Dean Haspiel: "Make Mine Me"

edited March 2012 in Do The Work
Dean Haspiel on the frustrations and futility of pitching "big franchise" projects:

http://welcometotripcity.com/2012/03/make-mine-me/

I suppose some of this falls under "Well, duh", but I give him credit for laying it all out so candidly.

Comments

  • edited March 2012
    Well, yes: duh. :)

    I guess I'm lucky that I've never been particularly interested in those gigs.  I admit: I'm not gonna play Sherman and turn them down in advance.  And back when Marvel was trying/pretending to do open auditions with Epic, I sent them an out-there out-of-continuity X-Men pitch (XYQ, about queer mutant subculture), for the same reason that people buy lotto tickets when the jackpot gets really big.  Some cash and the publicity would be great.  It'd be a fun challenge.  But it's not on my bucket list.
  • Would getting a chance to write Captain America or the FF be something I'd want to do? Of course, I grew up reading that sorta stuff, and I'm not going to lie, playing in that sandbox would be awesome.

    Would I much rather prefer to have my own original stories told in comics form? You bet your sweet potato ass I would, it's what I've been dreaming about since, oh I don't know, I was about 10.
  • Dino and I once pitched a complete revamp of a Marvel character, and while it didn't go anywhere, it remains one of my favorite pitches ever.

    The reality is that it would have worked better from day one as an original concept.

    -BCM

  • I did a one-shot for Marvel (Wolverine What If?) and it was an okay experience.  In particular because the "What If?" series allows you to play a *little* out of the sandbox of continuity.  However, that said, there's still a LOT of editorial control.

    I got the break from Marvel, I didn't approach them.  They emailed me and asked, "Just wondering, why haven't you sent us any proposals for working with us?".  At first, I assumed they got their Robinsons mixed up (James Robinson), but they were actually looking at me (and Bomb Queen).  So after a few more emails I sent them about a dozen paragraph pitches on various characters.  All of them were shot down for one reason or another.  Either the character was on an "event board" for future use, or they didn't like the idea.  Then one of the editors just told me outright to think about Wolverine (which was odd because he's always part of an event).

    Anyway, once we hit that point then the truth of what they wanted came out.  I'm not sure if they were testing me prior to what they wanted, or if they had a meeting and concluded to just give that particular book to me.  In other words, the process was more a zig-zag of hide-and-seek.  I was open to the process because Bomb Queen was was already established and settled into a groove.  So, I actually did BOTH.

    However, after I finished the Marvel gig and got my foot in the door with their editorial department and a published title... I went right back to Image.  Sometimes I wonder if I should have wiggled that door open a little and jockeyed for another title.  But that was long ago (about 3 or 4 years), they've done a lot of changes since then and I wouldn't be surprised if dropping me would be part of their restructuring. Needless to say, I scratched that itch and got it over with.  I never thought of it as a career move or pitching to the big guns, as Dean Haspiel was saying, but rather just a gig *on the side* of what I was already doing.

    I admit, not everyone would be in that position.

    I can also say this...  I was paid upfront for writing the book, and I was paid again when Marvel made it into a trade paperback, but to this day I have not earned another cent from the book.  Whereas, I still get checks for Bomb Queen (no matter what people may think about it) from work I did 5 years ago -- not just from print, but nowadays from digital sales, as well.  I'm not saying it's always better than working for the franchise companies, because I'm sure the A-list writers and artists are pulling down some good money.  However, working up that ladder is dangerous, because it's not *your* ladder in the first place.  It can be yanked out from you at any time.  But when you own your ladder you may find it doesn't reach very high and you'll have to build on it to make it stronger.  That's the gamble part.  Hell, even with the big franchise companies.

    Everyone is trying to capture lightning in a bottle.  Who knows what'll be the next big hit.
  • edited March 2012

    For me, the appeal is always 1/4th the character, 1/4th the profile boost, 1/2th the chance to feel like I'm getting away with something they wouldn't normally publish.

    I pitched a Transformers comic once that was basically an episode of Maverick with giant robots, because yeah, I like Smokescreen, certainly, I'd like the money, but mostly because who the hell else would write a Westerny heist story with giant robots? (And who would buy it, were I not hitching that high concept onto an established property like TF?)

