Understanding Comics Law: Don't Wait Until It's Too Late

By Gamal Hennessy

The most insightful thing I learned at this year’s New York Comic Con wasn’t at a professional panel or lecture. It happened at a random conversation on the show floor.

I was talking to Andy Schmidt, a former colleague at Marvel and founder of the professional education and publishing company Comics Experience. We talked about the new six week course he’d developed with entertainment attorney Joe Sergi called Comic Book Law for Creators. The workshop sounded like an amazing resource that writers and artists would be dying to get into. But Andy told me he had a hard time getting creators signed up. “A lot of them tell me they’re not ready to learn that part of the business, which really doesn’t make sense.”

I could only shake my head in response. I’m familiar with the mentality because I’ve seen it in my own practice. Writers and artists often spend so much time developing their craft and fighting to get their name out there to get that big break. But when their hard work pays off with publisher interest or some other opportunity, many of them don’t know how to protect their rights. Their big break turns into a painful lesson in contracts, licensing and intellectual property law.

Last year, I conducted a survey with the modest title “The Great Independent Comics Survey”. In that experiment, I found out that one in four independent creators lost some or all of the rights to their work as a result of licensing deals.  How many of these artists could have benefited from a course on the legal aspect of comics?

The answer is probably 100%

Trying to get into comics while ignoring the legal aspects is like jumping out of an airplane in mid-air and then deciding you need a parachute. It’s like climbing into the UFC octagon for a championship match and then deciding to learn how to fight. It’s like trying to get insurance for your house after it’s already on fire. You need to know the relationship between your business needs and your legal options to make the most of your opportunities and you need to know before success knocks on your door, not after. (See Treat Your Art Like an Investment)

Books like Words for Pictures and courses like Comic Law for Creators won’t eliminate the need for writers and artists to get legal help with their contracts (See Why Creators Need Lawyers). It will make them better consumers of professional services and better equipped to make informed decisions about how to pursue their careers. Making comics is like skydiving. It can be fun, but you’re probably going to need that parachute.

Have fun.
Gamal

Recommended Professional Panels for NY Comic Con 2014

If you work in comics (or you just enjoy comic culture) then events like New York Comic Con one of the high points of the year. It’s a place where professionals get a chance to network, connect with their fans, sell their work, be inspired, geek out and spend too much money on comics, toys, t-shirts and other random paraphernalia.

Cons are also a good source of information when it comes to managing and understanding your career. If you take advantage of the professional panels at NYCC, you have a chance to learn from people who can help you avoid mistakes and have more success. 

This is a list of the most interesting panels I've seen on the schedule at this point. There are a lot more than last year, which proves the growing popularity of professional panels at the Con. I can't vouch for the speakers or the quality of the presentations, but you might learn something at these panels to help your career and your ideas. My own willingness to attend these meetings and not stand on line to play FarCry 4 has to count for some type of endorsement.

Thursday October 9th

• 1:15 pm: Selling Your Comics to Hollywood
• 6:00 pm: Comixology Submit: The Future of Self-Publishing
• 7:15 pm: How to Succeed in Self-Publishing

Friday, October 10th

• 11:15 am: Landing a Publisher and Negotiating Publishing Deals
• 7:00 pm Make Comics Like a Pro: Breaking into the Industry

Saturday, October 11th

• 4:15 pm: Copyrights, Contracts and Comic Book Creators
• 7:15 pm : Collaborating in Comics

Sunday, October 12th

• 1:15 pm: Successfully Crowdfund Your Comic
• 5:00 pm: Protecting Your Ideas

I plan to write an essay about what Iearn at Comic Con, but nothing beats being there yourself if you can. If any of you are planning on attending NYCC and you'd like a meeting to discuss the rights of your book, please send an email and we can set something up. Also, I plan to be in Artist Alley on Thursday afternoon. If any of you have a booth, please let me know the number so I can try to stop by.

Otherwise, you can probably find me at the FarCry booth.

Have fun.
Gamal

A Last Minute Deal with Kirby Saves Marvel from the Supreme Court

Deadline Hollywood is reporting a settlement between Disney/ Marvel and the Kirby estate for the ownership and control of many of Marvel's flagship characters. I'll have a more in depth article about this next week, but my initial thought is the 11th hour deal might have saved Marvel and many other companies who rely on work for hire artists from the risk of costly re-negotiations and payouts down the road.

http://deadline.com/2014/09/jack-kirby-marvel-settlement-lawsuit-supreme-court-hearing-841711/ 

Have fun.

