Pen-Elayne on the Web

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Back in the pre-digital era, the way many of us communicated creatively was through zines. While we strove for clarity of layout (well, some of us, it took me awhile to get to that point with INSIDE JOKE and arguably I never quite reached it in my zeal to cram the zine full of as much text as possible), we realized that content was the key consideration not only for us self-publishers but for our readers. Printing and mailing was expensive, even more so for specialized luxuries like perfect binding and color (heck, most print shops charged extra for stapling the things), so we made do with what we could afford. You didn't self-publish zines for profit, you did it because it was fun and a way to make friends and share creative endeavors and information, just like most of the best bloggers do today. Occasionally we'd ask our readers for a bit of short-term financial help if we found ourselves in a bind (certainly not to the level of some bloggers who push their tip jars in your face like subway buskers, implying it's somehow your obligation to support their hobby even though they could do it for free if they really wanted to, like I and lots of others do... but I digress), but for the most part we learned to budget x-amount of money for our hobby that we acknowledged we'd never see again, much as people who collect comics or CDs or other items budget money for their hobbies.

In other words, we tried not to be overly ambitious, and not to stretch beyond our financial means. And we shook our heads as those who did more or less failed miserably. I saw it happen twice to my Four-Alarm FIRESIGNal successors. Each gentleman who took over the zine decided to take what had been a successful 6-page, black and white photocopied, thrice-yearly mailed (and later e-mailed) bulletin on which I'd never lost a penny (I don't think I ever asked for donations and I think the "charge" was a self-addressed stamped envelope, but people gave me money anyway just because they liked what I was doing and appreciated Firesign news) and expand it into something perfect-bound with color pages and all slicked-up... and they wound up coming out with maybe one issue every couple of years, or losing tremendous amounts of money and then blaming me for telling them they'd have tons of enthusiastic readers. Well, I think they would have, had they pretty much kept to doing what I did. FAlaFal wasn't broken, it didn't need fixing or updating or slickening up.

I say all this as a prelude to an item brought to my attention by Pulse, regarding a would-be start-up magazine called Prophecy. Advertising themselves as being "at the forefront of graphic sequential art" and claiming "Our quality is unparalleled," with a stated mission "to transform the American perception of a diverse art form with a multitude of genres and styles for all people," it sounded like a great idea. I was a little skeptical of pronouncements like, "The magazine is targeted to both male and female demographics from the ages of 18 to 35 and will be distributed throughout the United States using mainstream channels to be announced. This distribution is a break from traditional comics distribution methods, reaching a wider audience than any other comics publisher," because again, it seemed like a way to circumvent a comics delivery system that (while a bit too much of a monopoly) isn't particularly broken, but we happily subscribed anyway.

That was over a year ago. On Sunday, publisher Ken Morgan apparently e-mailed the following to contributors and subscribers (although we never got it). I'll be "fisking" it throughout.

Dear Prophecy Magazine Creators,

I am writing to update you regarding the status of Prophecy Magazine and its launch and offer you a proposition regarding your work and participation in Prophecy.

I met with the investment bankers two weeks ago and shared with them our plans for Prophecy Magazine and Sequent Media.

Okay, right away this sets up warning bells. This magazine has been in the planning stages for over a year, and they're just meeting with investment bankers? Why are they even meeting with outside investors in the first place? Why aren't they sinking their own money into at least starting it up and proving they can actually publish what they brag about, then looking for investment on the basis of actual accomplishment? Why on earth are these people seeking handouts for something they haven't even done?? Call me anti-capitalist ('cause, you know, yeah), but this makes no common sense to me at all.

While they were incredibly enthusiastic regarding the project,

I'm reading this as "they said nice things to us and were polite and cordial."

they felt that, without stronger sales and revenues, they would not be able to entice investors to put money into the project.

Yeah, well it's hard to generate sales and revenues when you don't actually have a product yet, innit?

As we have said for months, the economy is still unstable both here and abroad. The hay day of multi-million dollar investment deals is soft for the moment, and most companies are struggling to get off the ground. This presents any new company with the very difficult task of making money without money so they can get money.

The economy was bleak when they started their venture; this is not exactly news. If the task is that difficult, even more reason to have the money in your possession to begin with, or don't start your venture until you do.

So, we are faced with the need to prove Prophecy’s viability as a project before we will be able to obtain any significant amount of funding.

