Attorney, Author, and Business Consultant for the Comic Book Industry

Filtering by Category: Contract Negotiation

What Red Flags Should You Look for in a Comic Book Contract?

Added on January 15, 2024 by Gamal Hennessy.

If you are building a career in comics, you’re going to have to deal with a lot of different types of contracts. They may be work-for-hire agreements (See What Is Work-for-Hire Agreements), collaboration agreements (See What Is a Collaboration Agreement?), licensing deals, shopping deals, merchandise deals, and a lot of other things in between. Every deal is going to be different and the way you approach any specific deal will be based on your leverage, the size of the deal, and several distinctive factors, but if you understand the basics of what a good deal looks like, it will be much easier for you to negotiate the good contracts and reject the bad ones.

I have been a comic book lawyer since 1996 (See What Is Comic Book Law?). I have been an educator and business consultant to comic creators since 2012 (See Bio). Over the past twelve years, I’ve made myself available to answer questions from writers, artists, and publishers about everything from copyright to marketing to licensing to AI. The one important question that comes up over and over again is a variation of “How do I identify good and bad contracts?”

I’ve developed and refined my answer to this question over the past twenty-eight years. Basically, a good contract has a beneficial contractual balance. A bad contract has a detrimental contractual balance.

What Is Contractual Balance?

When I use the term contractual balance, I’m talking about the relative weight between four basic factors in an agreement, relationship, rights, revenue, and responsibilities:

Relationship is the connection between the people involved in the deal. For example, in a work-for-hire deal, someone is ordering and paying for the work (the client) and someone doing the work and getting paid for it (the talent). Understanding the relationship is important because it establishes the expectations for the rest of the deal.
Rights define who owns and controls the intellectual property associated with the deal. Copyrights and trademarks are fundamental assets in the comic book industry (See Image and Story), so any legal agreement needs to establish who has those rights, how long they have them, and what they can and can’t do with them. For example, in a t-shirt licensing deal, the side that owns the rights (the licensor) gives the side that wants to sell the t-shirts (the licensee) the right to make and sell the t-shirts under certain conditions.
Revenue explains what happens to the money generated by the deal. There are many different ways to define and generate revenue in comics (See A Simple Guide to Getting Paid in Comics) and a comic book contract needs to spell out who gets how much, when they can expect to get paid, and how can they confirm they are paid correctly. For example, in a creator-owned deal, there might be both an advance and a royalty paid to the creator if and when the comic book makes a profit.
Responsibility describes what each side in the relationship is required to do in order to exercise their rights and collect their revenue. In most cases, your responsibility will come in the form of an action (producing art, selling comics, etc.) but it can also include promises you make about the deal (See Double Indemnity: Are You Protected?) For example, in an exclusive licensing agreement (See Your Exclusive Engagement) a licensor promises not to grant the same license to more than one licensee.

How Do You Measure Contractual Balance?

Once you understand the factors that go into contractual balance, identifying a good contract becomes a matter of comparing the rights, revenue, and responsibilities in light of the relationship.

A good option purchase agreement to turn a comic book series into a film could name the comic creator as a producer (a positive relationship) and offer an above-market purchase price and back-end participation (a positive revenue stream) in exchange for the exclusive rights to the IP (a negative rights position) and delivery of the existing comic (a positive responsibility requirement).

Alternatively, a bad creator-owned deal might list the comic creator as the owner of the IP (a positive relationship), but offers you no money up-front and questionable royalties (a negative revenue result), forces you to give up all control of the IP (a negative rights position) and forces you to pay for producing the final pages (a negative responsibility position).

It is important to understand that almost no contract will give you 100% of everything in a deal. Each side has to give up something, even if that something is minimal. You also need to keep in mind that every paragraph in a contract can shift and adjust contractual balance from one side to another and the equilibrium between the factors can ebb and flow depending on time, profit, and other factors. Understanding contractual balance can help you distinguish good deals from bad ones, but it’s not a substitute for experienced contract analysis from a professional who understands how the industry works.

Have fun with your comic.

Gamal

If you enjoyed this post, consider joining Comics Connection. Comics Connection gives creators a community to elevate their comic book careers. We offer access to business and creative resources you can’t find anywhere else. For a limited time, the first month of membership is free.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS BLOG POST IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL ADVICE. IF YOU HAVE A LICENSING OR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISSUE, DISCUSS IT WITH YOUR LEGAL ADVISOR OR CONTACT C3 FOR A FREE CONSULTATION.

Initial Thoughts on NFTs from a Comic Book Attorney

Added on April 11, 2021 by Gamal Hennessy.

I’ve had current and potential clients ask me about NFT’s over the past few weeks, and I’ve seen advocates on both sides of the issue present their perspectives. This isn’t meant to be a definitive statement on the technology and its impact on the industry. It certainly does not constitute business or legal advice. In the end, this can only be the beginning of an evolving perspective from someone who works with the legal issues surrounding comic book art, that can hopefully help increase understanding of this fluid topic.

What is an NFT?

The acronym NFT in this case stands for “non-fungible token”. While there is a more complex definition based on the underlying blockchain technology used to power it, the easiest way to think about NFT’s is as a unique digital file. According to The Verge “NFTs can really be anything digital (such as drawings, music, your brain downloaded and turned into an AI), but a lot of the current excitement is around using the tech to sell digital art.” On a certain level, NFT’s can be seen as an evolution of the selling of a singular physical art piece, like a commission you buy at a convention in artist’s alley or the single copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin that the Wu-Tang Clan sold to pharma-bro back in 2015.

