Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

Do you draw for a living? If you do, you’ve no doubt noticed huge budget cuts, and grabbier than ever “all rights” contracts lately. Gary Taxali tells us what he’s doing about it on his Drawger blog, and the 100+ supportive comments are a testimony to the pinch we’re all feeling. (A note to the easily-offended and anyone coming here just for pretty pictures: Gary’s post contains grown-up language, and the illustration he uses involves a bird being flipped.)

DON’T CALL ME
In the last little while, there has been a MAJOR backslide in the industry. Poor rates have been an issue for a while but things are becoming worse. Clients fees are getting even lower and the rights theyre demanding are even higher.

You want examples? How about SWATCH calling me and asking me to design a watch. They wanted a complete transfer of copyright for a paltry fee. As if thats going to happen. Google calls me and wants my work for their new search engine all over the web, the fee? Nothing. Editorial clients are slashing 1999s fees almost in half and citing the bad economy as an excuse. You know what? My excuse is that the economy is bad so you have to pay me MORE for an illustration. Hows that for an economic stimulus package?

So heres to every client with shitty fees and terms. Do not waste my time or contact me. I am very busy working with clients who respect artists and youre wasting my time with your solicitations. So for you, I give you a special salute that I hope will keep you away because I dont need your work.

Australian illustration rep, The Jacky Winter Group, has posted a fantastic blog post detailing the six month process of how they put their latest massive promo together, from concept to completion: Six Months of Promo in Pictures. It’s a great behind-the-scenes look at how an illustration agency puts together an involved promo. Such perfect attention to detail!

Looks like the much-talked about hot topic from several months ago, The Orphan Works Act of 2008 (previously), died a “quiet death” in the House, after it passed in the Senate.

CORRECTION: The bill is NOT dead. Very sorry for the confusion, folks. Read comment by ECStewart from Threat Level link I had posted earlier:

Folks-

The bill isn’t dead yet. They’re attempting “A fly under the radar” expedition by hotlining the issue.

In order for a bill to be hotlined, the Senate Majority Leader and Minority Leader must agree to pass it by unanimous consent, without a roll-call vote. The two leaders then inform Members of this agreement using special hotlines installed in each office and give Members a specified amount of time to object – in some cases as little as 15 minutes. If no objection is registered, the bill is passed.

Call your reps today before the House passes it on Thursday, Oct 2nd.

My good friend Chris Tyrell has a passion for the arts that is truly inspiring. He was in fact one of the people behind getting the Performing Arts Lodge here in Vancouver, a retirement home specifically for former performing artists (previously).

On the heels of his 60th birthday, Chris has published his first book, “Artist Survival Skills: How to Make a Living as a Canadian Visual Artist.” He explains about the book:

This book has been developed for two reasons.  One: Success in the visual arts, no matter how you define it, comes more readily to artists who manage their careers professionally but Canadian visual artists have few resources to guide their professional development. And two: There is a particular knowledge deficit in the community of Canadian visual artists concerning the importance and techniques of marketing and sales.

Whereas there a many worthwhile books for entrepreneurs on starting and growing a small business, this book looks at key components of small business theory and discusses them in the context of a creative skills-based small business—the self-employed Canadian visual artist or crafts person. It was produced in order to motivate and assist Canadian visual artists and crafts persons seeking to increase the percentage of their income that comes from their artistic practice.

It launches this week, Thursday September 11th at Vancouver’s Alliance for Arts 7 Culture, 938 Howe Street, 5:00 – 7:00 pm (MAP). You can purchase the book here, or in any OPUS store, or get an autographed copy at the launch this Thursday. (Click on “ChrisTube” on his site to watch a few clips from his speech to the Assembly of BC Arts Council this summer. His site is Flash, so I can’t link to an actual page.)

Here’s a an article about Chris and his book from the local weekly, and here’s a link to Chris’ blog.

By now many of you are already informed about the proposed Orphan Works Act being introduced to the U.S. house and senate. For those unaware, this legislation, if enacted, can effectively undermine and dismantle your existing copyright protection.

Currently, copyright is granted the moment a work is created. This new Orphan Works legislation proposes a change in U.S. copyright that would (indirectly) require artists, illustrators, photographers, and any creative individual to actively maintain and defend their copyright by registering each and every work with privatized registrars. Failure to do so would leave everything you’ve ever created as an artist up for grabs by anyone who wanted to copy, reproduce, create derivative works of, or flat out steal your work since the act defines an “orphan work” as any work where the author is unidentifiable or unlocatable, and applies to both published and unpublished works, U.S. and foreign, regardless of age.

This is completely contradictory with international copyright standards and is ethically, logistically, and financially bonkers.

The two bills are S.2913, the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 and H.R.5889, the Orphan Works Act of 2008. Markup of the Bentley bill is this Thursday, May 15, and it’s not too late to voice your concerns.

Taking action to prevent this from happening is not only vital, but incredibly easy. U.S. citizens, simply fill out one of these templates provided by the Illustrators Partnership and your opposition will automatically be e-mailed to your members of Congress.

Non-U.S. citizens can simply FAX these letters to the various U.S. agencies’ numbers provided.

