What Can You Do For Your Comic During the Pandemic?

Most aspects of normal life have been disrupted by the novel coronavirus, including the comic book industry. Social distancing has canceled conventions, crippled comic shop income and created confusion across the board.

But for some independent publishers, the pandemic can be a period of progress.

Publishing comics is more than attending shows and trying to sell books. It requires a significant commitment of time and effort before and after the comic is created. Our current period of social distancing can provide an opportunity to devote time to your comic that you might not have in normal life.

Depending on your personal circumstances and the stage of your book’s development, the following suggestions from my upcoming book might be helpful to you. They demand time and attention, but they don’t require money or direct interaction with other people. Since you might be stuck in your house anyway, consider the following developmental aspects to your comic publishing.

1.     The Foundation

a.     Stop and reflect on why you want to make comics in the first place (See What Are You Trying to Do?)

b.     Identify your ultimate goal in comics

2.     Intellectual Property Management

a.     Make sure you have the right to make your comic (ownership, licensing or public domain)

b.     Develop your synopsis, pitch, hook, setting, and characters

3.     Investment

a.     Develop a budget for your comic

b.     Figure out where the money will come from to develop your comic before it’s made

         i.     Your money

         ii.     OPM (other people’s money)

4.     Business Management

a.     Decide whether you want to form a company for your comic (See The Benefits of Forming an LLC)

b.     Search for professionals (accountant, attorney, editor) who can help protect your idea, your investment and you.

5.     Talent Management

a.     Decide who you are going to need to publish your comic (See You Need Two Teams)

b.     Decide if you are going to use collaborators (See Collaboration Agreement) or Work For Hire (See WFH Agreement)

c.      Search for possible candidates

6.     Marketing*

a.     Identify your ideal reader (See Who Is Your Ideal Reader?)

b.     Identify your competition (See Who Is Your Competition?)

c.      Build a relationship with your target market (See Building a Relationship with Your Reader)

7.     Distribution

a.     Research the requirements for each distribution channel

b.     Decide how readers will get your comic

8.      Production

a.     Improve your creative skills

b.     Research the impact of each comic form on your market

c.      Develop a production schedule

d.     Develop communication methods and contingencies

e.     Research different digital asset management options

9.     Advertising

a.     Develop advertising sell sheet

b.     Leverage endorsements and reviews

c.      Research the comic book press

d.     Explore paid advertising options

e.     Understand advertising timing

10.  Sales

a.     Understand profit, loss, and breakeven for your comic

b.     Decide how you will generate money with your comic

         i.     Monetization

         ii.     Crowdfunding

iii.     Sales

11.  Revenue

a.     Understand all your revenue sources based on your distribution and sales

b.     Understand all your payment liabilities based on profit splits, royalties, and outstanding payments

12.  Growth

a.     Consider what you will do after your comic is published

b.     Consider changes in the market (See Are Comics Worth Publishing If Marvel Stops?)

c.      Consider what happens to your comic after you are gone

In his book Unnatural Talent, comic creator Jason Brubaker said that the best way to publish a comic is to do one thing every day to move the process forward. In this period of uncertainty, there are more important things in life than comics. But if you’re safe, healthy and find yourself wondering how to spend some of the days and weeks of this crisis, spending time developing the business of your comic can put you in a better position when the world emerges from its forced isolation.

Stay safe and have fun with your comic.

Gamal

* If you want even more information on comic book marketing, you can get a PDF of my free guide here.

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

You Need Two Teams to Publish a Successful Comic

By Gamal Hennessy

I’m in the process of writing a book about the business and legal aspects of making independent comics (See Your Career in Comics). As the book develops, I plan to share parts of it here for your reaction and feedback.

About a month ago, I began the process by asking why you want to make comics in the first place (See What Are You Trying to Do?). Now I’d like to look at who you need to have on your team to have a successful publishing program.

One Book, Two Teams

Independent comic creators often put a lot of time and effort into building the team for their books. They reach out to friends in their circles who make comics. They visit artist’s alley in conventions, pour over Deviant Art pages, explore the overseas options, and ask for referrals on social media. Sometimes, it takes years for them to find the right artists for their project.

But too many creators start their book with only half a team.

