My First SLG Royalty Statement, Itemized (1989) (Patreon)

Something I found in my records while organizing the studio recently.

This is the statement of earning and expenditures for my first SLG Publishing comic, the Pirate Corp$! Special that kicked off the continuation of the series. The series had been canceled by Eternity Comics, and was picked up by Dan Vado/SLG the following year at San Diego Comic Con (maybe I'll tell that story later, it's cute). Much of the Special was intended to be issue #5 at Eternity, I did a new cover, and added pages to bring it to 32 interior pages, iirc. 

Back then there were several direct market distributors, Diamond, Capital, Friendly Frank's, Comics Unlimited, I dunno if Seagate in Brooklyn was still around, can't remember any others right off the bat. You sent a cover image and some solicitation text in and if they ran the information in their catalog. and If there were enough orders to warrant it, you printed your comic, often scrambling to finish it in time for the date of publication. I already had most of this one done, back then I was better at that sort of thing, less anxious and not second-guessing myself every five minutes (which is ironic because my work was firmly on the amateur side back then).

As you can see, sales were pretty low -- especially considering mainstream titles were a lot healthier. I think the Special was $1.95, regular issues were $1.75 afterward. Three decades and change later, sadly, my sales are around the same, if not lower on some projects., as single copy sales have tumbled -- at least nowadays there'  the near-automatic prospect of a collection edition generating book sales. To think I once had a comic that sold over ten thousand copies -- which was Milk and Cheese -- even the first, well-hyped Beasts of Burden comic didn't crack five figures (although the first collection did really well, I have to say).

Also, as you can see, no one was getting rich here. 

Dan and I had a contract for Pirate Corp$! but every other project we did together over the years was a handshake agreement, usually without a handshake as we were on opposite coasts. I was grandfathered into my original deal for all my comics, a 60-40 split of back-end revenue, which worked out very nicely for me when Milk and Cheese came out (especially the issues that were mostly collecting scattered material from Deadline and other places). Dork was the same, to a lesser degree of income, but even the lowest selling titles ended up making a little something. Since a lot of it was a mix old and new material, and I was paid for the old material (mostly, some of it was zine work or stuff done on my own), things worked out pretty well. I worked more quickly in my 20's-30's, and was propping up my SLG stuff with work for Marvel, DC, DHC, Deadline, Disney Adventures, Nick Mag and sometimes drawing CD covers and odds and ends (and eventually the Space Ghost/WB script gigs kicked in for me and Sarah). 

SLG fed me a lot of comp copies to sell at shows, and send out to reviewers and zine editors and whatever else I felt like doing with them. I think I gt n initial shipment of a hundred copies of whatever we did. Sales at shows were reported and SLG took their cut from royalties. Same went for shirts made by SLG. At some point in time -- pre Jhonen Vasquez and Roman Dirge, I assume -- SLG was hurting a little and I took a cut in my percentage to help out. I had a good thing going with my older, more generous deal there. I was getting paid to produce short comics in various anthologies and venues, then I'd collect them at SLG and get paid, and sometimes the new SLG material would get reprinted in Deadline or elsewhere or I re-sold comics to places like The Onion in Wisconsin, El Vibora in Spain and even a heavy metal zine in Finland (!). We were doing very well in the 90s between animation, comics and freelancing, it was a good run for us -- and SLG, as well. 

When I received .my first royalty statement from SLG in 1989 I was not working full-time in the comics industry (that wouldn't be until 1991, when I got the Bill and Ted gig from Marvel and the Predator penciling job from DHC -- and put out Milk & Cheese #1). I was working as a manager at Jim Hanley's Universe most of the week, some nights I was also working as a busboy/bar-back at The Red Spot (a new wave/punk/metal club) and in-between all that I drew my comics. And I did a few conventions and went to concerts and club-hopped while that was going on. I would love to have that energy back for just a few weeks!

We did less work with SLG and more merchandise around the turn of the century, the Eltingville pilot and the World's Funnest one-shot both ate up a ton of my work schedule from 1999-2002. When those wrapped up (and went nowhere, unfortunately)and I was ready to make some more solo comics I found things had begun to change in the market. Anthologies were dying on the vine, zines were drying up, magazines were shutting down. I wasn't producing very many short strips for various publications that could be collected in Dork and Milk & Cheese (or Kid Blastoff, Hectic Planet, etc). We started working for MAD but didn't own the rights to that material. 

