Former Marvel production artist Damien Lucchese explains to fans why those considering a boycott or protest over last week’s layoffs may be missing the point:
The MARVEL characters many of the fans are not familiar with are the ones who work regular work hours and continue to stay late to ensure they’re getting their job done to the best of their ability. They stay late because they work with talented people from around the world. They lose friends over time because they can never make it out on Friday nights because they’re ushering comics off to the printers. Family sometimes think that you don’t care about them because you’re always so busy with work. Getting home on time to have dinner with their families is a treat for some of these people.
Why do they? Because they are passionate about what they do.
Even with all the stress of deadlines and very little praise, they LOVE their jobs, otherwise they wouldn’t be there, making sacrifices.
Hard working, creative, talented, passionate PEOPLE so dedicated, they make sacrifices.
They endure the nasty, angry, “fans” that are never happy with anything and think they can do a better job, scratching and picking at what they had just worked so hard on. Week after week after week…
When I was kid, growing up reading MARVEL comics and I saw that classic logo, it was a symbol that stood for a family I belonged to. I saw it as amazing art, interesting stories, exciting characters and I knew there had to be fun people making it happen.
What I’m trying to say is that I don’t want everyone to just see the MARVEL logo and think of a huge, top-heavy company, full of money hungry suits that make poor descisions (in some peoples’ opinions.) That’s not what MARVEL is and there are still people working very hard (even harder now), day after day to put out comics for people to enjoy. (Or hate ::shrugs::) They’re coming up with new storylines and characters to brighten your days, take you out of reality for a few and for kids to dress up as.
They still need your support.
A classy, classy move.
October 25th, 2011 at 9:31 am
Also, giving a company less money isn’t going to convince them to rehire people they fired because they didn’t have enough money.
October 25th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
I’ve only stopped buying Marvel superhero comics because of its ‘big-event-after-big-event’ creative policy. It thrilled for a while but its tunnel vision to think the same formula is going to last forever. Good individual storylines would get me buying these comics again. I lost interest halfway through ‘Civil war’ – it got too OTT (even for me) and I got into other titles, other publishers and even other interests. Major Marvel characters seem to die regularly and come back the following Monday. No matter how many ‘big announcements’ are made at comic conventions the creative situation seems to be pretty much the same.
Why not go back to superhero storylines that don’t have to tie in with some big event and give the characters more freedom to grow in their own pages. It would certainly encourage me to buy again, and maybe more people like myself buying Marvel superhero comics again could help the company feel confident enough to hire back those staff.
Its difficult for publishers I’ll bet – I’m sure spectacular crisis/war/invasion events across lots of titles make some big short term cash – but in the long term is it causing damage to long term interest? Just a thought.
October 26th, 2011 at 9:30 am
Unfortunately, Lucchese’s heartfelt statement won’t save more Marvel staffers from Perlmutter’s ax.
Issac is still operating on the “fixed cost vs variable cost” model that’s screwed up so much of American business.
The next step will be to outsource the editorial and print production work to outside studios, eliminating almost all in-house staffers, much like the way comics were done in the 1940s.
October 26th, 2011 at 9:47 am
Time for a “occupy Marvel protest”? Why should Disney-Marvel be treated different than any other greedy corporation?
October 26th, 2011 at 11:05 am
@Atomic Kommie Comics – I’m not savvy with the subtleties of long-term successful business practices: Why is “fixed cost vs. variable cost” a problem? What *should* Perlmutter/Marvel/Disney be doing instead? No snark, just real curiosity.
October 26th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
Matty:
By eliminating in-house staff, Perlmutter eliminates “fixed costs” (salary/benefits/office space)
Using outside studios/vendors lists them as “variable costs” on the books, and even if, in practice, they’re more expensive than the staff they replace, it reflects better on the company’s bottom line which lists only fixed costs, which now appear to be lower than the previous quarter.
Staff positions are usually salaried, which means the workers make the same amount of money whether they work 9-5 or 9-midnight.
However, outside studios charge a per-page rate, plus rush charges if things have to be done faster than whatever the normal turnaround time is.
Unfortunately, these days comics are a business where deadlines are more a concept than a reality, and things are invariably late, so rush charges accrue and…
While reducing “fixed costs” results in quarterly and mid-term statements that look like the company saves money, in the long term it doesn’t.
That’s why you then have ANOTHER round of “fixed cost” cuts.
December 30th, 2011 at 11:54 am
I know this feeling, working hard for a company which has been forced to downsize
Of course it is always driven by balance sheet aspects and not social considerations, but what do you want to say?
I saw many people just as greedy as any stockholders, I remember once we were proposed to save a job under certain conditions and I saw the limit of company solidarity: most people refused…
Same story around me, for relatives and friends as well.
But happy ends do exist, with our efforts we have been able to restore the financials of the company and even hire people later.
All the best,
Mike
February 15th, 2012 at 8:49 am
Remarkable issues here. I’m very happy to peer your post. Thank you a lot and I am taking a look ahead to contact you. Will you please drop me a e-mail?