If comics are a form of commercial art, then the development of the art requires both business and creative support. Focusing on only one side limits the potential of the project.

The Creative Team

            This side of the equation is basic to the creation of any comic. As with plays, films, and television shows, one or more individuals come together to turn a vision into a reality. Some roles overlap, but the common structure of a comic book creative team includes:

1. The writer who creates the overall plot of the book and the script in both the caption boxes and the character dialogue.

2. The artist creates the fundamental images on each page. They may also create the basic character designs, settings, logos and the cover for the overall book

3. The inker enhances the images created by the artist, altering the tone and weight of the story by emphasizing some visual aspects over others.

4. The letterer inserts all the words in the book including dialogue, captions and “sound effects” in a way that guides the reader’s eye in a natural progression from one image to another.

5. The flatter prepares the inked images for the colorist to enhance the color rendering process.

6. The colorist adds moods, energy, and texture to the images to give them more impact to the eye

7. The editor oversees the entire process to ensure that the best possible finished product is created on time and under budget.

The Business Team

The creative side of comics is intense and time-consuming, but it is only part of the process. Professional comic creators publish books with one of the goals being the creation of profit. Without someone (and more often several people) running the business side of things, even the best comics will not sell. The elements of the business team vary from book to book, but every book needs to answer these questions as part of the process:

1. Accounting: Who is collecting the money? Who is paying the bills?

2. Advertising: Who is in charge of informing the public about the book?

3. Distribution: Who is handling the relationships with Diamond and the direct market shops for the print book? Who is in charge of managing the online distribution on the website, Comixology, and the emerging distribution channels?

4. Legal: Who is protecting the intellectual property of the book? Who is handling the internal and external contract negotiations?

5. Management: Who is in charge of the overall creative and financial success of the book?

6. Marketing: Who is in charge of creating the website, maintaining the social media presence, running the crowdfunding campaign, and handling the interactions with the comic book press,

7. Printing: Who is in charge of managing the printing process? (If the book is being printed)

8. Sales: Who is in charge of using the book to generate money?

Juggling Jobs

Every independent comic does not have fifteen people working on it. Some established publishing companies don’t have fifteen people working on the books. Creating independent comics is a startup experience. It means members of the creative team often take roles in the business team. It can mean members of the business team can fulfill multiple roles within that team. It also means that some jobs will not be done, or they won’t be done with the same time and attention as if someone only worked on that piece of the project. Some creators decide to give up some of their rights and sign up with creator-driven publishers like Image or AfterShock to take advantage of their pre-existing business teams.

As a comic creator, you have the power to decide which aspects of the process will and won’t get done. This power works better when you make conscious decisions at the outset of the project. It does you no good to spend two years making a book to sell and then realizing no one is prepared to sell it or collect the money.

The Cost of Teamwork

No matter how you decide to divide the tasks of publishing your comic, everyone who works on the book is going to have to be compensated at some point. Very few people are willing to work for free, even on something they love, so part of independent publishing is finding a way to pay everyone involved.

There are several different compensation methods available depending on the level of participation of each person, your resources, and the short and long-term interests of everyone involved. Increased involvement often includes increased compensation. Different compensation can be mixed and matched to give each person both a short and long-term stake in the project. Just don’t give away more than you have.

Compensation methods include:

1. Upfront payment

2. Revenue sharing based on units sold, ad revenue generated, sponsorships, etc.

3. Ownership interests in the underlying property

4. Credit on the underlying work

Better Odds

When creating a comic, the chances of success are greater if all jobs are assigned, everyone agrees on the terms, and the schedules for production, marketing, sales, and payment are established before making the book. All this preparation does not guarantee a hit book. The Big Two have dozens of people involved in each book and some of them still fail. But publishing comics involves a lot of individual tasks to make the machine run. If some tasks don’t get done on the business or creative side, then the machine breaks down fast.

Next month I’ll talk about creating a term sheet for the members of your team and the relationship between the term sheet and the contract.

Have fun with your comic...

Gamal  

PLEASE NOTE: THIS BLOG POST IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL ADVICE. IF YOU HAVE A ISSUE WITH YOUR COMIC PROPERTY, DISCUSS IT WITH YOUR LEGAL ADVISOR OR CONTACT C3 AT gamalhennessy@gmail.com FOR A FREE CONSULTATION.  