What is the Value of a Digital File?

If an NFT is a digital file, and digital files by their nature can be instantly copied an unlimited number of times, what is the point of paying a lot of money for a digital file? The answer to that question can be traced back to the nature of collection in general and comic book collecting in particular.

Certain people have collected things that interested them from the time we could pick things up. Elite members of almost every civilization have collected works of art as a way to display their power and taste. There is an entire segment of the comic book industry based on the collection of comics and a separate market for original art from those comics.

For example, in 2014 there was a sale for Superman #1 for 3.2 million dollars. The 2021 value of a similar book is currently listed at 23.6 million dollars. But why? If you don’t care about comics or you don’t like Superman, these numbers might seem ridiculous. What is the inherent, universal value of a Faberge egg, a Basquiat painting, or a rare comic?

There isn’t one. The value is subjective. As long as the seller can find a buyer willing to pay the cost, then the value exists for that transaction. So while paying millions of dollars for a digital file doesn’t make practical sense, it makes just as much sense as any other subjective artistic collectible. The only difference in the case of NFT’s is the difference between the object’s digital and physical existence.

What is the Impact on the Environment?

Like many types of blockchain technology, the NFT process harms the environment in ways that override any economic benefit it provides. While the specific harm to the planet is a matter for debate, it should be taken in the context of the wider environmental impact of the comic book industry for comparison.

Before the pandemic, if one artist in New Jersey wanted to sell one piece of original art at San Diego Comic-Con, she would have to take a car to the airport, get on a plane, take a car to the hotel, consume several meals for several days and then repeat the whole process to get back home and she might not ever sell her art. At the same time, hundreds of potential buyers of that single art piece would have to replicate the process on their own.

How much negative environmental impact does that create? I’m not an environmental expert. This scenario is not an apples-to-apples comparison, since both the buyer and the seller here might get more benefit from the trip than just the sale of one piece of art, but the sale of comic book art, and comic book fandom in general, isn’t inherently environmentally friendly.

What is the Impact on Comics Creators?

While any digital file can be sold as an NFT, not all digital files, or their creators, have the same stakes in the process. In my opinion, colorists, letterers, flatters, editors, and designers don’t have much to gain from NFTs. Writers might also find a hard time finding interest in their scripts or pitches without some extraordinary factors. At the same time, cartoonists and creator-owned comic creators who own their work outright appear to have more flexibility to pursue NFT’s than freelance creators. Artists and publishers have the most to lose or gain from the potential NFT market.

Artists, who have been able to supplement their income with the sale of original art in the past, lost some of that capacity as they moved from generating work in a digital rather than physical medium. Publishers, looking for additional sources of revenue from their intellectual property, see NFT’s as a market that could be bigger than the sales of the actual comics. Battle lines are being drawn based on who has ownership and control over these assets.

Who Owns the Comic NFT?

Ownership and control over NFT’s comes down to the contracts governing the underlying intellectual property and the relative leverage between the artists and publishers for any single comic.

In a well-designed collaboration agreement or work for hire contract, there should be language concerning the ownership and disposition of original art. These clauses historically dealt with physical art, but they can be modified or interpreted to cover NFT’s.

Here’s an example of an original art clause. As you read it, keep in mind that the Owner is the publisher, the Talent is the artist, the Project is the finished comic, and the Services is the artwork.

The parties agree that Owner shall own all of the Services. Any original physical artwork created under this Agreement shall be owned by Talent. Talent may utilize up to four (4) pages of the Services in their professional portfolio or any marketing, advertising, or other display of the Services after the commercial release of the Project. Talent may not use any aspect of the Project to create additional materials not authorized and approved by Owner.

This paragraph attempts to achieve four goals. First, it designates that the publisher owns the pages produced by the artist. Second, it designates that the physical artwork (if there is any) is owned by the artist. Third, it allows the artist to use a portion of the pages to get more gigs after the comic is released (to avoid spoilers). Finally, it prohibits the artist from making and selling things without the approval of the publisher. The last sentence can be used to effectively prohibit the creation of an NFT, if the NFT is determined to be “additional materials.”

This is an example of an original art clause, but the contents of this clause can vary wildly based on the relative power of the people signing the contract. For example, an artist with enough leverage could have the word “physical” removed from the second sentence, giving her the potential to sell NFTs.

Leverage is defined as the power one side has over the other side in the pursuit of their interests. Companies like DC are using their leverage to shut down creator's attempts to generate revenue from NFTs that include DC characters. On the other end of the spectrum, publishers like AWA are coming out in favor of artists generating revenue from NFT’s. The difference in position could be based on a dissimilar corporate philosophy, or in the disparity in the market share and popularity between the companies characters, or a host of other reasons. In any event, artists who plan on selling NFTs will have to consider which publishers they work with and what they agree to in their contracts before they start selling.

What is the Future of Comic Book NFTs?

As I said in the beginning, this isn’t the last word on this issue. NFT’s, like page rates and other forms of compensation for comic creators, will continue to be a source of contention in the industry. There will continue to be business, legal and social fallout on both sides of the NFT issue depending on their relative position. The technology might become more efficient, more costly, or ultimately replaced by new technology. The market might stabilize or collapse. Publishers and artists could use the potential of NFTs as a negotiation point or as the basis for ongoing litigation. Whatever happens, creators, publishers, and consumers will have to reconcile with the continuing impact of digital technologies on the business of comics based on their goals, beliefs, and position in the industry.

