Todd Allen continues his look at Marvel’s surreal collected edition policies over at The Beat, but the must-see comment comes from Charles Vess in the comments:
It would be nice if they actually paid the creators whose work they are reprinting. A year after their Warrior’s Three collection which featured a cover and over 100 pages of my work I received one (!!) comp copy and no word of any sort of reprint or royalty fee. Of course it might not have sold very well. Now I see that they are cobbling together 3 or 4 Spider-Man GNs into one enormous, hideously produced, hardcover. My long ago GN ‘Spirits of the Earth’ which I wrote/drew/painted is one of them. We’ll see what they do about that one. In contrast, DC provides 25 comp copies and a royalty check sent ever 4 months. Hmmm… now who would you work for?
Ouch.
And also: This seems almost unbelievable, right? I’m not the only one who reads that and thinks “Oh, that must be wrong,” surely – I’m not meaning to call Vess a liar, because I firmly believe that he’s telling the truth, but Marvel doesn’t pay reprint royalties or even give creators notice that they’re reprinting their work?!? That just seems breathtaking. Even if that’s only the policy on work of a specific age… I am genuinely stunned. That’s appalling.
January 13th, 2012 at 10:16 am
Marvel’s “incentive” (don’t call them royalties) contract has a clause which states “regardless of the number of units sold, comic titles must be profitable (as determined by Marvel) to be eligible for incentive payments”. DC’s royalty agreement says they “pay from the first copy sold and will continue to be paid for so long as DC sells the publications”. So Marvel has a big loophole where they can not pay if they don’t want to.
January 13th, 2012 at 11:01 am
do creators have no leverage when negotiating contracts with marvel to change this? i doubt its something where dc is taking an ethical stance opposite marvels. im sure you could negotiate a bigger up front check with dc if you waived your royalty money, likewise you could lower your pay from marvel in exchange for reprint money. its a commercial contract, everything has a price.
January 13th, 2012 at 11:20 am
Talking to Jim Steranko a few months back and he wouldn’t sign my Nick Fury reprinted collection because it was printed in Spain. And Marvel only gets royalty, or incentive, checks if they are printed in the US. That is weird.
January 13th, 2012 at 12:49 pm
To rip off any creator is horrible. Pat Lee-level horrible. To rip off a creator of Vess’ stature simply makes Marvel look worse than the former Dreamwave chief. Who else will they fleece? Jack Kirby? Oh wait… never mind.
January 13th, 2012 at 3:16 pm
All my work for Marvel was done in the 1980s. That means there was NO contract signed for any of that work. The only ‘contract’ I ever signed was putting my signature on the back of my check which was needed in order to cash it.
I only knew about the Warriors Three collection because a French fan saw it in a catalog and e-mailed me about it.
My Spirits of the Earth hardcover GN sold very well when it was released in 1990. I did initially receive some very nice royalties from it. But about 2/3rds of the way through the print run (with about 10-12,000 copies left) those stopped. Since I was the writer/artist/painter for the entire book I was receiving approx. $1.10 per copy and that would have been a welcome check to put in my bank account.
My only recourse would have been to sue and then that money would have vanished in a days work to pay a lawyer’s fees.
I continued to do a little bit of writing for Marvel (a 4 issue Prince Valiant mini-series and the adaptation of the movie Hook) but eventually realized I felt much more at home with the people I was working with at DC.
And now, from that work at DC Comics, every four months for the last 20 odd years I’ve received a royality check.
I’m just saying…
January 13th, 2012 at 7:13 pm
I must say the disparity in the pay structure for DC and Marvel is really amazing.
January 13th, 2012 at 9:46 pm
I remember when Mark Waid was mocking DC over his twitter about getting paid by Marvel for online sales. He ended his tweet by saying “Marvel: 1, DC: 0″. Looks like the score is tied now.
January 13th, 2012 at 11:53 pm
I met one of the artists of the Spider-man Clone Saga at a convention. He had no idea they were reprinting his work until I showed him my copy of Spider-man: The Complete Clone Saga Epic Book 1. At that point, I think at least 3 volumes had come out, all featuring his work.
January 14th, 2012 at 2:14 pm
I wonder if marvel pay’s none or some of there creator’s.I have a feeling that some of the current creator’s at marvel do get paid and some don’t.
January 15th, 2012 at 9:40 am
I hate to say it, but… Marvel’s in the right if there’s no contract. It’s a sucky situation, and I wish it were otherwise. Creators deserve to get paid and in a perfect world, Marvel would step up and say, “you know, we didn’t have a contract that stipulated reprint royalties, but we’re gonna throw you a buck per unit because we want to take care of the talent”.
But Marvel’s a business and businesses protect their bottom lines. No contract, no royalties. It sucks, but there it is.
February 6th, 2013 at 9:30 am
That’s the problem with business, they forget they are only made of people and people hide behind the facade of business to justify unethical conduct.That recalls a line from the movie Taken, where Liam Neeson was confronting the man who kidnapped his daughter for sale and that scumlord said, “It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.” Anyone who’s seen the movie knows that Liam took it quite personally.
As for Marvel’s policies for residual payments, I only became aware of my reprints after getting a heads up from a well known inker in the business. I have recently communicated with Marvel and they sent me a W-9 and an incentive form to fill out and sign and I was recently told the check is coming. Only time will tell. I guess their policy is that you stay aware and chase them down. Sort of like the game Monopoly; if someone lands on your property and you didn’t notice, they don’t have to pay rent. Something odd there. Maybe they figure that as a freelancer you are your own business and are responsible for pursuing that end. In the meanwhile, until creators claim what is their’s,that cash is drawing interest for the big company.