Your Career in Comics: What Are You Trying to Do?

By Gamal Hennessy

I’m in the process of writing a book about the business and legal aspects of making independent comics (See Your Career in Comics). As the book develops, I plan to share parts of it here for your reaction and feedback.

Since this is the first post, I’m going to start with an existential question:

Why do you want to make comics?

Before you start thinking about drawing, sales or social media, it is important to figure out exactly what you’re trying to accomplish and why. Making comics, like any artistic or business endeavor, involves substantial sacrifice and investment. If you’re going to make comics a part of your life beyond the Wednesday ritual of picking up your pull box, it makes sense to take a step back and look at the big picture.

To answer this question, I suggest you take yourself out for a cup of coffee or a cocktail (if you’re old enough, of course) and figure out the answers to the following questions. Keep in mind that the answers can and will change over time, so don’t be afraid to revisit these questions as your circumstances and the industry changes.

Goals (or What Do You Want to Do in Comics?): “I want to make comics” is a start, but there are different aspects to the industry, and figuring out where you want to be will help you make decisions on which opportunities to pursue and which ones to avoid. Maybe you want to make your own books and sell them at cons. Maybe you want to work for the Big Two. Maybe you want to be the next Stan Lee or Todd McFarlane. Maybe you want it all. You can have any goals you want. The purpose of goals isn’t to limit you. They just guide you on your path.

Reasons (or Why Do You Want a Career in Comics?): It’s one thing to know what you want to do. Knowing why is a different type of insight. Are you doing this because you have a story to tell, because you want to be a part of the comics community, or because you want more money than Tony Stark?

Like your goals, your reasons are personal. They don’t have to define you, but keeping them in mind can motivate you to overcome the inevitable setbacks and pitfalls. You can have any reason or motivation you want for getting into comics. There are opportunities for artistry, creativity, and profit at almost every level of the industry, but at the end of the day, a love of the art form will keep you going.  

Plan (or How Are You Going to Get into Comics?) After you understand your goals and your reasons for wanting those goals, you need to develop a plan to help you get from where you are to where you want to go. As you follow along with this blog and hopefully read my book, you can begin to figure out which path you want to adopt for your own purposes and take the appropriate steps.

Of course, no plan survives contact with reality. The industry is in a state of constant flux. The impact of changing trends will often be outside of your control. You’re going to need to modify your plan to adapt to new conditions, so the plan you make might not be the path you ultimately take. But you have to start somewhere and making your own comic is a good place to begin, no matter where you ultimately want to go.

Resources (or What Do You Have to Offer the Industry?) The secret to success in the comics business involves making consistent ritual sacrifices on the altar of the industry. What you get from comics is based in large part on what you put in. Your offering might be a creative vision, artistic skill, a network of eager professionals, or an investment of time and finances. In many cases, the creators who came before you had to offer all these things and more. Now is the time to figure out what you bring to the table and what you need to find in the community to make your goals real.

Milestones (or How Will You Track the Progress of Your Plan?) No one goes to sleep wanting a career in comics and wakes up where they want to be. Your development as a creator will grow in stages. You get to determine what those stages are and to a large extent, in what order you want them to happen. You can start with putting your first team together, getting your first issue online, or any other basis that’s right for you. You can decide whether your goals are books created, copies sold, or views on your website. Milestones give your goals concrete structure you can use to measure your efforts.

Motivation (or What Gets You Started and Keeps You Going?) Despite the view from the outside, the art and business of comics are not easy. It can be a long road from your initial inspiration to holding your book in your hands and the road isn’t a straight line. There will be obstacles and pressures to stop. This isn’t just true in comics. It’s true in life.

Even if you get your vision into the world, success (whatever your definition of it is) may not come quickly. It is not hyperbole to say some creators did not live long enough to see the characters they created become a fixture in mainstream culture.

So what is it about your comic that’s going to bring you back to the project month after month and year after year? What is going to pick you up when life knocks you down? What drives you might be very personal or it could be the universal desire for fame and fortune.

