tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31147228.post716680167719046179..comments2023-12-20T04:59:07.043-08:00Comments on ink destroyed my brush: What do the Comics owe you? Anything? Nothing?inkdestroyedmybrushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09037083364689982443noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31147228.post-19504978480609069882011-12-04T06:52:54.314-08:002011-12-04T06:52:54.314-08:00A very interesting piece. But just the title of th...A very interesting piece. But just the title of this blog entry makes me think of JFK's immortal words, "Ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you can do for your country."<br /><br />Comics is not different to any other business. Management has no emotional investment in the people they manage or those people's lives. Long after I'd stopped relying on the comics business for my main income, I was working at a UK television conglomerate. I'd become quite friendly with my department head, I'd sat at his table with his wife and kids and mine, and we'd eaten together. But a year or two later, he cut me loose without even blinking. It's not unique to comics. Though it might seem that way if comics is the only business you've ever worked in.<br /><br />And Mazuchelli is by no means the first comic person to cross over into mainstream publishing. Long before him, there was Jack Cole, who moved into illustrating for the "slicks" then for reasons best known to himself, committed suicide. Jack Davis fared a little better in mainstream publishing. There's others, but you get my drift.<br /><br />And whenever technology makes production cheaper for publishers of any stripe - be it the introduction of DTP saving newspapers the cost of typesetting, or Photoshop, saving comic publishers the costs of tricky film-making and reverse-outs and so on - did any of them share the savings with any of the folk picking up that work? Even worse, comic letterers and colourists are expected to buy their own copies of Illustrator, Fontographer and Photoshop so the publishers can save thousands of dollars in the production process.<br /><br />It always the folks at the bottom of the foodchain that get screwed.Alan McKhttp://www.thestoryworks.comnoreply@blogger.com