My Variant Cover for Headless v.2 #1 From Scout Comics (Patreon)

So, I stumbled across the fact that my variant cover art for the Headless series from Scout has been solicited. So, here's the final cover. I'll do a process post asap in regards to the, uh, process. 

I know publishers aren't particularly well-funded or staffed, but I really wish the companies would send out the covers and solicitation info to creators so they can better plug the projects they're involved with. Just a jpeg and a date would be helpful once the solicitation kicks in online. I didn't know about three books from DC this year we have work in, I didn't know this one was public. I guess it's a logistical nightmare, but computers are like Mother Boxes, right? They can just Ping Ping Ping the correct mailing list and we're done. Boom. I usually do get images from DHC but often not with cover dressing in a form I can post. I have to remember to ask about that. Anyway, selling comics is a brick wall I've finally stopped banging my head on. It just hurts your head more.

Speaking of publishers, we got a comp copy of Marvels Snapshots the other day. One for Sarah, presumably one will arrive for me. Marvel is the cheapest of the big companies with comp copies. We didn't even get copies of the single issues because of a snafu, most companies I know would find a way to address that. Marvel's too big and overworks people (big shock in this modern world), and someone on my level isn't important enough that I can't be slighted. The least a publisher can do is make sure contributors get a copy of the work, though (other than pay you). If you can't afford to send comps to your contributors, maybe you shouldn't be publishing. This isn't an APA, fer corn's sakes. Harumph..

This Travesty of Justice also happened to me a ways back with a Captain America hardcover, Marvel had two dozen copies for dozens of contributors -- but in their kind, dear hearts they allowed us to buy a copy on discount. Pay a low page rate, then charge people for a copy they have to buy. Which doesn't get worked into your royalties. 

Not that royalties really matter in my world, regarding old Marvel and DC work. Today I got a Disney check for $15.19 for five or six collections I have work in. I'll use it for gas money and be happy with any payments that show up, honest and for true. But the Marvel and DC checks, if we ever get them, always get a laugh. I've only received one decent royalty check from DC, only because they ran Alex Ross pages from World's Funnest in an expensive art book, and apparently as the writer you get paid if it's reprinted/collected in that manner. 

Also gave me a bit of an insight on what a popular creator can garner on these things, and, well, it sure ain't $15.16, especially when the whole book is your art. And that's just a collection of all the retro magazine illos you've done of all the superheroes in North America plus a few other bits and pieces of pop culture. More power, I'd rather see it go to creators than AT&T, I just wish I had a smidgen of it. 

I once got a relatively okay (for me, that is) Marvel check when they folded the Agent X two-parter and the Fight-Man One-Shot into a humongous Deadpool Omnibus, one of those massive red-and-black doorstops they put out for the high-end folks. had a bunch more Agent X than Deadpool in it, but you don't have to be in marketing to know a $100 or $150 or whatever Agent X Omnibus is going to suck eggs sales-wise. It's the same reasoning for why our Marvels Snapshots was entitled Marvels Snapshots: Fantastic Four and not, Marvels Snapshots: Human Torch. More oomph, more star power. More sleight of hand. Anyway, I traded my Omnibus in to Comic Book Jones (RIP). If it was something I had extensive work in, I'd have kept it. But I have the comics, and the Deadpool trade which ran the Fight-Man/Agent X stuff, so gimme the trade, thanks. 

Fun fact (okay, anecdote, but the truth lies within): Back when DC was still in NYC, so many employees from DC and Marvel traded in so many monthlies and trades and hardcovers that it became a problem for Jim Hanley's Universe. They couldn't take the growing haul in every week as editors and whatnot came in to trade their weekly comps for stuff from other publishers and toys and the like. I'm guessing other area shops got some trade as well, depending on their policies and who shopped where. But JHU was close enough to DC and Marvel offices that every Wednesday for New Comic Book Day it was like a convention in there. My understanding is that it was an open secret that got too unwieldy, and shops started getting choosier and rejecting more trade books because of the glut, and at some point the situation reached some publisher ears --  and there was some sort of crackdown on employees doing that. I mean, comps are a courtesy and bosses seem to hate when you turn product into money for yourself, while paying you sub-par wages despite being owned by Disney and Warner Brothers (who do not pump copious profits from the movies and TV shows into the publishing in any real way, despite what many fans assume on the internet, it's church and sad state with that stuff).  