Yes, they’re movies, merchandise, and money to be made. Yes, comics are one of the driving forces in 21st-century pop culture. But the comics business is not a get rich quick industry. For every Walking Dead, there are thousands of other titles that lose money or never get off the ground. If you don’t love comics, it might not make sense to spend the time and effort of getting into the business.

In the next installment of Your Career in Comics, I plan to talk about the framework for an independent comics company and break down the process into manageable parts. If you’d like to read more about the business and legal aspects of making comics, like my Facebook page or sign up for my free newsletter.

Have fun with your comic...

Gamal  

 PLEASE NOTE: THIS BLOG POST IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL ADVICE. IF YOU HAVE A ISSUE WITH YOUR COMIC PROPERTY, DISCUSS IT WITH YOUR LEGAL ADVISOR OR CONTACT C3 AT gamalhennessy@gmail.com FOR A FREE CONSULTATION.  

Unnatural Talent: A Book Review

by Gamal Hennessy

I’m in the process of writing a book about different careers in the comic book industry (See Your Four Careers in Comics) so I’m reading a lot of books related to the comics profession. While there are a lot of books about how to create comics and how to self-publish them, few of them are as broad or as thorough as Jason Brubaker’s Unnatural Talent.

Brubaker is the creator of several books including ReMind, Phobos, and Sithrah. Unnatural Talent is the distillation of advice and lessons he learned while creating these books. The book walks a new comics creator through several steps of the modern self-publishing process including

• Creating and completing a comic
• Negotiating social media
• Finding a fan base
• Crowd funding
• Dealing with the technical issues of printing
• Getting your book into comic shops and libraries
• Creating both primary and secondary streams of revenue

When reading Unnatural Talent, you need to keep in mind that Brubaker’s process involves doing almost every aspect of production, sales, and marketing on his own. While this approach removes the obstacles of collaboration and work for hire deals, it also makes the process much longer, especially if there are creative/ and or technical skills you don’t have. He also focuses on finding an audience among current comic fans. The book was released in 2013, but since the overall amount of comic book readers is allegedly shrinking, an aspiring creator should also consider finding a new audience while they fight for market share in a dwindling universe of readers.

Unnatural Talent is a beneficial addition to the library of any comic creator. It explores the art and business of comics in a manner that is accessible, informative and realistic. It’s available on both Amazon and Audible.

Have fun.

Gamal

 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 AT gamalhennessy@gmail.com FOR A FREE CONSULTATION.

How Much Do You Get Paid Per Page?

By Gamal Hennessy, Esq.

When you first start out in comics, there’s a lot of details about the business you need to understand. Everything from how to find work, to what to look for in a contract, to making sure you get paid are all things you have to take care of in addition to making great art. Not only do you have to digest a lot of information, but aspects of the comics industry change from publisher to publisher and from month to month. One of the most important and the most fluid aspects of freelance comics work is how much each publisher pays per page. I’d like to make the process of determining your page rate a little easier by talking about what a page rate is, what the common rates are and how you can keep track of changing rates in the future.

What is a Page Rate?

Different professions get paid according to different measurements. Lawyers get paid by the hour. Sales people get paid based on commissions. Freelance comic book artists (and some creator driven artists) 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.

What Were the Current Page Rates for 2016?

The confusing question is ‘what is the right page rate for you?’ Your page rate can and will vary based on your experience, skill level, established fan base, prior projects and the publisher you’re working with. While several factors are subjective and based on you as an individual, there are some baselines you should keep in mind. Thomas Crowell, author of the excellent book Pocket Lawyer for Comics Creators recently offered this snapshot of the industry at the 2016 New York Comic Con:

• 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

This list is not a guarantee. You might be offered less than the numbers above. You can always ask for more. This should just serve as a guideline to what you can expect when you deal with a publisher. Other factors will play a role, but this gives you somewhere to start from.

How Can I Keep Track of Page Rates?

As a freelance artist, you’ll get a sense of where the market is in terms of page rates as you spend time in the industry working on different projects. Publishers can alter their rates at will, so it pays to keep in touch with other artists in the field, pay attention to message boards and discussions and talk to your editors and publishers on a regular basis to find out their individual positions. There are also ongoing resources you can use and participate in to make page rates more transparent. The list above was derived from a site called Fair Page Rates that isn't perfect by any means, but it attempts to track rates for various US publishers in a system that is inherently subjective.