Gamal

Can We Have Too Many Comic Book Movies?

by Gamal Hennessy

Last week was typical in the new normal of comics based entertainment. The latest news from the new seasons of Agents of Shield, Arrow, Flash, and Gotham leaked across the internet. Hints about the new Daredevil Netflix series competed with news about the Powers, Lucifer and Supergirl TV shows (See Superhero TV Roundup). Deadpool got a launch date for his film and a plot synopsis was leaked for Age of Ultron. New comic news comes out almost every day in 2014. Where does it end, and what does this new world mean for the creators of this work?

The Reality TV Link

There was a time before the current “golden age” of television where unscripted or “reality” TV dominated the pop culture landscape. It began with experimental shows like MTV’s Real World and then expanded into things like Road Rules. A few years later, shows like Survivor, the Bachelor and American Idol became prime time staples. That prompted a flood of reality programming. The category got so big it had to develop subgenres to create differentiation. They had makeover shows, celebrity shows, and competition shows. Every network felt the need to jump into the category. Networks like the History Channel and Food Network created shows having little or nothing to do with the channel’s original purpose. The phenomenon became so big MTV itself morphed into a reality TV station. For all intents and purposes it abandoned music videos altogether.

The Tail That Wags the Dog

Consider the evolution of comics based entertainment over the past twenty five years. The success of films like Batman in 1989, Spider-Man in 2002 and the Avengers franchise in 2013 have made this genre of film one of the most financially successful genres in the history of movies. (See IMDB Highest Grossing Films of All Time). When you add the success of TV series like Smallville and Arrow to the equation, not to mention animated series like TMNT, Batman, Justice League and X-Men and you have a content avalanche that’s only gaining momentum. We’ve reached the point now where some universities are devoting college classes just to the comic book movie phenomenon (See New College Course for the Marvel Universe). The industry has come a long way from the sad days of films like Howard the Duck and Spawn.

But how far can this momentum take us? Consider this:

• Unlike reality TV, it will take more than a box office flop (or even a series of flops) to stop it. Green Lantern, Punisher and Ghost Rider taught us that.
• It won’t come from a lack of “A  List” characters. Iron Man wasn’t a household name before RDJ got to it and no one knew who Guardians were before last year.
• It’s not just a game for Marvel and DC, since Wanted, Sin City, Kick Ass and Walking Dead have shown independents can take their titles to the screen too.

Will comic film and television get their own awards category at some point? Which network will abandon its original mandate and become a comic entertainment channel? The questions seemed silly ten years ago. Now it doesn’t seem so farfetched. In the world of comic entertainment, comics are becoming the bottom priority, not the top (See Making Comics Isn’t Really about Comics Anymore)

Forward Thinking

What does all this mean for the aspiring writers and artists? I think there are three takeaways anyone in the industry should keep in mind as they build their careers:

• Opportunities beyond traditional comics are continuing to grow not just in terms of TV and film, but in the areas of video games, streaming video and other forms of entertainment
• While the chances of translating any given property into a mainstream market release is still rare, it is essential for creators to know and protect the rights they have in the comics they create
• The amount of quality entertainment coming into the marketplace can raise the bar across the industry and drive innovation in art and story quality.

We might be living in the golden age of comic entertainment, but it will take creative expansion and prudent business choices to keep the momentum going.

Have fun.

Gamal

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

Artistic Fantasy vs. Financial Reality

By Gamal Hennessy

At some point, every artist needs to balance the relationship between their art and their finances. A musician might want to spend all her time practicing and performing, but if singing isn’t making her enough money to live, she might have to take an office job and spend less time with her music. A writer might want to create experimental work outside of the mainstream, but agents and publishers might push for a YA or historical romance, because the market for those books already exists. When your bank account and your craft pull you in different directions, you have to make a choice about what you can and can’t do.

Independent artists have an additional layer of complexity when it comes to the relationship between financial and creative resources. Many of us have finance the production and marketing of our own projects. Not only are we trying to make enough money to have a home to live in and food to eat, we need to pay to get our work out into the world. The new era of digital distribution has made it much cheaper to release work, but it still isn’t free (See How Much Does It Cost to Publish a Book Anyway?) Successful projects will cover their costs and turn a profit (See Profit and Loss Statements for Independents) but it might take a book several years to recoup its production costs, and some books never turn a profit at all.

In the face of this reality, I realized I have a problem for my books. My publishing goal for the next four years is to release two books per year (See What is Your Publishing Plan?) This goal has two parts; the creative side where I have to write the book and the publishing side where I have to pay to get the book out. From a creative standpoint, things are going well. My second book for 2014 is done and so is my first novel for 2015. I’m 60% done with the first draft for my second book for 2015 too, which puts me ahead of schedule. As a writer, I’m very pleased with my pace and my progress.