My favorite aspect of compsgate was that while DC and Marvel are selling the fans on how great all their senses-shattering comic books are, many of their staff were dumping most of their comps for credit to get other stuff. You'd think everyone would keep every single one of the greatest pulse-pounding publications they put out. Then again, you always see Costco workers ordering take-out food because they're sick of (or can't stand) the pizza and the hot dogs and that creepy-ass chicken melty thing they have. The chicken bake. Woof! Tried one once, and I eat mystery food, and I'm still telling you the Costco chicken bake was a mistake. I still have nightmares, just like the Chicken-In-A-Biscuit situation and the7-11 microwave horrors I used to eat at 6 a.m. after closing the Red Spot , dee-runk off my everything (for the trivia fans, it was the Double Chili Cheeseburger and the Truckstopper, the latter "sandwich" so named because you could lay it on the street and halt the progress of your average eighteen-wheeler upon impact). 

Anyway, please excuse my snideness about the publishers and the comps and the trading in of same. I know how the world works, I traded in stuff too (extras, I always keep a copy, if not more, I simply adore most of my comics!), like the Hamburger-Headed Agent Deadpool X Omnibus mentioned earlier. I just like making that joke and I'm here to entertain. To balance things out a bit, a rumor I heard back in the Levitz years was that there was a decision from the scary people up on high at WB to cut out the comps program for the staff to save more of that money they were hurting for (dunno if it affected the number of copies going to creators). Word had it that Levitz fought against it and the comps system was kept in place. If true, there's a positive publisher story. It happens. And if true, I could see it stinging a little that a solid chunk of the comps that was fought over and restored was being funneled into comic shops. I can see that. I've never been a boss in my life, save at the comic shop, and I couldn't fire the biggest fuck-up that I couldn't stand. I can't fire people. I can't do that stuff, it makes me nauseous. Anyway, who knows? Let's mark that anecdote down as a dream, or a hoax, or an imaginary tale until there's any further confirmation.  Will I go seeking further confirmation? What am I, Detective Chimp? Let it all be a dream.

Where the hell was I? I'm really winging this one on the pain pills and antibiotics. Yup. 

Oh -- callback to before, hang on: the Captain America book, luckily the editor was a friend so I lucked out and got one. But you know they're not going to stiff Frank Miller or Bruce Timm, who can afford to buy the book, and will likely put it in a box and forget about it. I was really bummed out, because I wasn't going to buy the Red, White and Boo-Hoo collection, even on discount. Not a stance, I was just broke that decade. A lot of us mid-carder folks were unhappy, you had to figure that people like Miller and Steranko were getting comps for their reprinted stories, and they'd want Timm and other main-eventers to be happy. But most of the rest of use were out of luck. Not me, though. The editor was my friend, and luckily, I lucked out. I have a lucky charmed life, once in a while.

All, righty. As usual, that's more blathering than planned tonight, luckily for you I'm a blabbermouth with typing fingers of fury (not really, as far as the fingers go, the wristbrace of regulatory wrapping is on duty, as usual). Also, I finally got my wisdom tooth pulled this afternoon -- I mean, yesterday afternoon -- hopefully ending the miserable infection streak at two. I can't really eat, I can't talk (which is okay, it's just me and the Pirate after hours, and I stopped yelling at people in the street from my window years ago), and my head's killing me, but I can't fall asleep despite feeling like most of me is on auto-pilot. Type type type, that's what I'm doing to keep me busy. 

Oh, before I hit "Publish Now" -- isn't it weird to see my art when it isn't colored by Sarah? The creators were telling me they'd have it colored, and since we wouldn't lose any of the cover rate, with Sarah being busy and all, we let them color away. It's very rare I get to see non-flat coloring on my stuff. It's always a little "wrong", over the last few decades I've hardly ever had my drawings colored by anyone but Sarah -- the Grumble variant cover was a more recent job she didn't work on (Sarah did all the digital clean-up and revision work on the inks). 

Don't get me wrong, I think the cover came out good, I'm not complaining. It's just so different from what I'm used to. Like when you get your dog back from the groomers and there's bows and shorter hair and floofy stuff and all that cleanliness and you're thrown for a second. Or a minute. Or the rest of the day. It's different! That's what I'm trying to type. 

I should go, getting close to my bedtime. Here's the solicitation for the issue, with credits and stuff: 

AUG211996

(W) Alexander Banchita (A) Robert Ahmad (CA) Evan Dorkin, Anna Gushchina  

HEADLESS IS BACK! Cursed to live forever as the Headless Horseman, a suicidal young man named Chris, must join up with dark forces to rescue his brother Rick from the pits of Hell.

In Shops: Oct 06, 2021

SRP: $3.99