pissed off because the printer/owner was pulling the plug on the trade division and he was about to be out of a job. He was not in a good mood, especially where flaky little artists like me were concerned. He had bet that we would bring in huge bucks with our graphic novels and save his company, and he had lost his gamble.

Only a few of the GN’s made any money. Yet some authors had received far larger advances than mine, including one comics artist who was paid $10,000 to produce about a dozen black and white illustrations and a color cover for a novel that only sold about 1,000 copies. While I was getting chump change, bigger name creators were getting big advances, but their books were selling less than mine was. The publisher was unable to figure out how the comics market worked and how to get popular comics creators from the direct market to sell in the retail trade (in all fairness, the rest of the comics market didn’t really figure that out for another decade either).

The printer/owner had a plan to continue to bring in revenue on those books that were still profitable like mine. Our printer/owner was working up a secret deal to sign our contracts over to another publisher, but had no intention of telling any of the authors about this. Only 12 authors were being bought out including me, because we were the only ones bringing in any real dough. We weren’t making any money on our books, but the publisher sure was. Most of the books were New Age books. I think mine was the only GN that was bought.

However, they had no right to transfer our contract agreements without our permission. Instead of contacting us for permission or to negotiate a contract sale deal, the publisher told all of the authors involved that only reprint rights to our books had been sold.

My publisher was glad to see the back of the lousy comic creators he believed had helped ruin his company when we failed to make him really, really rich (he lived the good life anyway, but he wanted a really, really good life), so he blew up at me in the office that day and got it all off his chest. However, when my publisher realized that my book was one of the ones picked up by the reprint licensor, he had to keep me happy so I would continue producing new volumes. A core feature of the secret contract sale was that the creators were going to keep producing new works.

So, the next time my publisher saw me, he was all smiles again. He brightly asked when I would have a new volume ready only days after he had told me to give up art for good. He had not remembered that he had signed all my licensing rights and black and white publishing rights back over to me. “I don’t recall that!” was one of his favorite phrases (right next to “Artists sell themselves so cheap.”)

The printer/owner had sold my entire contract to the licensor without letting the licensor know that there were virtually no rights left to buy, because my publisher had simply neglected to let the printer/owner know he had signed those rights back to me months earlier. So, one day it was “Get out of publishing!” and the next it was “I love your work and when are we going to get a new book?”

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The Perils of Colleen Part IV: Once again, with screaming…

by Colleen Doran on July 1st, 2009
Posted In: Blog, A Distant Soil Blog Posts, Blog, Colleen's Work, Culture, Comics, Culture, Comics, Comics History, Creator Resources, Colleen's Work, Essays, Culture, Fandom, Creator Resources, Publishing

Comments from the original message board posts are included below. Apparently, it was not hard to figure out who The Woman was, for though her professional life was short, her life in fandom went on…

Also, additional commentary about remaindered books and the accounting for same.

OK, back to our story.

We didn’t quite hit rock bottom on that misery mine yet.

Now, in an ideal world, IF my book with The Woman had been getting an 8% of cover price royalty, it would still have to have sold over four times the 3,000 copies it actually DID sell to earn out the advance. My original understanding was that my advance would have been ammortized equally over the books in the contract (instead of being lumped against the first one) and, of course, I had no idea that the accounts would be cross-collatoralized over all books in the series and all books on contract I had with the company.

Unfortunately, after deductions for net costs, my meagre advance, and slashing half the royalty for sales at discounts of 50% or greater, and cutting another half for holds against returns, there was no way that a 12,000 advance sale on A Distant Soil would bring in any royalties either.

But things get even worse when you realize that, because The Woman was entitled to a half royalty share on the GN I had illustrated for her, I wouldn’t be getting 4% of cover, I would be getting more like 2% of cover, or about 14 cents per copy sold.

Now, to be fair, The Woman took no advance on the book herself which was generous of her, but then, she sure as hell didn’t need an advance, either. She not only got royalties on several books she edited at the company (even when the creators did not), she also got a salary that made her New York editor counterparts envious. She was permitted to work half days at home writing. She often didn’t come into the office until 1PM. The publisher was subsidizing her writing ambitions by paying salary for her to stay home and write at least a half dozen projects only one of which, to my knowledge, ever saw the light of day – the book I illustrated. (EDIT: To clarify, mine was the only FICTION project she had published there, that I know of. I think she had one or two non-fiction projects.)

So, simply to earn out the entire advance which was paid out over the course of a year and a few months (one year’s advance plus a short extension), the book would have had to sell almost 35,000 copies JUST TO PAY OUT THE ADVANCE of $300 a month and that DID NOT COUNT all the net deductions, 50% held against returns, etc. That was just to earn back what I had been paid even though what I had been paid amounted to the worst page rate I ever received in my entire career.

35,000 copies is good sales by any standard and I didn’t see that happening on this book.

To ALSO earn out enough to pay the colorist and letterer – and to pay the writer their 50% share – for me to even begin to see any more money on the project, it would have to sell between 60,000-70,000 copies.

Moreoever, for the entire time the book was earning out at a loss, ANY AND ALL losses would be deducted from profits on A Distant Soil. In the end, A Distant Soil would be forced to subsidize the book I was illustrating for The Woman.

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