As a publisher, things are not so great. Various circumstances (some positive and some negative) limit my ability to fund my second release of this year. I’m uneasy about the idea of crowdfunding (probably because I’ve never tried it) and the idea of pushing the release back six months throws off the momentum I’ve built with my core group of readers. As it stands now, I simply don’t have the financial resources to cover my artistic goals.

So I made a choice. The book I planned to release in October (See The Dark End of the Street) will be put on hold until I can figure out a new spot for it in the publishing plan. Maybe I’ll put it out in 2016. Maybe I’ll release it as a series of short stories to spread out the cost over a few releases. Maybe it will become the “lost undiscovered book” people get excited about after I’m dead and all my other books have become well known movies. Whatever, it will go in the can until I’m willing and able to release it properly.

I know this isn’t a major problem. Many writers struggle to get just one book out per year and many more aspiring writers never release more than one book. We all have to balance our creative goals with our real world resources. In my case, I hope this is just a minor detour on the writer’s road.

Have fun.

Gamal

When Artists Hire Artists

by Gamal Hennessy

The business of storytelling is evolving to take advantage of new technology and business models. It’s creating new opportunities to get stories in front of people by breaking down the old barriers to entry. Self-publishing and independent projects are growing at a record pace, thanks to digital distribution and micro niche marketing.

Creators are now in a better position to publish books on their own without traditional publishing houses to act as gate keepers. Some artists are releasing their own comics to build their reputation in the industry and break into the mainstream. Some writers are self-publishing their books to retain more profit and control. But with great power comes great responsibility (sorry, that was too tempting to leave out).

Artists and writers who used to be forced to sign a publisher’s work for hire agreement are now in a position where they need their own work for hire contracts to protect their rights. But what are the key elements that need to be in this kind of contract? How can you protect yourself in both the short term and the long haul? How can you be the type of creator other artists want to work with? When artists hire artists, they need to take care of their world, their defenses and their reputation.

Your World

When you create a story, you have the power to define what happens. When you have your own creative project, you have the power to define your relationship with your artists. The three key factors you need to deal with are:

• Defining the project: Spell out in as much detail as you can what the artist is working on, what kind of work they’ll be doing, when the work is due and how much they’re going to get paid.
• Owning the Services: Make it clear that your relationship with the artist is a work for hire. This means they aren’t going to have any ownership or control over the property itself or the underlying characters or stories they’re going to be working on.
• Own the use and distribution: Reserve the right to use any work the artist does for you in any and every way you can think of. You might only be planning to do a web comic now, but you don’t want to limit your options to do a deal with Netflix or whatever the next hot media turns out to be

Your Shield 

Producing your own book opens you up to a certain amount of risk. You could pay for work and never get the finished product. Your artist could deliver artwork done by someone else. There are all sorts of pitfalls in publishing, but certain terms in the contract can help protect you from trouble.

• Payment: If you tie payment to delivery of work, you are more likely to get the services you commissioned.
• Representations and Warranties: If your artist makes promises to protect you and your work, they’re less likely to screw you over because they’ve been put on notice
• Indemnification: If they do break their promises to you, an indemnity (just a fancy word for repayment) gives you the ability to resolve your dispute in a court (which is one place artists don’t want to go).

These protections are not perfect. People breach contracts all the time. But when all the terms and conditions are spelled out, people are more inclined to see you as a professional and treat you in a professional way.

Your Reputation

Clear and consistent contract terms will remove most of the confusion and doubt that comes with making a business deal. As more and more people do business with you and get exposure to your business practices, the better your reputation will be in the industry. The creative world of books and comics is a small one if you stay in the game for a while. A professional reputation as both an artist and a publisher can be just as critical to your long term success as your ability to write or draw.

Independent creators need to tailor each work for hire contract to fit each new creative project. Larger publishers work better with form agreements and economies of scale, but until your publishing evolves into that level, a custom agreement is probably your best bet.

Have fun.

Gamal

P.S. I’m going to be attending New York Comic Con on Thursday, October 9th, 2014. If you’re going to have a booth in Artist’s Alley or you’d like to set up a free consultation, please leave a comment and let me know.

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

Losing Control and Loving It

By Gamal Hennessy

Reading isn’t the main media for storytelling in the 21st century. Film and TV have replaced the written word as the primary source of entertainment. This means if a writer wants to reach the widest audience possible, the best thing she can do is have her story optioned for adaptation into a movie or TV series. Stephen King, Frank Miller, J.K. Rowling and Joss Whedon are just a few authors who ascended to the next plateau of success by jumping from the page to the screen.

