moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Henry Vogel) (09/26/85)
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MORE JOYS OF PUBLISHING - OR OOPS, THERE GOES ANOTHER DEADLINE!
Ever wonder why some comic books are late? Especially alternative books?
There are lots of reasons and I thought I'd share some of the ones I've run
into recently with the Southern Knights.
As the writer, creator, owner, etc. of the Knights, I am quite dedicated to
the book and will make personal sacrifices to make sure it gets out on time.
Un- fortunately my pencillers, inkers, and colorist (for the cover - we're
still b&w) don't seem to feel the same way. How many of you out there are
waiting for SK#10? Come on, raise your hands... I said raise your hands!...
Oh, never mind. As you may know, #10 is late. SK#8 was late. SK#9 was
actually close to on time but only because #8 was so late. Why are they so
late (didn't I ask that ques- tion earlier)? Well, believe it or not, #8 was
late because of the printer! For reasons known only to him, Dave Kraft sent
#8 to a printer he'd never used before. The printer had the entire book IN
HIS HANDS by mid-December. The book came out in April. Why? I wish I knew.
The printer just sat on. Didn't even bother to deal with it. AND he lied
about that! This same printer was printing Northguard, a b&w book done in
Canada (the printer is also in Canada). North- guard and the Knights were
supposed to ship together thereby saving both of us a few bucks in shipping
costs. The Northguard people were right there and they knew the guy had
their book but wasn't printing it. He kept telling them that he didn't have
OUR book and meanwhile never returned any of Dave Kraft's phone calls.
Eventually, Dave called the people at Northguard to ask them if they knew
what was going on. Once they compared notes, the fesces really struck the
air movement device and the books got printed. IF #8 had come out on time,
#9 would have been late. Why? Our penciller, Chuck, found out that #8 was
behind schedule so he slacked off. We got #9 two months after #8, but just
barely! Then, number was held up badly because Chuck just didn't work on
it. He drew 22 pages for the book and it took him 3 months to do it! Then he
claimed the inking was bad in places and wasted another 3 weeks "correcting"
the mistakes. *I* couldn't tell that anything had been changed... Of
course, that was nothing compared to what happened next with #10. The cover
was sent to Steve Howard, our (former) colorist. He said he could get it to
us in a week. It took 4 weeks. Unfortunately, there was a minor problem with
the cover and Dave sent it back to Steve to correct. It should have taken
him no more than an hour to fix. He had the cover for 2 months. When we
finally got it back from him, he had done more than just "minor" changes. It
wasn't the best cover in the world to begin with, but when he finished with
it it was worthless! As of right now, we have what was supposed to be the
cover for #12 being readied as quickly as possible to appear on #10. I still
don't know when it will be out... Of course, this means that #11 will be on
time... Even though it took Chuck the ENTIRE summer to pencil it and the
inker still hasn't finished inking it! On top of that, since completing #11,
I haven't seen a sinlge page from Chuck even though he's had the plot for
#14 (Mark Propst is doing #12 and #13) for well over a month. Needless to
say, this is VERY frustrating! Unfortunately we can't afford to pay our
artist enough money to insure the kind of dedication we need. Still, they
knew the situation when they agreed to do the work...
I know this sounds like I'm griping, and I admit that I am. However, I haven't
made nearly the amount of money our artists have made on the book (yes, our
profit margin is that low)! It's frustrating that I have to put my creation
into the hands of "outsiders" because I don't have the talent to draw the book
myself. Anyway, that's why the Southern Knights miss so many deadlines. This
will not remain the case for long, though. Kraft wants us to go monthly and
we're going to have to have an artist who is willing to put forth the effort
to let us do so. I don't know whether this will call for a change in artists -
I hope not since I work well with Chuck (discounting his pencilling speed, that
is).
I hope you've enjoyed this look inside small press publishing. I'll try to
make my next posting on the Joys of Publishing a little less gripe-filled
(although it sure feels good to get this out of my system).
Let me close with a recommendation. Check out 'Mazing Man #1 from DC! I
really like this book and can hardly believe it is being put out by one of
the Big Two. DC should be congratulated for publishing something as out of
the norm as this!
That's all for now!
Henry Vogel
P.S. If you have any questions about self publishing, relay them to me
through Jeff Meyer at:
ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA
UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, sb6, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty