I was about to refer you folks to comicbookresources.com where there’s a nice article about “Fallen Angel,” complete with more artwork from issue #1. And there, on the same page, is a diatribe from Erik Larsen that angrily scolds creators who merely work on company-owned characters rather than on characters they themselves own–which, technically when you get down to it, includes Lee, Kirby, Ditko, Buscema, etc., since everything they created was company owned…just as any characters created for those same titles now are company owned. Yet in the world of Erik Larsen, creators who labor only in the company owned field are “pûššìëš,” resting on their “fat áššëš” and failing to “show (Erik) what (they’ve) got.”
Now I haven’t bothered with Larsen’s previous columns, despite his swipes at me (and his oh-so-clever use of “But I digress” for transitions.) But the combination of blind irony and blatant hypocrisy on this one, I just have to address…
Over ten years ago, when Image broke away to follow their own muse, their own dream, to no longer “hold back,” I wrote a column which had something of the same tone to it. Except my attitude was that I was unimpressed by the notion that–freed of the shackles of the main companies–all Image was going to do was produce more superheroes. Putting aside questions of ownership, I pondered whether the superhero-choked marketplace really needed MORE superheroes. My feeling was that, if I was going to do creator-owned stuff and had the wherewithal to do whatever I wanted, introducing yet more superheroes would be the furthest thing from my mind.
(This is an attitude that I have backed up in my career. “Sachs & Violens,” “Soulsearchers and Company,” “Fallen Angel,” plus my novel creations such as “Sir Apropos of Nothing” are nothing like my other comic book work.)
Well sir! There was much excoriation and bleats from the Image boys, attributing all manner of vicious motivations to my comments. Superheroes were what made them happy. Superheroes were what they wanted to do?
Okay. Fine.
Yet now Erik is expressing disappointment with the allegedly narrow field of achievement of other creators in terms far more nasty, juvenle and insulting than anything I ever said. Except his complaints apparently stem not from the quality of the work so much as who owns it. If someone else owns the material, apparently, then you’re just not trying hard enough and you’re a wimp and pussy. Which I’m sure will come as a shock to the army of acclaimed Oscar-winning screenwriters who haven’t owned any scripts they’ve written, ever.
What POSSIBLE motivation could Larsen have for excoriating those who toil in the realm of company owned universes? Could it be…jealousy? Well, let’s check his recent track record: A widely decried and short-lived run on “Aquaman” that seemed to exist primarily to tear down my work on the book, all of which outsold his…and an attempt to get assigned to the Hulk with a take that Marvel didn’t want to touch with a ten meter cattle prod. Maybe he’s the fox dismissing those grapes as just too dámņëd sour.
Or maybe he’s just shilling for Image, with “Show me what you can do” as a naked attempt to get people to bring their potential new series to Image. That being the case, fine. Nothing wrong with trying to drum up business. But why does it have to be done on the level of a mindless jock? I’d say that being the head of a publishing concern and acting like a jáçkášš isn’t the smartest way to elicit support, but certainly the lesson of Bill Jemas has already been learned by everyone. Well…almost everyone.
Know what I think? I think if people are happy writing only Spider-Man or Superman or Batman or whatever…God bless ’em. There are so many people in this country who are laboring at jobs that they despise, where the hëll does ANYONE get off bìŧçh-šláppìņg people who are living out their dreams…the dreams of writing the characters they grew up with? And by the way, having the sheer nerve and determination to brave the staggering odds of breaking in to be able to achieve those goals deserves far more than a dismissive “peachy.” It deserves a “well done you” and “welcome to the club” and “stick with it.” It doesn’t deserve snottiness and arrogance and the towel-snapping bullying of the jock mentality Larsen displays with such facility.
And how about the notion that the people who achieved their goal of crafting new directions for the DCU or Marvel Universe achieved their current station in life without stepping over the bodies of friends in order to do so.
Producing creator-owned superhero tales is what makes Erik Larsen happy. Producing company owned superhero tales is what makes other creators happy. One is not intrinsically more cowardly than the other.
Just one fan’s opinion.
PAD
• 
“Those who produced books that didn’t sell many copies were left with little financial benefit to show for their efforts.”
“WOW! thank you MR. Larsen, that $214 per page offer is so gracious and gollyg won’t my child, wife or family be happy when I bring home my share of 53 whole dollar bills on each page! and to think it only took us 3 months to complete it!”
Is there anything wrong with this? Doesn’t the publisher bear the costs of printing and distributing a book? Sure, it may take a team 3 months to put together a fully complete book pitch, but unless they’re either students, or have some independant wealth which allows them to not work in order to pull in a paycheck, that time probably accounts from them having day jobs. We know it doesn’t take 3 months to create a ready-to-print comic. It can’t…or at least, there are plenty of teams that manage to script, pencil, ink, and color a book each month. Leaving plenty of time for printing and distribution. So what you’re actually looking at is 2-3 actual weeks of real, 8 hour a day work. $53 per page comes out to some $1,166. For what really should amount to less than a month’s work, that’s actually fairly decent pay for a project that’s essentially just an idea, and hasn’t sold a single issue yet.
Add in that, if the creative team IS holding down other jobs, and working in their off time to produce the book, that’s just extra money on top of their normal paycheck, so it’s not like someone’s kids are going without food because Image isn’t paying enough for the right to publish new ideas.
And when it DOES get published, Image bears the costs, right? Meaning, if the book fails to sell, it’s Image that takes the hit, not the creators. Sure, they don’t get any additional payment, but unless they’re dumb, and have quit their jobs BEFORE proving they have a marketable product, they should STILL have their day jobs.
What do you do when you want to break into Hollywood? You take whatever job you need to in order to pay the bills, while you wait for a chance to make your “big break.” And until then, chances are you can get some commercial work, which pays for crap, but at least it builds your resume. Larson may be an ášš sometimes, but I don’t think you can put “cheap ášš” on him just because he doesn’t make millionaires out of everyone that Image buys a concept from.
your last line contradicted the rest of your entire point bob.
Those creators offering a pitch to IMAGE for the 6000 are in all liklihood working class and as such
not working full-time on just the book
. If they aren’t already independantly wealthy, they still need to work other jobs to pay the bills and survive. They also aren’t getting the $6000 in advance of their creation. All of that taken into consideration, yes it could take 3 months to get everything done in a quality style that would be accepted, or would you rather four people quit their jobs and took the odds of a crap shoot of whether they were gonna be picked up for that $6000.
Most (big two) professional writers, artists and creators who work on pieces ‘publisher owned’, do it as a team monthly because that is their ownly job and they get paid enough to benefit them working on it independant of anything else. Its a printed piece with their name on it, and still worthy of being called their creation whether its owned by the publisher or not.
Oh and yes, its IMAGEs loss, sure… only if they make absolutely ZERO money on the more than 100,000 issues they print before they pay the 2% royalty on titles that sell over that amount.
With IMAGE, creators will make money if they can guarantee their title will sell over 100,000 issues. How many IMAGE titles currently sell over 100,000 issues, Bob?
so— Is IMAGE really bank rolling any losses?
The cost to produce the book is far less than the cover price, and I can guarantee MR LARSEN is not going to accept a proposal he believes is gonna crash completely. IMAGE is his own mini-Vegas.
Creators put their work in and he collects the payoff. LARSEN is not making millionaires out of
anyone
let alone everyone. If most people submitting pitches to him understood they would need to volunteer their entire life for such a small possibility of return there would be even less creator owned works and even more for Mr Larsen to quibble about.
Parker, I’m having a hard time following you.
“If they aren’t already independantly wealthy, they still need to work other jobs to pay the bills and survive. They also aren’t getting the $6000 in advance of their creation. All of that taken into consideration, yes it could take 3 months to get everything done in a quality style that would be accepted,”
I believe I said this, that most people trying to put together a new, creator owned concept for consideration at Image or any publisher probably would have another job…maybe already working in comics, maybe not. Meaning that putting the new book together would be effort spent in addition to their paying work. So that real time production could be as long as 3 months, or even longer. But if you only look at the time it took to produce the book, sometimes called man-hours or something similar, it’d probably come out to about 2 weeks’ worth of 8-hour day segments.
Put another way, say it takes a total of 400 hours to put together a full-book pitch. You can put in those 400 hours in 2 weeks, if that’s pretty much all you do. Or you can work about 5 or 6 hours extra a day for 3 months.
“or would you rather four people quit their jobs and took the odds of a crap shoot of whether they were gonna be picked up for that $6000.”
I never said that. Neither has Larson. And it’s rather a meaningless point to raise. The $6000 isn’t paid for 3 months’ worth work. It’s paid for what professionals can churn out in about 2 weeks’ time. If that’s 3 months pay, yeah, it stinks, but it’s not. Check my Hollywood analogy if you think that I meant for people trying to break into the creator owned end of comics to quit doing what pays the bills. You do what you have to, until you can do what you want to.
“How many IMAGE titles currently sell over 100,000 issues, Bob?”
By the way, it’s Bobb, not Bob.
And I don’t know, how many Image titles sell over 100,000 issues, Parker? For that matter, how many DC books? Marvel? Do only books selling over 100,000 turn a profit for the publisher? Does that even matter?
“so— Is IMAGE really bank rolling any losses?
The cost to produce the book is far less than the cover price, and I can guarantee MR LARSEN is not going to accept a proposal he believes is gonna crash completely.”
Yeah, they probably have taken some losses on books. That’s usually why a book gets cancelled, it’s not making any or enough money. And why should Larson, or anyone else for that matter, be expected to buy a proposal that he thinks is going to bomb? Did I miss the part where Larson offered to pay $6,000 to anyone that could get 22 completed pages into him? So, no, Image probably isn’t taking too big a loss on stinkers…because one sign of a good publisher is recognizing what has a chance to sell, and what won’t. Point being, it’s the publishing company that’s taking the greater financial risk. The creator isn’t shelling out the tens or hundreds of thousands of $ to get that first issue printed, the publisher is. It’s the publisher that has the contracts with the printers, the distributors, etc., and it’s the publisher that’s carrying ALL the risk. It stands to reason that the publisher should be first in line for profits…or else why would they publish at all?
“LARSEN is not making millionaires out of
anyone
let alone everyone.”
Again, why is it Larson’s job to make other people rich? I’m sure PAD (yes, I do remember which board I’m on) appreciates the support of all his fans, but I doubt he’s going to be putting up a “How I Intend to Make All My Fans Rich” post any time soon (psst, PAD, if you do, since it was my idea, I get to be first in line, ok?). Larson is heading a publishing company that seeks to support a creator driven market. I’m sure for every book Image publishes, there are 10 more ideas that it’s paid that $6000 fee to, but doesn’t think the market will support just yet. And for every 11 concepts that it purchases, that are probably 50 submissions that they say “no thanks” to.
“If most people submitting pitches to him understood they would need to volunteer their entire life for such a small possibility of return there would be even less creator owned works and even more for Mr Larsen to quibble about.”
Ok. People trying to enter the creator owned market don’t already realize this? You don’t have to go very far in age/life before you realize that going out on your own, doing your own thing, eats a metric ton more of time than just getting a job from someone else. And that 90% of people trying to establish their own business never see a profit from it. Why should doing your own comic be any different? Even in Larson’s rant from a few weeks ago, he never says that doing your own thing will be easy. His comments after indicate that he was trying to challenge people to do something. You don’t get challenged to do something if it’s easy. If it’s easy, you just do it. No one has to challenge me to tie my shoe in the morning, because it’s relatively easy.
I don’t see how anything in my post was contradictory. You were spouting off about how bad Larson and Image were because the only offer $6000 for an accepted concept issue. Ok, why don’t you run off and tell us how much DC offers for accepting a new concept. Or Marvel. And IDW. Then we can compare those amounts, and if Image is way below the market, and there’s no other reason for that (such as, maybe the offer a higher % of profit), THEN we can complain about how bad Image is.
well,
Bobb
here goes, speaking from a professional point of view, DC and Marvel pay (without a contract) between $175-$225 per page JUST TO THE ARTIST, plus a royalty fee on the copies sold above their marker point.
