Thank you very much. I don’t expect that we’ll sell them all at Fan Expo and enough people have made polite noises of interest that I think we’ll likely hold some back and make them available through the store before or after. We’ll be sure to let people know when that happens.
First look at Snipe, which will be a 32 page book in a flip format, with a clever cover, in an edition of 100. Available for Fan Expo in August. It’s been a while since we’ve made a small book. So we’re pretty excited about that.
David Lafuente: I like Mark Millar
Some readers don’t like his smart-ass attitude, and some creators don’t like… that his paychecks are bigger than theirs. All of which is absolute crap, but that’s another story.
Millar has all my respect for things like the text following. He posted this on his message board, discussing further…
Decades on, my generation of creators is hyper-aware of what happened to the people who really built the industry. The very small handful of people who built pretty much everything that pays for all those big offices around the world for the major companies. But even then I still see this happening. One reasonably well-known and sleazy company, for example, has a deal where every new creator-owned series is owned entirely by the writer and the artist is work for hire. Thus, if a movie gets made and someone makes one, two or three million dollars from the proceeds, the artist gets nothing but a cut of publishing.
Other thing I’ve seen is new creations unevenly split. In rights terms, 50/50 is the only way to go, but I’ve seen this split on big projects 75/25 and even 90/10 among the writer and artist. This rarely gets reported because artists, even more than writers, tend to be gentle souls, crushed by their next deadline and never quite finding the time or the energy to make a fuss. But I see all sorts of stuff going on now like front-loading money from a movie deal into a writer’s first draft of a screenplay money too. That’s a particularly sneaky one. Say, for example, the rights to a movie is going for a million dollars. That should be half a million each. But some very dodgy deals can be cut where the screenplay is 500K and the rights are 500 between both, the artist just getting half of what he’s due and the screenplay binned immediately and always planned to be binned with the writer recouping 75% of the pot.
What I mean by all this is that people should keep their eyes open. This isn’t an industry where our work is worth pennies anymore. These ideas can be used in endless mediums and are the reason the Big Two have vast Manhattan and Los Angeles offices. At the same time, writers and artists have to be fair with each other. Anything that isn’t 50/50 isn’t such a good deal. I think it’s fair enough for a writer to exclusively take a producer fee in the same way that an artist could take a design fee because, for example, I spend easily 5-10 hours a week on producer calls, watching casting sessions or even disappearing for a week entirely for story meetings or early edit screenings. I still split my producer fees 50/50 with the artists as a personal choice, but don’t judge the others who don’t as it really is a distinct deal from the rights and a different job.
MM
Hello and thanks.
Here’s how it generally goes [full of links]:
1) I break down one or two script pages at a time into very small thumbnails. They are usually no bigger than an inch (or 3cm) high.
2) This is followed by sketching directly on the art board with Prismacolor Turquoise non-photo blue. Sometimes it’s the whole page, sometimes just one panel or tier of panels.
3) Then finished pencilling on top, sometimes clarifying with frankenphotoreference, GPOY or 3D modelling software. There’s also a lot of erasing at this stage, but typically, a shadow of the blueline stays until Wade turns it into gold.
4) Cookies.
You’re right, the answer is no for a multitude of reasons. Not the least of which is that you’d have to own a four wheel drive vehicle and show up before dawn. Having said that, I was a terrible student and am likely a worse teacher. In all honesty, I can’t even fathom how that would work. I’m not sure that there’d be much to learn from observation and there is simply no time in the day for me to be focused on someone’s tutelage. As far as the schedule… we’re up pretty early, drink coffee. I do the morning dog walk, Kathryn makes breakfast. We’re in the office by 8 or so. A little email and dicking around. People email me less than they call and people almost never call. Lunch at 12:30 and we both try to wrap up by 3. Kathryn walks the dog. Then outside stuff usually involving moving rocks or running a chainsaw. Then yoga everyday, then dinner. I try not to work on the weekends because I’ve got shit to build and things to chop down.
We would have replied to this privately but it wasn’t possible. HOWEVER, we did really want to acknowledge that it means rather a lot when people take the time to drop a line. It’s a moment out of your day when you could have been doing something else, something pleasurable, like ordering cupcakes online or playing ping pong. So thank you. Truly.
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #655
KATHRYN IMMONEN (W)
VALERIO SCHITI (A)
Cover by JEFF DEKAL
The planet-shattering conclusion to Seeds of Destruction…!
• Gaea gets in touch with her monstrous side?!
• To save the ganGREEN goddess, Sif and Beta Ray Bill race to stop the mysterious Ark ship in the (nearly!) scuttled Skuttlebutt!
• The finish line? Asgardia!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99
ALL-NEW X-MEN #15
BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W) • DAVID LAFUENTE (A)
Cover by STUART IMMONEN
• Love is in the air!
• Cyclops heart and future start to fade before his eyes.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99
Sue Storm sketches, c. 2004. Client: Marvel. Job: Ultimate Fantastic Four
K: Stuart and I started out self-publishing about 25 years ago. I went on to spend many years working as a costume designer, (some film, mostly theatre) while Stuart made his way in(to) mainstream comics. But during that time we continued to produce small run books and do the odd gig for others. I had gone back to school to do my MFA and the Marvel Comics Presents Hellcat thing happened right at the end of that, as did spending two months in upstate New York at the Women’s Studio Workshop, editioning an artist’s book. That was basically the beginning of returning to comics and books full time. And satisfying? sure, absolutely, not least of which is because Stuart and I get to hang out and make work together all the time.
S: Thanks for reading and thanks for the kind words. The answer to your question is yes and yes. After reading the script, I decide what may be the most appropriate style in which to draw the story. It may be cartoonish (Nextwave), naturalistic (Superman: Secret Identity), spare (Moving Pictures) or mainstream action/adventure (All-New X-Men). The tone of the story dictates and I take it from there.