Have fun with your comic

Gamal

If you have questions about the or legal aspects of your comic book publishing and you'd like a free consultation, please contact me and we can set something up that fits in with your schedule.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS BLOG POST IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL ADVICE. IF YOU HAVE AN ISSUE WITH YOUR COMIC PROPERTY, DISCUSS IT WITH A QUALIFIED CONTRACT ATTORNEY OR CONTACT C3 FOR A FREE CONSULTATION

Dave Chappelle’s Advice to Comic Creators: Part 4

Added on December 11, 2020 by Gamal Hennessy.

This week, I’ve been using Dave Chappelle’s Unforgiven performance to highlight the need for understanding creative contracts. Today, I’d like to close out the discussion by looking at the concept of assignment.

Words in the legal world have different meanings than words in the real world. For example, most people define an assignment as a task, duty, or responsibility given by one person to another person. In the world of contracts, an assignment is the transfer of contractual rights and obligations from one party to another party. In most contracts, references to assignments are buried deep in the back of the agreement when your eyes are already glazed over and skipping anything that doesn’t look like the signature line. But certain assignment language can turn a good deal into a bad one right before your eyes.

Musical Chairs

Imagine yourself as someone who makes comics. Also, imagine yourself working hard to get your name out there at cons and online. You meet a small publisher and the two of you hit it off. He loves your work and offers you a deal. It’s not a great deal because it’s your first self-published project, but you take it anyway. Your book comes out and you’re as proud as a newborn parent.

Your publisher treats you like gold. He goes beyond the language in the contract to support and promote your book. He reports sales on time and he even pays you. Your book and the other titles in his catalog start to get a lot of buzz. Hollywood starts knocking on the door. Suddenly, people are talking about TV, video games, and even movies. Your publisher gets an offer for the entire company and he takes it. Now instead of being published by a small visionary publishing company, your book is swallowed up by a big vertically integrated conglomerate.

Your new publisher does not treat you like gold. Your contact at the central office has no idea who you are and isn’t interested in finding out. Your book is buried in an avalanche of content. The money stops. Your book becomes inventory for other media, but it is constantly pushed aside for higher-profile properties. Your entire relationship with them is defined by the original unfair agreement and you want to take your book elsewhere.

That’s when you read the assignment clause of your contract and realize there’s a problem.

Types and Options

Assignment clauses boil down into two types; mutual and non-mutual.

In a mutual assignment, you or your publisher could assign your rights in the contract to someone else at a later date or neither of you can ever assign your rights to anyone.
In a non-mutual type of assignment, only one of you has the right of assignment and the other side is stuck.

Publishers have a vested interest in being able to assign contracts. Their ability to sell their company is based in part on what is in the catalog. A company won’t be worth much if every title can walk out the door after a sale. Because of this and the inherent negotiating imbalance, most artists have many artists are not in a position to get a non-mutual assignment clause that goes their way. Many of them can’t even get a mutual assignment clause. Quite a few of them are stuck in a bad position.

This is what happened to Chappelle. His original deal was with Comedy Central, which is owned by Warner Brothers. But when AT&T bought Warner, Chappelle Show found its way to HBO Max and Netflix. Chappelle (because of other clauses in the contract) didn’t have any say in this decision and he didn’t get any money from the lucrative licensing deal.

Your Mission, If You Choose To Accept It…

The rights to catalogs change hands more often than you might think. Aspen Comics recently acquired the rights to Big Dog Ink. A few years back, DC acquired Wildstorm and integrated that entire universe into the New 52. In what is perhaps the largest catalog acquisition in recent memory, Disney bought Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars. As comic properties become more lucrative more publishers will see value in having catalogs they can assign.

Your response to this situation is threefold:

Understand what kind of assignment clause you are dealing with and what options you have to walk away from a new publisher in the event of a sale
Negotiate for the best overall contract you can get upfront
Understand your long-term success will be based on the language in your contract as much as, if not more than, your relationship with the publisher.

In Chappelle’s case, it worked out in the end. Because he has more leverage with Netflix (see my earlier post on leverage) he could get Chappelle Show taken off the streaming service. You might now be as fortunate. Time alters circumstances and relationships. While you can’t see into the future or account for every eventuality, the more you understand about contracts before you sign them, the less you’ll regret the contracts you sign.

Have fun with your comic.

If you have questions about the business or legal aspects of your comic book publishing and you'd like a free consultation, please contact me and we can set something up that fits in with your schedule.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS BLOG POST IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL ADVICE. IF YOU HAVE AN ISSUE WITH YOUR COMIC PROPERTY, DISCUSS IT WITH A QUALIFIED CONTRACT ATTORNEY OR CONTACT C3 FOR A FREE CONSULTATION

Dave Chappelle’s Advice to Comic Creators: Part 3

Added on December 9, 2020 by Gamal Hennessy.

For the past couple of days, I’ve been using Dave Chappelle’s Unforgiven performance to highlight the need for understanding creative contracts. Today, I’d like to take a closer look at the idea of losing the right to use your own name.

Lesson 3: Marketing vs. Manipulation

There is a point in Unforgiven where Chappelle rejects the advice of his friends who tell him to just take Chappelle Show and go to another network. In addition to an analogy of running from one slave master to another, Chappelle mentions that even if he wanted to create a new Chappelle Show, he couldn’t call it Chappelle Show because he signed away his right to use his name that way.

The name and image of an artist can have a significant impact on the success of any creative project. The difference between an A-list actor, writer, or artist can mean the difference between a hit and a failure. This is one of the reasons certain artists are mentioned so prominently in a comic, film, or video game.