If you have the talent and can stay in the game, on a regular run and get an exclusive you can write an even larger ticket with larger % of royalties. Aside from the rate not being split amongst an entire team, there is the thought that the work is more steady and consistently pays, versus not knowing if you will ever see any other money.
If you really want to know how many titles IMAGE, Marvel or DC has sold over 100,000 issues, it is easily found on the Diamond Distribution site. You won’t need a calculator to keep track either.
I am not spouting off figures from nowhere, I am spouting off these figures from being in their market for more than 15 years.
and yes, $6000 stinks, regardless of how you try to whittle that down to 2 weeks, or 12 weeks, its a penny compared to the money they make on your project. What risk is there to publishing something that they know will never pay the creator, one dime of royalties on? Yes, the money is fronted, but they only order according to the distribution order filed, thats why there is such a thing as “PREVIEWS”. The books are paid for by credit before they are ever shipped, so the risk is short lived, and the profit immediate.
I believe the whole point of this argument was why should a creator step out of their comfort zone, where there bills are paid and family live comfortably to push paper with another publisher, just to have the ability to say its his “owned” creation? What is that creator really walking away with? And why should an editor degrade another creator for their choice to be happy with living the good life, and working hard at something they love? Nobody said that getting your own creation in print shouldn’t be as much a risk or challenge as starting your own business… the offense was having an editor slap the average creators in the face by addressing them improperly and trying to make them look foolish for tackling their craft in the manner that works best for them. So- it didn’t work for Mr. Larsen, and he likes it his way, is he a GOD? does that mean that everyone else who doesn’t bow and follow his route is a mindless fool and unworthy of reader’s attention?
You took an approach that I was referring to IMAGE accepting only proposals from young, fresh talent that haven’t made a name for theirselves.
Those IMAGE rates don’t change with experience. Whether you are a current selling, seasoned pro, or are unsolicited fresh off the street, its the same, as well as the amount of effort IMAGE puts into soliciting and marketing the book.
I am not trying to make IMAGE look bad for paying a crappy rate, I am trying to direct you to the bigger picture that they are not really offering much to drive creators to want to print their own stuff. And the method Mr. Larsen used to get his point across was extremely inappropriate. If he can’t back his point with more bank, he should not bother offending people who are doing just fine working for a publisher.
.
Was Larsen talking as the head of Image or just as an individual (or a “fan”)?
Image is not the only venue for self-publishing. There’s Lulu.com and a host of other vanity publishers, or you can do it yourself as your own publisher.
While I disagree with Larsen in how and what he said, if you WANT to do your own thing, then it’s possible. It is no one’s job to make SELF publishing profitable except yourSELF.
Very good points, Parker Penworthy.
Your revelation that Image only pays royalties on sales of over 100,000 copies shocked me – while sales under 100,000 used to get you canceled at Marvel, these days sales that high for any title are very rare. Image really is taking no risk at all, certainly compared to the creators, since it is very unlikely that they’ll have to pay royalties on any title.
Also, while it’s true that Larsen never explicitly says “come work for me,” I think the idea is implied several times in his piece, as when he denigrates doing creator-owned projects for the Big Two companies. And I still think the appearance of his article just as it was revealed that longtime Spawn penciler Angel Medina had signed a Marvel-exclusive deal is not coincidental.
>>”Your revelation that Image only pays royalties on sales of over 100,000 copies shocked me”
Royalties for Sales of over 100,000 copies? Where is this information from? I can not believe this, because no one would bring his comic to Image then… not in times where nearly no comic sells ober 100.000
Can anybody confirm this, please?
Royalty Fan,
No one will reveal their name because it has been a long standing ethic in the industry not to discuss dollar specifics.
and yes you are completely right that no-one would want to take their comic to IMAGE under these specifications, unless of course then again it were a new team or someone who could afford the luxury of droping their regular gig(s), just to keep their pitch creator owned. To point to the realizm of my comment even more, Mr Larsen acts like it is difficult to find product:
“I was bemoaning the lack of new creations period…” , well gee where is the surprise there, when his company cannot, or will not pay more.