    (It got rejected because someone in my proposal already had plans in place for them.)

    I dunno. Creatively, I do enough of "my" stuff to be satisfied, so the appeal of WFH for me personally is always the blatent careerism and the me:___::Bendis:Luke Cage challenge.

  • I'd do it for a paycheque in a heart beat.  I think, just as an artist, I'd be more receptive to doing whatever editors wanted... but if I was pitching a concept, there might be a bit more of a tug-of-war.  Fortunately, there are only a couple of mainstream IPs I have any interest in writing (and one of them, @DinoCaruso turned into Bulletproof - showing that if the idea is good enough you can always file off the serials and make it fresh - but we still don't know if it's good enough to get picked up by a high-profile indie publisher...) and I can wait to see if I become well enough known to get a shot.  So for now, I'm just working on creator owned stuff...
  • I'd do it for a paycheque in a heart beat. 
    Me too, haha.

    I love indie comics, I love the creator spirit...but I want to treat making comics like a career. And part of a career is about working. The one thing I've learned from strip cartoonists in papers and magazines is that inspiration is for losers (gross overstatement), and reliability and day-to-day, no matter what-working consistency are vital.

    On the flip side? I think that in the end no matter who or what you end up working on, in the end the fact that you/we are working at MAKING COMICS is a pretty bitching job to have.
  • I debate how much of an interest I'd have in work-for-hire.  I guess I like money, but I feel like the possible heartbreak might not be worth it.  I'd love to be an editor in the bigger universes, just to oversee the use of the toys but writing seems like a pretty big crapshoot.

    As it stands, I'm pretty pleased with the editing and fill-in writing I'm getting to do for others on their creator-owned work.  Been given some stupid-cool opportunities this year to be involved with some Image books and an Archaia title and even if the money from it ends up being slim, the fun factor has been through the roof.
  • I like this part a lot:

    "Bottom line: make YOUR comix and if they’re good and sell, franchise comic book editors will come a-knockin’ and you can play with their toys then. My sole advice to my writer pal’s unsolicited franchise pitch? Abandon the established character and make it wholly yours."

    My personal feelings on WFH/licensed work versus creator-owned:

    I would like to make WFH my day job. But just my day job. And in the time I'm not spending putting food on the table doing work on WFH/licensed franchises that appeal to me, I'll be creating my own ideas and putting out books based on them, because that's where my heart lives.

    (Right this second, I'm putting more of my time into pursuing licensed/WFH stuff — because it's a bird in the hand. Creator-owned books may make me more money in the long-term — but in the short term, they make me little or no money, and right now I need money in the bank to be able to do this at all.)
  • @BrandonSeifert I second your emotion.  The caveat is, for me at least, I've made too god-damned much money in my other day jobs in the past to really make a go of WFH, at least until I get something big.  Which leaves me with doing something else for my day job (but yeah, WFH comics?  Can I get a "HELL YEAH?") would be the dream day job... at which point my spare time would be used for working on my own stuff.  Which is a lot harder for an artist than a writer I think, just in terms of time commitment - which is why I've begun pursuing writing as a secondary avenue into comics...
  • edited March 2012
    "WFH comics?  Can I get a "HELL YEAH?" - hmm, said like someone who's not done a lot of WFH comics i suspect? I don't begrudge you that at all Shawn, but let me know what you think after having been in the pee pool for a little while.

    Being paid to draw is better than being paid to build widgets or wash dishes, i'll give that.

    But, WFH as a day job in my experience often does not pay for more than the time it takes to do the WFH in question, and then catch your breath for maybe a month till the next gig starts up. And i have a lower overhead than most. 

    More doable for a writer probably but for artists it's pretty near impossible to really do anything very involved 'on the side'. Dream Life was in development for the first 10 years because i never had the time to think about it for more than a week at a go before i had to put it down to do something for $. 

    Least for me, there are some folks who are probably faster and able to do it. But from what i've seen that's the exception.