Once you understand what a page rate is, how you can figure out your page rate and who pays what, you have a lot of information to help you chart your freelance comics career. If you know how many pages you can do a month, you can calculate your maximum potential income. If you know how much you need per year to work on comics full time, you can figure out what page rate you need and how many books you need to work on to make freelancing a viable job. Then you can spend some time actually practicing your craft and making great comics.

Have fun.

Gamal

Related Articles:

Your Career in Comics: Freelance Artist

Your Career in Comics: Creator Driven Artist

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 AT gamalhennessy@gmail.com FOR A FREE CONSULTATION.

Your Career in Comics: The Creator Driven Path

By Gamal Hennessy 

A few weeks ago, I introduced a new book I'm working on called Your Career in Comics (YCC) that will attempt to take a comprehensive look at the business and legal aspects of being in the comics industry. (See Your Career in Comics: An Introduction). So far, I’ve introduced the Creator Owned (See The Creator Owned Path) and Work for Hire (See The Work for Hire Path) aspects of the industry. This week I'd like to look at the third of the four major paths in modern comics: The Creator Driven Path.

• Description: A creator driven work allows the artist to own a property and license a portion of the publishing rights to a publisher who will then produce, market and sell the book to the public. A creator driven (CD) deal can benefit both you and your publishing partner. There are several variations to the CD model, but most of them combine aspects of the independent publishing and work for hire models. The combination of traits varies wildly from publisher to publisher, depending on the relationship they have with their creators. Most CO deals come from small to midsized publishers, but there have been examples of CD publishing at all levels of comics over the years.

• Benefits: The main benefits of doing creator driven deals are an ownership stake, the payment of many up front costs by a third party and wider distribution. In a perfect world, a CD deal is a joint venture. You provide the creative ideas and artistic skill in your original story. They provide the business support and economies of scale to to turn your vision into a product. In return, both parties share in the revenue generated by the collaboration.

• Challenges: The two main challenges of CD deals are loss of ownership control and loss of revenue. Many CO deals are collaborations in name only. In the most extreme cases, creators transfer all control and ownership to a publisher for little or no payment of any kind. Even in the more moderate CD arrangement, it can be difficult to figure out when and if your book will ever make a profit.

• Legal Considerations: CD deals require multiple contracts to protect every party involved, including

• Collaboration (if you’re sharing the rights) and/or work for hire agreements for everyone working on the book

• Copyright (and possibly trademark) registrations for the book

• A Creator Driven Publishing Agreement between the creator and the publisher

• Tax documentation to cover any profits or losses from the book 

Next time, I'll talk a little bit about the final and in some cases the highest role for comics creators, the transmedia artist.

Have fun.

Gamal

Success in the comics industry requires an understanding of the business, creative, and legal aspects of the medium.

Sign up for The Professional Comics Creator to get monthly e-mail news, tips and advice on how to get the most from your characters and stories

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 AT gamalhennessy@gmail.com FOR A FREE CONSULTATION.

Your Career in Comics: The Work for Hire Path

by Gamal Hennessy

A few weeks ago, I introduced a new book I'm working on called Your Career in Comics (YCC) that will attempt to take a comprehensive look at the business and legal aspects of being in the comics industry. (See Your Career in Comics: An Introduction). Last week, I talked a little bit about the Creator Owned Path in Comics (See The Creator Owned Path). This week I'd like to look at the second of the four major paths in modern comics: The Work for Hire or Freelance Path.

• General Concept: A freelance or work for hire artist produces stories and art for a property they do not own.  As a work for hire, you create intellectual property for your clients. Publishers and creators of all sizes hire freelance artists to work on some or all of the creative aspects of their property. Some freelancers work for one publisher at a time, while others might juggle several projects for several different publishers at once.

• Benefits: The main benefits of being a freelance artist are cash payments, exposure and reduced responsibility outside of your art. Instead of having to worry about how to pay for the production of the book, the freelance artist gets paid as a part of the production process. Instead of having to create a character or world from scratch, the freelance artist might be able to work with their favorite characters to read or the most famous characters of all time. Instead of worrying about marketing, printing, sales, returns and a thousand other little details of publishing, the freelance artist makes his art, collects his fee and moves on to the next project.