This affects all of us, so I encourage you to educate yourself with the facts. For more information, I’d recommend listening to this eye-opening interview (MP3) with Illustrator Brad Holland, who describes in detail the effect this legislation will have on artists.

The Illustrators’ Partnership of America has plenty more information on the Oprhan Works Act, how it affects you, and what you can do to fight it.

Okay, so the cat’s out of the bag.

You can make money with your webcomic. You can even make really good money with your webcomic.

How to Make Webcomics is a book about making online comics – but it’s also about how to make money while you do it. It’s a joint effort from the folks at Halfpixel, (Brad Guigar, Dave Kellett, Kris Straub and Scott Kurtz) who also have a podcast called Webcomics Weekly where they talk about all this stuff (I highly recommend the most recent episode – Print vs. Web).

It’s nearly 200 pages and it’s packed with useful info – everything from avoiding tangents in your illustrations to suggestions for building a community of loyal readers. Another cool thing about the book is that – like a good blog – it’s formatted in a conversational style, with each of the artists chiming in with their opinions (sometimes even disagreeing with each other, which gives it this fun “you decide” vibe).

All the other information industries (music, film, journalism, etc) are going through the same arduous transition to the gift economy. Hats off to these guys for writing a survival guide for comic-creators and cartoonists.

More stuff:
Book: How to Make Webcomics (buy it from the authors)
Webcomics Weekly Podcast (by HalfPixel)
Wired article: Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
Drawn: Webcomics Weekly Podcast

As much as the Internet has democratized media and entertainment, it’s still an effort to make a living as an artist. Perhaps it’s even more difficult than ever, since the distribution method is available to everyone, and standing out in a crowd of millions is no easy task.

Kevin Kelly suggests that a solution lies in finding 1000 True Fans:

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

(via BoingBoing via Waxy)

There’s a vibrant debate going on over at Metafilter over Pixish – the new web 2.0 site that sources illustration contracts like Threadless sources T-shirts.

What is Pixish?

More from their site:

“Pixish is a great place to find fun projects, ideas to fuel your creativity, and great prizes to win! Pixish wants to get your work out there.”

(Artists, don’t worry about “getting your work out there.” If you have a blog, your work is “out there” – Matt)

Pixish-founder, Derek Powazek, responds to the criticism by reminding everyone that the project is still in beta and not to get too riled up yet:

I just wanted to say that the concern over spec work is understood on our end and we’re going to be making some changes to the site to make it more clear that it’s not what the site is about. Remember, we’re still in beta. We released it early to gather feedback, so thanks for that!

Derek goes into a bit more detail in this post, Getting Published, Getting Paid, over at the site.

Personally, I don’t have time for anything like Pixish; competing with random peers for a “prize”. I don’t have time to participate in these sorts of gimmicks in the real world and I’m not sure why I’d do it on a web site.

What do you think? Is Pixish an opportunity for a great community or just an online sweatshop?

Getty Images, the world’s biggest supplier of pictures and video to media and advertising companies, has put itself on the auction block and could fetch more than $1.5 billion…

Read into this however you want, but colour me not-surprised. The field day that Getty and Corbis and others have been having with stock illos and photos seems to be coming to an end. I’m just glad they were able to make a few billion dollars off the backs of the artists who provided them with all the content. Ask THEM how much they got out of all this the past few years.

More:

Getty’s shares have declined more than 47 percent in the last year. Its shares fell 10 percent in August, when the company lowered its full-year profit estimate because of competition from low-cost rivals. Last November, it reported a third-quarter profit of $25.7 million, down 31 percent from a year ago.

Last April, Getty also restated its earnings and took a $28 million to $32 million charge after an internal investigation into the backdating of stock options grants to executives.

Started by Jonathan Klein and Mark Getty, a scion of the J. Paul Getty oil fortune, the company began striking deals and acquiring the photo archives of companies like PhotoDisc. Its growth began to skyrocket with later acquisitions like its $183 million purchase of Eastman Kodak’s Image Bank in 1999.

But the rise of digital photography and the Web created a host of competitors that charged as little as a dollar for an image. Recent events — from the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister, to the latest foibles of the entertainer Britney Spears — have led to a surging popularity of low-quality but on-the-scene photos, many taken by cellphone cameras.

The floor is open for rants.

From Tom Richmond’s MAD Blog comes an article on dealing with deadbeat clients:

Making a living as a freelancer is hard enough when you are only worrying about marketing yourself, finding new clients and pursuing and securing new jobs and projects… let alone when you may run across the occasional problem of doing jobs for clients that take a long time to pay, or never pay.

Artist rep Anna Goodson shares some insight into Facebook’s terms of service, and tells illustrators to “be-a-ware”.

She highlights the site’s terms regarding uploaded user content, particularly the clause that reads:

“By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.”

Read the full article.

Freelance Folder is another great site with tons of advice on managing your freelance career. Like, how fast can you be up and running again after your computer completely dies on you? Or what are some of the most common mistakes freelancers make? How about tips on how to communicate effectively with non-creative and non-technical clients? Not sure where to start? Try their archives.