No shit, Sherlock. You should have done that a year ago back when you were first making your grandiose plans! The best way to prove your product's viability is to actually produce the product, okay? My heart isn't exactly bleeding here.

As you may know, to launch a magazine of Prophecy’s size and scope is extremely costly, and it is simply impossible for us to do so without a large amount of capital.

Again, didn't you even consider this when you were trying to launch it over a year ago? And if it's so damn costly and you can't get the "large amount of capital" in a time when the graphic arts and comics industries are not doing well anyway and investors aren't generally going to want to throw good money after bad, why on earth didn't you scale back your ambitions and start small??

As such, we have had to make the very difficult decision of terminating the Prophecy Magazine project.

Like you couldn't see that coming. Fine, I'd like my $16 back please.

Okay, here's the part that I'd be rather angry about had Robin and I actually contributed to the magazine, which we were considering doing:

I know you are all then left with the question: so now what? Many of you have created work specifically for the magazine based on the promise that you would receive a page rate and publication in the magazine. Unfortunately, we can no longer honor those contracts and so you are released from any obligation to Sequent Media and all rights to the work return to you.

This strikes me as immoral at best and illegal at worst. "We cannot honor contracts signed by both parties, therefore since we're breaching our contract we release you from it." Come again? I'm reminded of World Comics' insistence, upon breaching a contract I'd signed with them, that "contracts were made to be broken." That would come as interesting news to all the folks who initiate and process lawsuits based precisely on contract breaches. It's small consolation to folks for whom time is money, which includes just about all freelancers, particularly artists who spend hours creating work for your high-end graphic endeavor, that you'll "release" them from being paid for that work.

However, all hope is not yet lost. Our staff has proposed an idea that would allow us to publish your work and pay you for it:

This forms the basis of my assumption that Prophecy has not paid the bulk of its freelancers.

as an alternative to terminating the entire project, we would like to publish two anthologies. This allows us the opportunity to actually get something out to the public and hopefully generate a steady revenue stream that will prove the viability of the project to our investment bankers. While we cannot offer an up front page rate, we will split the proceeds from the sales 50/50 with the Creators. What this means is that 50% of the net profit from the Anthology would be divided amongst the artists and writers who decide to participate. There will be a % value per page that, multiplied by the total number of pages you submit, will equal your percentage of the profit. Once we know how many creators will participate, we can tell you for certain what that percentage will be.

Emphasis mine. This falls squarely under the heading of "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." Nobody makes any money from "net profit." Considering they haven't brought out a single product (well, not technically true, they finally sent us the poster they'd promised a year ago, big whoop) it's pretty galling to ask people to essentially donate their work and cover the fact that you're probably never going to pay them by inserting some gobbledygook about percentage values per page. If you want creators to trust you, honor the contracts you've already signed with them, instead of dismissing those legal documents by "releasing" someone else from your obligation after they've held up their end of the bargain.

It seems fitting that it will ultimately be your decision as the true foundation of Prophecy, whether it transforms and continues or ends here and now. If we cannot amass the number of creators necessary to publish the Anthology, we will have no other choice than to close Prophecy down for good.

The sooner the better, I say. Life for freelancers is iffy enough without this sort of pussyfooting and whining. If someone says they're going to pay you for something, and it turns out a year later that they never had the money in the first place, that's poor planning at best and deception at worst. I really talked these people up when they first announced their plans; I more than take that back now.

I'm just really tired of this aspect of capitalism, begging outside sources for money before starting a magazine and signing on all these people with contracts promising to pay them set page rates and then, whoops, there's no money and surprise, there never was. It's a slap in the face to all those people who put faith in you that you were going to deliver as legally promised. Lately it seems that there's way too much of this going around in the comics community. Are people so inherently greedy that they automatically think their ideas will be so brilliant that folks will throw money at them when they haven't even executed those ideas? Did the dot-com bubble cloud their minds that much? What's wrong with you folks? It's a friggin' magazine, it's disposable income which people have less and less of and it's going to be a gamble, as publishing almost always is. Which is why you need to start with a sure thing. And that sure thing will never be the idea of what you want to do, it will be the money you bring to it and the actual execution. People don't want to read about a magazine as much as they want to actually read the thing itself. So unless you plan to publish within your immediate financial means, keep your ideas to yourself or shop them to a publisher who's already established.