But you can’t just use anyone’s name to sell something without their permission. Invasion of Privacy is a set of legal concepts that include the use of someone’s name or likeness for commercial gain, intrusion, undue publicity, and false light.

Companies get around this law by asking artists to allow for their name and image to be used to promote whatever project is being contracted. They also normally acquire the right to use the name of the project itself, because it is hard to ask someone to buy something if you can’t mention what it is.

That isn’t a problem. The problem comes in the way the language is written into the contract. Take this example for instance:

“Company shall have the exclusive right to use the name and likeness of The Artist in connection with the advertising, promotion, exploitation, and exhibition of any product based upon the Material under this Agreement, in perpetuity, throughout the universe in any and all media now known or invented in the future.”

If Chappelle signed a contract that included a clause like this, then he gave up the right to use the title Chappelle Show, even though his name is included in the title and even though the places where the show is being marketed now didn’t exist when he signed the contract. Chappelle’s name belongs to him. Chappelle Show belongs to Comedy Central.

The impact of this clause isn’t hard to see when you see it in isolation. When it is buried in a 25-page contract, and you are three months behind on your rent, and someone is holding a check with your name on it for more money than you’ve ever had in your life, it’s not as easy to see into the future. It happened to Chappelle. It happens to comic creators all the time. But it doesn’t have to happen to you.

Tomorrow, I’ll look at the final lesson I found in Unforgiven. Until then,

Have fun with your comic.

Dave Chappelle’s Advice to Comic Creators: Part 2

Added on December 8, 2020 by Gamal Hennessy.

Yesterday I used Dave Chappelle’s Unforgiven performance to highlight the need for understanding creative contracts. Today, I’d like to take a closer look at the idea of leverage for you and your comics.

Lesson 2: Use and understand your leverage

Leverage in contract negotiation is defined as the power one side has over the other in the pursuit of their interests. Depending on the disparity between the parties, the leverage one side has over the other can define the negotiation process. For example, when Chappelle was a struggling stand-up comic with a wife about to give birth to their first child, he had a lot less leverage than the programming executive at Comedy Central who could give a show to dozens of hungry comics. In the same vein, if Marvel or DC make an offer to an aspiring artist, their leverage might be so high that the artist signs whatever deal put in front of them. Leverage comes from supply and demand. More specifically, control over scarce resources creates leverage.

Scarcity Breeds Power

Comic book publishers have to take the financial risk of releasing an unknown and unproven book. To mitigate this loss and to give themselves the potential for substantial revenue and control on the back end, many of them incorporate biased language into their contracts. Many creators sign those contracts because of their lack of leverage.

The publishers currently corner the market on supply. They often have more experience with the means of production, direct distribution, and some control secondary monetization (merchandise and media licensing).

The number of comic creators who are in demand for the publisher’s supply is massive compared to the number of publishers. To put this into context, there are about 300 comic book publishers in North America. Who knows how many potential artists and writers are out there dreaming of getting their books in print, movies, and games?

The scarcity of publishers relative to the abundance of creators produces a situation where publishers can afford to offer one-sided deals. Every unknown creator who demands a superior deal can be rejected by the publisher because ten or twenty other creators are willing to accept an inferior deal. Since the publisher is primarily looking for books to fill their publishing plan, one unknown book is just as valuable as any other from their perspective. This was the same situation Chappelle faced in the beginning of his career, but that isn’t his situation now.

Options for Creators

In light of the reduced negotiating power that undiscovered creators have, does it make sense to push for a bigger deal for a creator-owned project or work for hire page rate? Yes and no. While you might not be able to wrestle a six-figure advance out of Marvel, there are options you can pursue to make the most of your work.

Establish your reputation in the industry by taking on work for hire projects that will get you exposure for your skill without exposing the characters and storylines that you are saving for creator-owned work.
Find a more flexible small press that will offer more reasonable terms for new creators.
Explore independent publishing if only to increase your name recognition in the market.
Accept the biased deal as a means of name recognition.

While none of these methods is a quick road to fame and fortune, they can boost your negotiating power over time. An unknown creator has almost no leverage with a publisher. A creator with a following who represents tens of thousands of copies sold per month can command lucrative exclusive contracts, back end participation deals, and creator-owned contracts that give them considerable revenue and control potential. That’s one of the reasons why Chappelle said he prefers working with Netflix over Comedy Central. When he was negotiating with Comedy Central, he had no leverage. In his discussions with Netflix, he has the power to pull content off the air with a phone call.

Need to Understand Your Agreements

Whether you choose to accept a one-sided deal, negotiate better terms, or walk away, you need to understand what the terms are for the deal you are being given. It might make sense to take a bad deal now if it will boost your career later. The key is making an informed decision about what you are doing. Whether you decide to use a service like mine or not, knowing what you are signing and why is key to building and leveraging your negotiating power.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at a more nuanced element of Chapelle’s lesson. Until then…

Have fun with your comic.

Dave Chappelle’s Advice to Comic Creators Part 1

Added on December 7, 2020 by Gamal Hennessy.

To the best of my knowledge, Dave Chappelle doesn’t publish comics. He is one of the most celebrated comedians of his generation. He has created legendary stand-up performances, an iconic sketch comedy show, and he’s received some of the highest honors in his artform. If anyone has succeeded as a comic, it is Dave Chappelle.

But he wasn’t always at the top of his industry. At a certain point, he was a struggling comic trying to make it to the next level. Like many comic creators in the same situation, Chappelle got burned by his business partners.