But there is often an inverse relationship between commercial success and creative control. While some creators have enough leverage in TV and film to have a major impact on the transformation of their stories, many don’t. Even the authors who do get to write the screenplay or act as producers give up much of the control over their story’s direction. This occurs for several reasons:

• Collaboration: Writing is often a solitary art. TV and film almost always have various layers of artists, each with their own talents and vision for your story. When screenwriters, directors, actors, editors and dozens of other people put their stamp on your story, what comes out on the screen will be very different from the image you created sitting alone at your desk.
• Transference: Different media lend themselves to different types of conflict in a story. (See What is the Best Media Outlet for Your Writing) Prose has a superior ability to explore internal conflict. Theater has a strong emphasis on interpersonal conflict and film has the ability to render extra-personal conflict to an amazing degree. When your book becomes a film, the story has to be adapted to fit the new medium.
• Time: Your book might take a reader hours, days or weeks to finish. You could write one hundred or two hundred thousand words and fill your story with flashbacks, subplots and other tangential elements that work perfectly on the page. But even a long movie is less than three hours. A TV series might only be fifteen episodes. A lot of material from your book might have to be discarded to fit the time constraints of the screen. Your story might need to be altered yet again to create a logical connection between the remaining elements. Readers of the book will, and often should, see a different story on the screen than they did on the page.
• Cost: Ideas are free. Words are almost free. You can imagine and write about any scenario, setting or creature you want without worrying about cost. But locations, special effects and actors are not free. The things you imagine might cost millions to translate onto the screen. Production budgets rise with each new summer movie season, but your story can and will change to fit the budget constraints of film production.

There are, of course, extremes on both sides of this experience. Frank Miller’s stories are known for their dogmatic adherence to the source material. Watching Sin City or 300 is really just watching the graphic novel in motion. But authors like Barry Eisler have a different experience. Although he’s been a best-selling author for more than a decade, he doesn’t expect to have much input on the adaptation of his John Rain series by Keanu Reeves. In his own words “If they think my involvement will be useful, I’m sure I’ll be involved. Otherwise, I’m looking forward to making popcorn and enjoying the show like everyone else. Either way, I’ll be happy.”   

Keep in mind, it is rare for an author to get their book optioned for a screenplay or TV series in the first place. There are thousands of screenwriters pitching work created specifically for the screen and they often take precedence over novels. Most books don’t translate well enough into the mainstream to justify the financial risk, so often only the runaway bestsellers (or books made in the same style) find their way to movies. For the thousands of authors who never find financial success in books, there are thousands of profitable book authors who never make it to the screen. And authors who navigate those hurdles will often lose much, if not all, of the creative control over their work. But in this scenario, popularity and revenue can replace creative control. Just be sure your contract gives you enough compensation for you to sit back and enjoy your work on screen with everyone else.

Have fun.
Gamal

Should You Put Your Independent Book in Brick and Mortar Stores?

By Gamal Hennessy

Many artists and writers dream of seeing their titles on the shelves of their local bookstore. Part of my motivation for writing novels came from daydreams of walking into Borders and seeing my book on the shelf near Hemingway and Hammet. But reality has a way of interfering with dreams. It didn’t take long for me to realize my book wouldn’t get into stores unless I had a publishing deal. Then I found out publishing deals could take years to get, if I ever got one at all. So I put my Borders dreams aside and focused on outlets like Amazon and Kobo. But now the market could be shifting. A company called Blurb is offering a service to give independent publishers access to online and offline stores starting this week.

Blurb is a book platform designed to allow independent authors distribute their work. Ingram is a worldwide distributor of books and other reading materials and one of the larger companies of its type. The two companies have announced a partnership to open up Ingram’s distribution to Blurb authors. Details and full pricing aren’t apparent yet, but this new deal gives creators the chance to get their books into almost 40,000 locations.

So what’s the catch?

I don’t know if there is a catch or a downside to this deal for independent authors. I haven’t used it yet for my own work and I don’t know if the pricing or business model makes sense for everyone who has a book to sell. Having said that, there are at least four things to keep in mind about brick and mortar sales in the 21st Century.