I have know more than a dozen creators who passed up the offer. I have known people that took IMAGE up on the offer because they had dreams of having their characters become the next big action/animated adventure movie down the line, or branching the characters out to something beyond the comic world. If you have the time to dream and do it on the side, more power to you… but most of the time, creators are pinned to their deadlines and have little extra time. If you tell a Big2 publisher that you want to walk away for a month or two to do your own stuff, you could easily be writing your last paycheck from them. A matter of months can be a dangerous thing with the talent pool available, and you can always be replaced. Most of the talent pool is not made up of headliners on exclusives.
Parker, thanks for the clarification. I understand better now, but I think you have unreasonable expectations for what is essentially a new business venture.
You can’t compare the per-page rate that Marvel or DC pays its talent for published books to the rate a publisher pays for the right to publish a new creator-owned property. Marvel’s rates are based on expeted sales. There’s little guesswork. And it’s a going business, with relatively stable income.
A new creator-owned property is no different than any other new business. Most new businesses are lucky to break even in their first 3-5 years. Most will turn in a loss. It’s the nature of building up a customer base, expanding, and growing into a profitable venture. Why should a new comic be any different? Maybe Image’s profit line is too high for today’s market, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
You sound like you expect publishers to just shell out money for unproven titles, front the advertising and publication costs, and put the creator first in line to get paid. Just like any other self-employed person, the creator is the last person that gets paid. This isn’t new, uncommon, and it’s the way things should be.
I’ve no basis to dispute any of your claims, but I do find it very suspect that your numbers are supported by sources that can’t be named.
“No one will reveal their name because it has been a long standing ethic in the industry not to discuss dollar specifics.”
This may be true. It may be false. But unless someone comes forward with a contract offer to prove or disprove it, it’s just a claim. It seems to me that someone somewhere along the way wouldn’t mind showing a standard Image contarct to support this. Parker Penworthy can’t be the only comic industry insider willing to talk about this?
once again, as I mentioned and it has been repeated it is a matter of ethical standard in the business not to name dollars and cents. if you search the web, you will find 100s of comic book professionals with their own websites, but you will rarely find any of them talking about their pay.
No one wants to burn bridges that they might someday want to use, and secondly, with whatever the creators actions are apart from each other, generally most creators stick together and are supportive of each other through all. In proof, You won’t have to look far to find a benefit or charitible function geared to help a creator who has gone down on his luck over the years… mostly because aside from respect, MOST of us stick together.
Bobb, the new property theory has some credible weight, except when you consider that there are still new titles being published by the big2 that pay the same page rate amount as their older titles. the big2 are taking a larger risk with the new titles, but perhaps with their publishing name, they are expecting a better return since they are at the top of Diamond’s buy list.
whether my expectations about new ventures are inflated really is not my true qualm for Mr. Larsen’s statements. As I stated previously, its more about his fierce determination to slap other creators in the face and call them stupid for not taking his road. Some creators might be so nasty as to say Mr. Larsen acts this way to thwart questions of why he doesn’t attempt to get his work published by the Big2 again… all manner of supposition could be added to that line, but as I said MOST creators stick together, with respect for each other’s work.
Parker, I share your distate for the way Larson vented his so-called frustration with the lack of creater-owned material being published today. And several others called his little rant an outright blatant plea, almost begging, for people to submit their creator owned material to Image, which Larson “just happens” to run. I didn’t care much for Mr. Larson prior to that, and after, and after his response to some of the criticism that came in as a result, I care for him even less.
But that’s not what you were complaining about when you started talking about Image’s rates for submissions. You can’t really throw out a few numbers and try to use them to disparage a publisher’s system without also presenting something to compare it to. Telling us what Image pays for the right to publish a new book tells me nothing about what the market pays for comparable work. Saying what Marvel’s per-page rate helps some, as it puts comparable work in perspective, but it isn’t really apples and apples. What does Marvel pay for a similar “concept” book? Do they even make such an up-front payment? Does Marvel offer a % of profits, over a certain level, or just a per-page payment? Without any hard numbers to compare to, all I can do is compare the numbers you do put forth against things that I do know, like my own salary. Marvel and Image may have different business models, each serving a different sector of the comic industry.