This is the backdrop for the latest stand-up segment he uploaded to YouTube a few days ago. Dave Chappelle doesn’t make comics, but his experience offers four distinct lessons for anyone who wants to have a career in the comic book industry. This week, I’m going to cover those lessons, but I urge you to watch the special and share your thoughts on his experiences.

Lesson 1: Know what you are signing

When I started consulting clients about comic book contracts, I planned to explain the finer details of contract language, so artists and writers could make informed decisions about selling the rights to their work. Now that I've been doing this for fifteen years, I can see that I was wrong.

Some contracts that I've seen are prudent actions by publishers trying to protect their investment. But too many of these agreements are nothing more than a blatant attempt to hijack intellectual property from unsuspecting artists. This is the same issue Chappelle ran into when he signed his deal with Comedy Central.

The Double-Edged Sword

Signing a contract with a publisher can start an artist down the road to professional recognition and lucrative opportunities far beyond comics. It can also strip you of everything you have worked so hard to create. There are a lot of potential pitfalls in creator-owned contracts, including:

Giving the publisher complete control of the property, not just the actual comics, but the underlying copyrights and trademarks.
Giving the publisher control of the property in all media ever created, not just in digital and printed comics
Agreeing to financial terms that are designed to keep you from ever being paid for your work
Agreeing to give up your rights without being paid for them
Agreeing to never get back the rights to your property

Of course, not every contract is written this way. Not every publisher is a demon attempting to steal your life's work. But the history of entertainment in general, and comics in particular, is littered with famous stories of iconic characters being given away by their creators for little or no money. But the answer isn't to avoid all contracts all the time. The key is to understand what you are signing and what you are and are not willing to give away.

Reality Check

It is obviously self-serving for me to make dire claims about the dangers of creator-owned contracts. The more you are concerned about this legal problem, the more likely it is you will become my client and pay my fee. It is also clear that many creators feel compelled to sign away their ideas to get their foot into whatever door they have found into the ultra-competitive comic book industry. Both of those concepts are true. I get it. Chappelle is living proof of that.

Here is my response to those facts; if you don't want to use me to review your contract, I respect that. By all means, use someone else with a background in contracts, IP, or entertainment law. Just don't do it yourself. This is not an insult to your intelligence or business savvy. It is the recognition of your specialization. You are an artist or a writer. You probably didn't waste a lot of time in law school learning about contracts (if you did, sorry about the loans). It is unrealistic for you to be expected to understand the implications of contract language. Many of the most successful businessmen have several lawyers explaining things to them when they need to make a major decision. Chappelle needed a good lawyer to steer him away from a bad contract. You should too.

And even if you do find yourself in a position where you “have to” sign a bad deal, do it with your eyes opened. Know what you are getting into, so you don't wake up one day without any claim or credit for what you worked so hard to create.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about the idea of leverage and how it evolved for Chappelle over time. Until then,

Have fun with your comic.

What are the Best Books to Give to the Comic Book Creator in Your Life?

Added on November 26, 2020 by Gamal Hennessy.

If you’re trying to figure out the right gift for the comic creator in your life (even if that creator is you), please allow me to offer the following suggestions.

I referred to all of these titles in my book, The Business of Independent Comic Book Publishing, but each one deserves to be read on their own.

Art:

Images are a fundamental aspect of the medium, so artist on every level can benefit from these classic guides:

The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing Comics by Comfort Love and Adam Withers
Creating Comics from Start to Finish by Buddy Scalera and Chris Eliopoulos
The DC Guide to Creating Comics
How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee and John Buscema
The Insider’s Guide to Creating Comics and Graphic Novels by Andy Schmidt
Making Comics by Scott McCloud

I also want to give a special mention to the Strip Panel Naked YouTube Channel and their monthly magazine Panel X Panel.

Comic Book Industry History and Trends

If you don’t know where the industry has been, what’s happening now, or where it’s going it will be harder to succeed.

Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture by Rob Salkowitz
Demanding Respect by David Lopes
Pros and Comic Cons by Hope Nicolson

Contract Negotiation

Contracts are fundamental to comics, whether you’re doing your own book or working for someone else.

Getting Past No by William Ury
Getting to Yes by William Ury
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

Crowdfunding

Kickstarter is generating millions of dollars per year for comics, but only if you do it right

Crowdstart by Ariel Hyatt

Distribution

Your books have to find their way into the hands of your readers somehow.

Comic Shop by Dan Gearino
How to Self-Publish Comics by Josh Blaylock
Your First 1,000 Copies by Tim Grahl

Economics

The comic book industry is a business. Understanding the numbers will give you a better understanding of the business.

The Economics of Digital Comic Book Publishing by Tim Allen
The Long Tail by Chris Anderson

Law

Several different aspects of law impact every comic, but these books focus on the most important element; intellectual property,

Comic Book Start-Up 101 by Dirk Vanover
The Pocket Guide for Comic Creators by Thomas Crowell
The Law for Comic Book Creators by Joe Sergi

Marketing

Finding the right people to read your comic can be the difference between financial success and frustrating failure.

Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port
Comic Book Marketing 101 by Mat Nastos
Is $.99 the New Free? Steve Scott
Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene
This is Marketing by Seth Godin

Project Management

Publishing a comic involves a lot of moving parts. Making all those pieces fit together takes more skill than luck.