    And while being paid to be an artist is great, the biggest issue for me from having done WFH for Marvel and DC in the past - almost everything i did in the 90s is unusable today due to someone else owning the copyright. Despite working to change this ever since, still the bulk of my work in terms of pages of art i think is in the old WFH stack - at best i might be able to sell it at a con for about maybe 1/6 what Marvel or DC even paid for me to draw it. Can't put my Ghost Rider 2099 on a Tshirt, can't make proper prints of Dr Strange or Saint Sinner or Morbius the living vampire without risking getting a cease and desist order and can't sell such things on-line. Might be able to move grey merch at cons but then i have to chase the con circuit, and i hate comic conventions and travelling a lot keeps me from getting work done that pays better. 

    If not for sentimental value it's just wood pulp and pigment filling space in my apt. 
    WFH has no future in it, in terms of building a body of work you can earn an income from when you retire. ideally i never will stop drawing. But we all get sick, we all get old, arthritis runs in my family...reality is i have to think about that.

    The comics stuff I'm doing now, I'm slower, putting more care into it and have more extra curricular things going on. But when it's done most of it is mine. Done on my terms. It may never sell as much as a marvel book but i was never going to get a big piece of the back end of a marvel book either.

    Having done a pile of stuff that paid but i don't own, to be honest i'm happier being paid to be an 
    artist NOT in comics most of the time as a freelancer, and doing comics for the love first, money and maybe for whatever long tail there will be after second. Not that i don't want to make a $ at it but realistically i won't be making much with the giant mitts of Disney or Time Warner in the same pot any way so little point in sharing with them.

    Addendum: I have picked up a few WFH comics gigs since the end of the 90s, Muties, inking for T3, Planet of the apes, Ghostbusters. The last two were at times during the depression when i was getting NO paying work so being asked to work for any $ was good news [not much $ in those cases though - like really not much, worked out to minimum wages or less hourly], but aside from the small getting to play with toys factor - good for a few moments of self reflecting "COOL"s and impressing geeks giving you the 'yeah you call your self a comic artist but what have you done" - but all in all not my most enjoyable jobs, and pretty much only served to help get me through tough patches while i was drawing them, not much more than that.

    Those were cases of it being better than doing dishes, literally. 

    And given how badly they paid and the total lack of royalties it barely did that. & I would never have pitched those jobs, done anything for them on spec. 

    Muties i courted, sort of. Joe Quesada made big noise at the time about making marvel creator friendly and i wanted to test his mettle, wrote him and challenged him to let me have my way with something and prove he meant it - he took me up on the dare and put me on the miniseries, and then bailed on supporting the mature content and vision behind the books once work started. They blamed it on the editor and fired him and made the series meant for adults an all ages line, and proceeded to censor the stories is arbitrary ways that made the book i was doing raunchier than it was.

    All of this exp leads me to now, pretty much more interested in freelance gigs like working with a film company to produce a GN of their film for a fee, or doing the art for an animated short - being paid to draw, WFH even, but not for a "comic" company, not if i can help it. 
  • Yeah @Max_Douglas, it's much easier on writers. I did a 23-page WFH script in February, and it took me five days — and not even five full-time days, five half-days. Earlier this month I wrote four issues, 88 pages, in 11 days. I can't always go this fast — but it makes it a lot easier to do multiple projects in a month, some creator-owned, some WFH. If I was an artist, that's obviously impossible.
  • edited March 2012
    @Max_Douglas I strictly mean in the Day Job sense. (of course, if I could get steady storyboarding work, that's fine too).  I'm not qualified to be a graphic designer (no degree, and only personal experience) or really work in advertising.  I'm in school to get my Teaching degree, and perhaps someday I'll get to teach Art at the highschool level (but I ain't getting any younger).  But I LOVE to make comics.  So if I could get an exclusive from one of the big two, that'd be swell.  Because at the end of the day, chasing around a bunch of 6-12 year olds for 7 or 8 hours a day (I'm currently working as an Early Childhood Educator, and I enjoy it, and I'm told I'm good at it, but...) doesn't leave a lot of energy for anything, let alone drawing, and it certainly doesn't scratch a creative itch or build an audience for my work (because honestly, the difference between me or a known Marvel or DC creator releasing our creator owned mini-series is: One of us has NO worries about getting past the Diamond benchmarks and making it on the sales charts).  So, yeah, nearly everything I've done in comics has been indie WFH and I don't mind not owning those IP (and I'm still really good friends with most of those guys), so if the work was steadier and paid more, I'd be ok with it. :)
  • edited March 2012
    pardon the late night ramblings, kind of went on a bit.