• The number of physical bookstores is shrinking on an annual basis. Remember my dream of seeing my books in Borders? There is no more Borders. Waldenbooks is gone too. Barnes and Noble is contracting as well.
• The amount of shelf space in each book store remains limited and will probably continue to be dominated by mainstream publishers and titles on the best seller list. Just because your book can get on the shelf of any store doesn’t mean it will be on the shelf.
• The amount of time any one book stays on a shelf could also be limited. Even mainstream books are not available forever. As the shelves open up to a huge influx of new product from this deal, potential offline shelf space might experience even faster turnover.
• The bulk of revenue will probably continue to come from online sales of either e-book, audiobook or paperback versions.

I’m not suggesting artists and writers should give up their dreams of seeing their books on the shelf of their favorite bookstore. I’m planning to pursue the Blurb deal with my own books. I am saying the benefit of this deal might be more mental and emotional than financial. As long as you keep the potential limitations in mind, expanded distribution can be an independent creators best friend.

Have fun.
Gamal

Words for Pictures: A Book Review

As a child, the first book I recall getting my hands on about the comic book industry was How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. After I got out of law school, I got my hands on Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. The first book exposed me to comics as a technical skill and not just a bunch of cool pictures. The second book reintroduced me to comics as an art form and not just a childish obsession. Words for Pictures is a book on the same level. It describes the creative and practical aspects of comics as a business and belongs on the radar of anyone with any interest in the medium.

Brian Michael Bendis is an award winning writer who has worked on seminal franchises including Spider-Man, X-Men and Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s also had success with his own original titles including Powers, Torso and Scarlet. Bendis brings years of experience to Words, walking an aspiring creator through major aspects of the writing business including:

• The motivations for writing
• The form and function of the script
• Collaboration with editors and artists and;
• Protecting your business interests

Bendis doesn’t just rely on his own perspective for this book. He adds the insights from dozens of top writers, artists and editors to create a behind the scenes look into the business that is now driving the blockbuster movie industry. One of the most important lessons in the book gets a chapter to itself. Bendis advises anyone and everyone who gets into comics on any level to protect their creative investment by seeking out and listening to lawyers and accountants when it comes to handling their career.

Even if you’re not interesting in writing comic books, Words for Pictures still has value. If you’re a writer on any level, the advice he offers transcends the comic book page and extends out to novelists, playwrights and screenwriters. If you simply love iconic artwork, Words is filled with art from some of the top comic book artists of the past and present. In the same way you don’t have to read comics to enjoy comic book movies, you can enjoy Words for Pictures without trying to be the next Walt Simonson of Brian Michael Bendis.

Have fun.

Gamal 

How to Break into (and Stay In) Comics

Finding your way into the entertainment industry is often a mix of persistence, talent and luck. Almost every successful actor, musician and writer went through a convoluted path to achieve their goals. The road they traveled had a lot of detours, failures and dead ends, but determination (or stubbornness) carried them over their obstacles, and back on their chosen path. The life of a comic artist isn’t any different. The people at the top will be the first to tell you that.

Some of the top writers and editors at Marvel recently relayed this message at their annual panel at San Diego Comic Con. (See Breaking Into Comics the Marvel Way). C.B. Cebulski, the SVP at Marvel who oversees talent acquisition and development, sat down with Marvel’s editor in chief and several of their top talents to discuss both the road to success and tips for aspiring artists.

The main thrust of the discussion was twofold:

1) There is no “right” way to get your shot at working for a company like Marvel. You can try as many methods as you can think up, as long as you keep it professional.

2) Once you get your first “big break”, your work has just begun. You have to continue to prove your value and your professionalism or you can lose your spot to the next fifty people trying to get in.

C.B. reinforces this message in a new book about writing for the comics industry. Brian Michael Bendis adds the insights from dozens of top writers, artists and editors to his own experience in Words for Pictures. Bendis, Cebulski and the other contributors do a great job of redefining success. For them, it’s not enough to break into comics. You have to keep pushing yourself to stay in the industry.

Recent history is full of examples to support this idea:

• Joe Quesada could have been content to draw Batman and create characters like Azrael, but he went further first with Marvel Knights, then becoming EIC at Marvel and helping move the company into the golden age of comic book movies
• Frank Miller could have been happy to redefine characters like Batman and Daredevil, but he kept pushing, creating independent properties like Sin City and 300 that made it all the way to the big screen
• Jim Lee could have just drawn Spider-Man, but he went out on his on and built Image into one of the largest independent comics companies, before going back to DC and taking a major leadership role there.

There are a lot of other examples, but you get the idea. If you take the long view of your career, you’ll see your first deal or your first book as the stepping stone to more work and bigger things. You might not become the next Frank Miller, but your professional and creative development will extend far beyond the first big break.

Have fun.
Gamal