Unnatural Talent by Jason Brubaker
Write or Wrong by Dirk Manning
Write, Publish, Repeat by Sean Platt

Writing

Comics are a narrative art form, so the story might be the most important element. While there are good books on the specific discipline of comic writing, there are also lessons to be learned from both outside the industry, including:

Dialogue by Robert McKee
Elements of Fiction Writing: Conflict and Suspense by James Scott Bell
Making a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld
On Writing by Stephen King
Story by Robert McKee
Twenty Master Plots and How to Build Them by Ronald Tobais
Words for Pictures by Brian Michael Bendis
World-Building by Stephen Gillett and Ben Bova
Writing for Comics by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows
Writing for Emotional Impact by Karl Ignlesias
Writing Subtext: What Lies Beneath by Linda Seger

So which are your favorites? Are there any books I left out? Share your opinion in the comment and help grow the comic creator library.

Have fun with your comic.

Gamal

Should You Download a Random Contract for Your Comic?

Added on December 2, 2019 by Gamal Hennessy.

This is a modified excerpt from a book I’m working on called The Business of Independent Comic Book Publishing. It attempts to address the issue of creating contracts for your business without being self-serving. While this can’t be taken as legal advice, as contract attorney and a comic book lawyer, I need to offer three particular warnings against taking the law into your own hands when it comes to your contracts.

First, unless you’re a lawyer with experience in contracts, you probably don’t know the laws governing legal agreements. While contracts are often supposed to make a deal clear, the underlying legal principles can be confusing. Without training and experience in contract law, your attempts to write your own contract can hurt you more than it can help.
Second, you might not understand the meaning or the implications of the words in the contract. The language used in contracts is often circular, opaque and dense with words that no one uses anywhere else but in contracts. To complicate the issue, what normal words mean in a specific contract and what you think they mean are often two different things. Without someone there to explain things to you, it is easy to sign something that will hurt you down the line.

This is not an attack on your intelligence. This is a question of training and experience. I’m a writer as well as an attorney, but I don't edit my books or design the covers. I hire professionals to do that. When I get on an airplane, I don't fly my own plane. I pay the airline to supply professionals. I could learn editing, cover design and piloting, but it saves time and money to bring in a professional.

If you don’t hire a lawyer and write the contract yourself, you might save a few hundred dollars up front, but if you miss something and you lose the rights to your property, you could be looking at a multi-million dollar loss down the road.

If you hire a lawyer before a deal is signed, it will cost you some of your investment. If you hire one after something goes wrong and you need to go to court, that price can rise exponentially. Court cases can take years and those billable hours pile up fast. For the long term success of your publishing, it is better to hire a professional early and avoid issues before they happen.

Finally, if you try to create your own contract, you might not know what kind of contract you need. Different contracts exist for different deals and scenarios of comic book publishing. If you use the wrong contract for your deals, you can place yourself in a poor position. For example:

If you’re working with other creators on a book, you’ll need an artist collaboration agreement for each creator who will own a piece of the underlying intellectual property.
If you’re hiring other freelance artists to work on your project, or if you’re working without credit on someone else’s material, you need a work-for-hire agreement.
If you hire an accountant, lawyer, or editor, you’ll need a professional services contract with each one of them.
If you use someone else’s intellectual property you’ll need a license agreement.

Comic creators can find almost anything for free on the internet, including contracts. But if you use the wrong contracts for your comic, the small amount you save now could cost you a lot more down the road.

Have fun with your comic.

Gamal

A Simple Guide to Page Rates, Royalties and Other Work for Hire Compensation in Comics

Added on May 22, 2019 by Gamal Hennessy.

By Gamal Hennessy

This is a modified excerpt from a book I’m working on called Independent Comic Book Publishing. It’s designed to walk you through the basics how to pay the business and creative people who help create your comic. While this can’t be used as legal advice, I hope you’ll find it helpful.

What Forms of Consideration Are Used in Work for Hire Agreements?

Because creators who sign a work for hire agreement do not own a portion of the underlying property, the four major types of consideration they can get are different from collaborators (See a Simple Guide to Getting Paid in Collaboration Contracts), based on the deal negotiated between the parties:

Page rate: Different professions get paid according to different measurements. Most lawyers get paid by the hour. Sales people get paid based on commissions. Freelance comic book artists normally get paid a page rate. The basic idea is for every page you’re hired to work on, you get a set fee. So if you get $100 per page and the book is 32 pages, then you get $3,200. A page rate is a base number. It doesn’t take into account incentives like royalty pools, recoupment, back end participation or anything else that could muddy the waters. It’s a straight forward transaction; one page for one price. As long as you know what the price is, everything else is based on that.
Credit: This is similar to collaborators, where work for hire creators can get their name on the book, as is customary in the industry (i.e. on the cover, in the advertising materials and on social media)
Revenue sharing: As an additional financial incentive, some work for hire deals include a royalty in addition to, or in place of, a page rate. A royalty is defined in comics as a payment based on the revenue generated from a distribution source. For example, you might offer your artist 25% of the net profits from any poster or t-shirt sales that use their artwork. You can also allocate royalties into a royalty pool that pays all participants from a shared source of income, but those kinds of financial structures are utilized by larger companies and usually aren’t necessary for your initial project.
Copies of the final product: If you are going to distribute your project in digital or print format, one form of consideration is a specific number of free copies of the book. You can also consider giving talent the opportunity to buy additional copies at a discount so they can either give them away as promotional items or sell them on their own. If you decide to use this form of consideration, just be sure to factor this into your print runs. If you have a large team or you offer a large number of copies to each person, you could be cutting too deep into your revenue.

How Do You Determine the Right Page Rates?