• Challenges: The main challenges of being an independent are lack of stability, time, and control. A freelance artist might go through dry periods without a lot of well paying work. There might be other times where there are several major deadlines piling up, each with their own financial and professional penalties. Publishers run on deadlines. Books are solicited months in advance. The freelance artist is a fundamental part of the publishing process, but their work has to be delivered on or before a certain date of the process falls apart. And the lack of control can be a real challenge to creativity. Instead of making all the decisions on your own or with a partner, now you have to deal with an editor, maybe an editor in chief or multiple other levels of approval depending on how the corporate nature of your client.

• Legal Considerations: The lack of ownership in a work for hire situation reduces the amount of legal agreements you’ll need. At minimum there will be an exclusive or nonexclusive work for hire agreement between you and the client and tax documents to help deal with the IRS. Some companies have a version of the character creation agreement, but that’s not universal at this point.

Next time, I'll talk a little bit about the creator driven path and how they can thrive in the world of comics.

Have fun.

Gamal

Success in the comics industry requires an understanding of the business, creative, and legal aspects of the medium.

Sign up for The Professional Comics Creator to get monthly e-mail news, tips and advice on how to get the most from your characters and stories

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 AT gamalhennessy@gmail.com FOR A FREE CONSULTATION.

Your Career in Comics: The Creator Owned Path

by Gamal Hennessy

A few weeks ago, I introduced a new book I'm working on called Your Career in Comics (YCC) that will attempt to take a comprehensive look at the business and legal aspects of being in the comics industry. (See Your Career in Comics: An Introduction). I'd like to share aspects of the book while it's being written to get reactions and feedback from the community. This week I'd like to look at the first of the four major paths in modern comics: The Creator Owned Path.

It makes sense to start with Creator Owned comics (sometimes called Independent or DIY comics) because this is the point where an inspired comic book reader puts down their favorite story and picks up a blank piece of paper to begin their journey. At the most basic level, a creator owned publisher owns the property she produces, markets, and sells to the public.

General Concept: As a creator owned publisher, you have a stake in the intellectual property connected to a book. In a minority of cases, you might license the rights to someone else’s work (which often brings the concept of creator driven deals into play that I’ll talk about later) but most of the time, and creator owned publisher is trying to get their own characters and stories out into the world by taking control of the entire process.

Benefits: The main benefits of going creator owned are ownership and control. When it’s your story and your company, you get to decide what the books will be about, how they get sold, and what to do with the money. The freedom to control every aspect of the property can give rise to the great expressions of artistic creativity and business flexibility.

Challenges: The main challenges of being going creator owned are costs and market share. It takes a considerable amount of money to release a single comic, graphic novel and ongoing series by yourself. There is an even larger investment of time, since the great power you have to control every aspect of your book comes with the great responsibility of making sure it all gets done. On top of that, finding readers for your book probably won’t be easy, considering the number of titles already in the market and the domination the Big Two. Finding enough readers to turn a profit is even more difficult. Many books don’t turn a profit or break even from their initial investment. It is not unusual for an independent book to run at a loss.

Legal Considerations: There are legal aspects to the story being created, the process of creating those stories, and the person or people creating those stories. On a fundamental level, having the right documents and registrations in place from the beginning gives you the right to sell what you own. If you skip this step, you might create the World’s Greatest Comic Franchise, but you might not make any money from it. At a bare minimum you’re going to need:

• Collaboration or work for hire agreements for everyone working on the book
• Copyright (and possibly trademark) registrations for the book
• Distribution agreements to get the book out into the world
• Tax documentation to cover any profits or losses from the book

In addition, you may also need corporate formation documents, license agreements and other types of contracts, but that is a story for another day.

Next time, I'll talk a little bit about freelance comic creators and how they can thrive in the world of comics.

Have fun.

Gamal

Success in the comics industry requires an understanding of the business, creative, and legal aspects of the medium.

Sign up for The Professional Comics Creator to get monthly e-mail news, tips and advice on how to get the most from your characters and stories

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 AT gamalhennessy@gmail.com FOR A FREE CONSULTATION.