Maybe it’s time for comic professionals to start comparing notes? To start talking in public about rates and such. After all, we know that McFarlane made millions off of Spawn, and not all on merchandising and movie options. Some of that allegedly came from his comic work.
seven posts up^^
“between $175-$225 per page JUST TO THE ARTIST, plus a royalty fee on the copies sold above their marker point. If you have the talent and can stay in the game, on a regular run and get an exclusive you can write an even larger ticket with larger % of royalties”
Yes Marvel and DC do pay royalties
And expand on them when prints are released internationally. Its a bit difficult to discuss the royalty issue with regard to DC and Marvel, because the customer base is so large, and it also depends on a number of other factors, such as if the creator is signed exclusively, what number of sales the issue has surpassed or what printing it is in. Some contracts agree to pay a % over a certain number of sales above 50,000, others state if the book goes into a second printing, the creator derives a higher %, or in some cases doesn’t receive a % until its the second printing. Its a complicated structure, mostly because there are far more creators working for those two publishers and many work out their own contracts according to their personal demands and how valued they are to the publisher.
Yes, Bobb… I went into my post referring to the payroll involved, because it seemed to be the one argument no one else had brought into the scenario before. I’ve done my best to clarify my reasoning for bringing it up, because as I stated previously, I feel a publisher who criticizes other creators for not stepping out, and acts like there is so much to gain, would be willing to back that with better offers, as proof to his point.
“because as I stated previously, I feel a publisher who criticizes other creators for not stepping out, and acts like there is so much to gain, would be willing to back that with better offers, as proof to his point.”
Parker, you did kinda sorta say this, although a bit differently
“If he can’t back his point with more bank, he should not bother offending people who are doing just fine working for a publisher.”
Which is fine, and I think if you’d stated this up front in your first comments, I’d have responded less. But here’s the thing: Larson doesn’t ever raise money in his spew, so far as I can tell. He never says anything like “you guys are pathetic, don’t you know how much more money you could be makingg if you were working on your own stuff?” This is really something you injected into the conversation.
Which is not to say it’s not a valid response to Larson’s spew. And in fact, given Larson’s position as running a publishing company that wants to attract new talent and new creations, you’re absolutely right that offering more creator rewards would be a lot better incentive than trying to verbally cut people that are only trying to make a living while doing what they’ve always dreamed of doing.
The thing is, I don’t think you need to crticize Image’s method of paying for creator owned work in order to bash Larson’s methods in his spew. It sounds like Marvel is a better deal for creator-owned work. Then again, Marvel doesn’t really seem to publish a lot of that, which leads me to think that they only take pretty sure-fire hits. Well established works with proven sales records. On the other hand, Image seem to cater to the unproven work. And in that respect, it is more like a new business, with Image participating as a partner/investor. As a business model, I’m sure you could find parallels rather easily. And sure, it seems harsh for the creator, with little chance for profit, but that’s the nature of the game.
I was just mildly amused that where Erik went off on people who aren’t “doing their own thing” in this column, in a previous column (only two or three weeks earlier) he called 99% of the samples he receives at his office crap.
Not sure what message he’s trying to send, because he didn’t seem to send either all that well (well, he did say in another column that he hasn’t a clue…).
Dj
You know Mr. David, on this forum you’re really coming off every bit as arrogant, obscene and unprofessional as you claim Erik Larsen is. The lot of you really misunderstood his overall message. Most likely because when it comes to being an independent artist you tend to scream your no bûllšhìŧ opinions out in a punk rock kind of way. I should know, I just got kicked off the comicboards.com Spider-Man section for making too many true statements about yours and JMSs “How about Spider-Man grows fangs and stingers and stabs a person to death” story. “Contributions” like this to Spidey and his mythos only further proves how right Erik really is and makes me work twice as hard on my own creations.