Page rates in the comic book industry are not standardized, since there are several factors that will go into what a freelance creator will command including:

Their experience
Their skill level
Their established fan base.

While these factors are subjective and based on what you can afford to pay, there are some baselines you should keep in mind. This unofficial snapshot of industry pages rates is based on information contained on the 2016 survey website Fair Page Rates:

Writers: $25-$220 per page
Cover Artist: $200-$750 per cover
Pencils: $100-$250 per page
Inks: $75-$200 per page
Coloring: $35-$150 per page
Flatting: $8-$20 per page
Lettering: $10-$50 per page

What Forms of Consideration Are Used in Business Work for Hire Agreements?

Business professionals are just as important as creative professionals in publishing a successful comic (See You Need Two Teams to Publish an Independent Comic). Business work for hire agreements differ from creative work for hire agreements in comics because the base line measurement of a page isn’t helpful as a calculation. In addition, each team member has to deliver something different, so you can’t use a single standard. Business and creative work for hire contracts can be similar if you replace the concept of a page rate with a unique milestone for each role.

A milestone is a stage of development in a project that can be used for the measurement of work performance. For in creative work for hire agreements, the page serves as the milestone. You can create specific milestones for business work for hire agreements. For example, let’s suppose you want your book to be available as a printed single issue for comic book shops. The person who takes on the printing role might have the following milestones in their contract. Every milestone can be tied to a date, a payment or both.

Create the criteria for printer selection
Develop list of potential printers based on printer selection criteria
Send out RFP to printers
Collect samples from potential printers
Evaluate all RFP and assist in the selection of a printer
Negotiate terms of printing agreement with selected printer
Manage the delivery of the final print files to printer
Manage the printing of the first issue
Ensure quality of the printing process
Manage shipment of books from printer to customers
Confirm accuracy of the invoices received from the printer

Business work for hire agreements can also include things like credit in the book and revenue sharing. The important point is to clearly spell out the relationship between milestones and compensation in each contract.

How Can You Define the Relationship Between Consideration and Performance?

The relationship between the consideration you pay your talent and their performance on your project boils down to how you manage your leverage (See Are You Working for Free?). Leverage is defined as the ability to influence people, events and decisions. As an independent publisher, your main source of leverage will come from your consideration.

Managing the timing of your consideration is key. If you pay talent before all the pages or milestones are delivered, then they will have less incentive to perform their role on schedule. If you try to make them finish all the work before you pay them anything, they will probably refuse. Even if they don’t, you will have less incentive to pay them if you already have everything you need. This isn’t an indictment of anyone’s morals on either side. It’s simply an observation I have made over the years in my legal practice and my professional life.

The middle ground between everything up front and everything at the end is a give and take system I refer to as the tennis method. The basic process is simple. Each side divides their performance or payment into several stages. One side starts things, normally by making the initial payment. The other side responds by completing part of the performance. This exchange goes back and forth until all the consideration is paid and all the performance is completed. (See Solving the Payment Problem video for more details) Using our printing manager as an example, the consideration and performance can be divided this way:

Both sides sign the contract: (Publisher pays 5% of the printing consideration)
Print manager creates the criteria for printer selection (Publisher pays 5%)
Print manager develops a list of potential printers based on printer selection criteria (Publisher pays 10%)
Print manager sends out RFP to all printers (Publisher pays 10%)
Print manager and Publisher evaluate all RFP and select a printer (Publisher pays 10%)
Print manager negotiates terms of printing agreement with selected printer (Publisher pays 10%)
Print manager manages the delivery of the final print files to printer (Publisher pays 10%)
Print manager manages the printing of the first issue (Publisher pays 10%)
Print manager ensures quality of the printing process (Publisher pays 10%)
Print manager manages shipment of books from printer to customers (Publisher pays 10%)
Print manager confirms the accuracy of the invoices received from the printer (Publisher pays 10%)

This method also applies indirectly to royalties or any kind of consideration based on the performance of the book, because the book performance triggers the new payment. For example, if the talent handling your sales gets a bonus if a certain number of issues sell, then the sales milestone triggers the payment.

What Happens If You Don’t Pay the Consideration?

The only thing worse than offering exposure is promising to pay your talent and then not paying them. A breach of contract is defined as failing to perform a contract obligation without justification. If you sign a contract and then fail to perform (i.e. you don’t pay your talent) that can be grounds for a civil lawsuit, arbitration or mediation which can lead to financial, legal, and professional consequences that far outweigh the money you might save in the short term.

Financial: The penalties for breach of contract often involves the payment of damages, which is the money paid as compensation for the breach. The amount of damages can range from nominal amounts, paying the amounts you owe or paying a penalty of twice as much as you were supposed to pay in the first place.
Legal: Courts can force you to take a specific action (like pay your talent or not use the work they did for you), transfer your IP to the talent because your breach invalidated the IP ownership clause, or cancel the entire agreement. This might be annoying if you’re project is just getting off the ground. It could be devastating if you’ve already sent the books to the printer or if you got some interest from Netflix for your book.
Professional: No one wants to work with someone who has a reputation for cheating their business partners. Comic publishing is a small industry. It only takes one lawsuit to define your company. So only agree to pay what you can afford to pay and when it’s time to pay…pay.

Have fun with your comic.

Gamal

If you enjoyed this post, consider joining Comics Connection. Comics Connection gives creators a community to elevate their comic book careers. We offer access to business and creative resources you can’t find anywhere else. For a limited time, the first month of membership is free.

A Simple Guide to Getting Paid in Comic Book Collaboration Contracts

Added on May 15, 2019 by Gamal Hennessy.