The basic reason I eventually left SLG was that the industry reached a point where SLG's business model became unsustainable. I couldn't get books out anymore under that system. Not being able to rely on a steady backlog of material meant I had to produce more new pages without the benefit of a page rate/advance against the back end. I was also putting more time into my pages, more detail, more of everything (see Dork #11 for my biggest SLG folly). So money didn't show up until months after working on pages fro free. And that money was shrinking as comics sales were contracting and book sales were becoming more important. I wasn't a "book guy", though. I was a short form cartoonist. And I was also locked into the familiar format, unable to see where the wind was blowing or to change my approach. So, I kept trying to make more attractive and packed comics, when I could and should have been opening the dense material up and making little trade paperbacks (see Dork #11). 

Dan and I discussed a page rate advance, but it never happened. Dan was locked into his ways, as well. But working without anything upfront was...not working. I was trying to be loyal to SLG, but the situation meant I barely got any of my own comics out for a number of years. I started the next-to-last Eltingville story in 2001, the following year I had two pages done, in 2003 I had a third page. Then I gave up. It was impossible to work without any income for the time spent. This is why Eltingville didn't get wrapped up until years later when Dark Horse was my publisher..  

I had been freelancing for Dark Horse since 1991, they were my long-term second home in comics. I worked on two Predator series, wrote a Mask series, contributed a number of Milk & Cheese strips to various DHC anthologies, did three eight page Hectic Planet stories for Dark Horse Presents, started The Eltingville Club there in Instant Piano, Beasts of Burden began there in the Dark Horse Book of Hauntings. Dark Horse produced the Milk & Cheese lunchbox. 

For a number of years I wavered on breaking from SLG,  but  I couldn't bring myself to do it because of my friendship with Dan. I remained loyal even though it was clearly what I needed to do in order to move forward. My books were stuck, I was stuck, I was unhappy and unable to profit off my back catalog of work. SLG didn't have the resources, the art direction or the benefit of an advance on royalties. I finally made the decision to jump over to Dark Horse -- where I was already doing the bulk of my comics freelancing, between Beasts of Burden, Dark Horse Presents, Hellboy: Weird Tales, etc. 

My phone call with Dan did not go well. I told him I hated breaking with SLG but I had no other choice, it wasn't like I was putting new work out with him anymore. I offered to still do a project with him down the line, but he wasn't having an of it. I was so upset and emotional -- I had been with Dan and SLG for for many years and we very close -- and I busted out ugly crying. It was like leaving home, even worse, I was told I wasn't welcome there anymore. Dan had a temper and held resentment against DHC (he was pissed off that I did the lunchbox with them, for one of many things), he held grudges and my leaving was seen as an act of disloyalty. Never mind that Dan had spoken on the record multiple times that he appreciated my loyalty to the company, that I could have left years earlier, that I helped keep SLG going for a time when Milk & Cheese was their best-selling book. It wasn't enough, for twenty years, the last few years seeing no new comics because of the untenable situation. I guess I was supposed to remain loyal and unable to produce new issues of my titles. 

After the phone call Dan e-mailed Sarah and told her that if he ever saw us at a convention he would turn his back on us. I haven't spoken to him since. He's e-mailed me twice to try to bury the hatchet, I just can't do it. I'm not actively angry, I'm just done with it all. It's just unfortunate, and it was unnecessary. I stayed with SLG when other creators left for greener pastures, some breaking their contracts and being very unprofessional about it. Sarah never told me about conversations she'd heard at conventions where peers told her I needed to move on for the good of my career. She knew how close I was to Dan, and that I felt I owed him for his support when no one was all that interested in publishing me. SLG was like a family, and a ton of fun (when it was fun) and we had a very good situation there (while it was a good situation). I was terrified about how Dan would take it if I moved on professionally.  I had -- and still have--  issues with separation, with change, with making decisions and avoiding confrontation (even if some people think I go looking for confrontation). Not having a positive sense of self-worth also plays into these kinds of things. So, yeah. Things went on too long, and it had a negative impact on my work and our lives. That's largely on me. Our child had been born, we had started a family, life wasn't getting cheaper or easier, no one was getting any younger. I needed to move on and take care of my own. As usual, I dragged my heels to my own detriment. 

There's always more to a story, and there is more, but that's already more than I was planning on discussing. I don't regret being a part of SLG, I do regret not parting ways earlier. It's fun to be one of the top wrestlers at a small indy fed but at some point you either have to move up to a bigger fed or stagnate and fade.  

I never intended to part ways with Dan as a friend, but, that's the way it apparently had to be. Life is too short. Loyalty is a wonderful thing, but it needs to be earned. Making comic is a lot of fun but it's also work, it's business, and if you're lucky, it's sustenance. You and yours have to come first, you can't cut yourself off at the knees to please others or avoid unpleasant things. That goes for a lot of things. 

And that's another wholly unplanned bunch of typing. Whew!

Back soon. Take care.