By Gamal Hennessy

This is a modified excerpt from a book I’m working on called Independent Comic Book Publishing. It’s designed to walk you through the basics how to pay the people who collaborate on your comic. While this can’t be used as legal advice, I hope you’ll find it helpful.

After ownership of the intellectual property, getting paid (or consideration as it’s referred to by contract attorneys) might be the most negotiated aspect of collaboration agreements. You need to pay each collaborator the right way, depending on the deal you’ve created with them. We’ve touched on both basic contract language (See A Simple Guide to Understanding Creative Contracts) and collaboration agreements (See A Simple Guide to Artist Collaboration Agreements). Now we need to take a closer look at the consideration in collaboration agreements.

Can Exposure Be a Form of Consideration?

Like many small business owners, independent comic book publishers try to keep costs low. One method that persists in this and many creative industries is offering “exposure” to creative talent instead of actual consideration.

While there will always be eager novice artists and writers willing to accept this professional abuse, but before we explore legitimate forms of consideration, I’m going to try and explain why you shouldn’t make “exposure” a part of your pitch to talent at any time.

“Exposure” is based upon a hypothetical, best case scenario. The publisher has an idea that is a “guaranteed” success. Anyone associated with this amazing book will become famous, because the book will be famous. Then, other publishers and creators will then seek out talent from this book to use in their own projects, and will pay substantial amounts for the privilege. In essence, talent gives up money now for a chance to “get their name out there” and achieve fame and fortune later.

This scenario falls apart upon casual inspection.

First, there are no guaranteed successful ideas in comics or any other form of entertainment. Second, there is no tangible assurance that the work done for exposure will ever lead to later paid work, even if the book is a hit. Third, in the 21st century, every artist, writer and creative profession market themselves using social media. Finally, the talent has financial obligations they are trying to fulfill with their creative work. There is no reason or incentive for comic book creators to spend their limited time and resources on the illusion of exposure.

Keep in mind, there is a related form of consideration called credit, which does have secondary value to comic book creators. Industry leaders like Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Frank Miller, and Mark Millar all leveraged their work for the Big Two into fame and success in their own projects. But the credit came in addition to the page rates and other forms of consideration, not as payment on its own.

Paying talent can be one of the biggest drains on your financial investment, but your professional reputation and the success of your book will suffer if you attempt to get people to work for free. Exposure by itself is not consideration. You need to offer something more.

What Forms of Consideration Are Used in Collaboration Agreements?

Because creators who sign a collaboration agreement own a portion of the underlying property, there are four major types of consideration they can get, based on the deal negotiated between the parties.

Intellectual Property Ownership: Collaborators share in the copyrights and/or trademarks associated with the project. This could mean that they get a portion of the revenue generated by uses of the IP not directly related to the publishing, such as the film, TV and merchandise. This also means they can have authority over how the IP is developed and how it can and can’t be used.
Please note that there is a mathematical limit to IP ownership. You can’t offer more than 100% of the property, so pay attention and don’t try and give away 130% of your book to various members of the team.
Credit: As I mentioned earlier, collaborators can get their name on the book and associated properties, as is customary in the industry (i.e. on the cover, in associated advertising and social media.) which can bolster their professional reputation over time.
Revenue sharing: Collaborators can share in the success of the book by dividing profits between them. For example, if the writer and the artist collaborate on a book that generates $5,000 in sales, and they agreed to split the money evenly, each of them can walk away with $2,500, depending on how revenue is defined. Again, you can’t offer more than 100% of the revenue, so be sure to check your math.
Upfront payment: Collaborators can negotiate terms where they get a portion of the investment prior to the collection of revenue in exchange for less initial money when the book starts generating sales. For example, if a writer took $2,000 as his overall page rate in our example above, he wouldn’t be able to collect any royalties until the book recovered his page rate from sales.
Copies of the final product: If you are going to distribute your project in digital or print format, one form of consideration is a specific number of free copies of the book. You can also consider giving talent the opportunity to buy additional copies at a discount so they can either give them away as promotional items or sell them on their own. If you decide to use this form of consideration, just be sure to factor this into your print runs. If you have a large team or you offer a large number of copies to each person, you could be cutting too deep into your revenue.

How Is Revenue Defined?

Collaborators who decide to share revenue need to be very specific about the definition of revenue if they want to avoid financial disputes (See Your Slice of the Pie). In general, revenue is defined as the income generated from the sale of goods or services. For your project, revenue can come from advertising, books sales or licensing of the IP. But all revenue is not created equal. Gross revenue is all of the money collected from the exploitation of the IP. Net revenue is gross revenue minus expenses related to the goods and services being provided.

Let’s go back to our earlier example to understand the difference between gross and net. If the collaborators made $5,000 in sales from their book and the revenue split is defined as 50% of the gross revenue, then each collaborator is entitled to $2,500. But, if the book cost them $4,000 to produce, print, and ship, then the net revenue is $1,000 ($5,000 - $4,000) and they each are entitled to $500. If the book cost $10,000 to produce, then there is a loss of $5,000 that the collaborators could deduct from their personal income depending on how the underlying business is set up. The majority of collaboration agreements use the net revenue definition, especially when the initial investment doesn’t cover production and distribution, but talk to your accountant to determine how the losses from a business apply to you.

Have fun with your comic.

Gamal

If you enjoyed this post, consider joining Comics Connection. Comics Connection gives creators a community to elevate their comic book careers. We offer access to business and creative resources you can’t find anywhere else. For a limited time, the first month of membership is free.