    This is pretty often the perspective coming into the mainstream filed for artists. It's got to be better than ___ and i Love making comics. The problem there is the Love though. I'm probably coming off terribly negative but when i came into the game other artists did not tell you this stuff.

    If you happen to enjoy the stories they assign unconditionally and have the luck to hook up with editors you work well with then you are likely to be fine in the short run - I could not tell you what the numbers are, how many people don't fall in that box. But it's a small box and we know they get far more interest than they have need. And almost everyone who's been working for more than a couple years has at least one horror story about it NOT going that well. And i think one of the factors behind the spreading buts of cartoonist is all the treats we buy ourselves to cheer ourselves up about work thats....ok, not quite what you had in mind but....hmmm, toys, chocolatey, soda...yes, that's better. Speaking for myself, but i can't be the only one.

    For sure those that things don't go smoothly for - speaking from my own exp - having something you Love like making comics, not work out and be out of your control, is up there with the hart brake of a bad brake up and lingers longer - and depending on the details can become one of those really bad on again off again relationships -

    At this end of it, there are times i'd love to be making a living from something i don't care at all about and just do my comics for the love. :P.

    In a lot of ways this is exactly what i've done - i made a no compromise commitment a long time ago to working as an artist. most of the time the bills are paid doing illustrations and contracts i'm more detached from, not invested, not in love with. I don't use inspirations for them for the most part, just the skills i've accumulated over time and i walk away happy with the check, don't think much about them after a few days. Done and done.

    I care far too much about comics to be that dispassionate - when i argue for something i think makes my comics better i go in whole hog. Good for my comics but not for "business" - 
    business requires compromise, getting along with my clients. 

    But, my love? My art, is compromised if I compromise.  

    The few cases where i've done a book for someone these days [the last 8 years] like possibly a project I'm looking at for the summer, or even Therefore Repent! [Jim owns that, he hired me on] i'm approached because in part i won't compromise and that's what the client wants for their property. Even with Ghostbusters - we pretty much did exactly what we wanted with that one, when the studio made silly requests like NOT to use the classic 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor due to a lack of permission from GM, we gnored them because that's silly - it was limited by time/budget and was for sure a WFH gig, but while i would not call it my best work i'm very happy to call it my work. This if it's going to be any kind of compromise, is the kind it should be. Compromise you consent to and have a choice in. Otherwise it's not really compromise is it?

    I'm pretty up front about the fact that top of my list of priorities is to only do work i can be proud of, stories I'm happy to stand behind. When it comes to comics I'm not happy to walk away and not care about the outcome.

    Collaborating with a writer is one thing but with editors & commercial publishers? That in most cases less a few very notable exceptions, ask for changes not to improve the work but protect branding, the company from any possible risk, and just to impose their notions of what is possible from a desk? - and it's never was a back and forth with them when i was there, it was DO IT. Not collaborating, commanding. It might get wrapped in language that sounds otherwise but the test is when you push back, do they respect your input? use any of it? Or do they just say "yeah, i get where you're coming from, but just go ahead and do it the way I said."

    And pitching work like Dean talks about, for them it's maybe like 1 out of 100s they will use. if even. Nothing too challenging most of the time, just something safe, that fits. They want you to say you have a vision, but they only want you to have one they know how to sell already. They will encourage you to do as much, if not the whole thing, on speck with no assurances of anything just so they can be sure of it when they most likely say no. Same deal as in most of the commercial entertainment industry really.

    The simplistic response is of course to think, I'll just not do stories i don't like, so on. But you don't get anything like that as an option IN the sand box. You're partner in this relationship, least when it comes to WFH with the big two, is a bully who knows how hot you are for what they got and not ashamed to use that to their advantage AND then dump you with no warning when some other hot young doodler comes along. And if you have a long affair, when you get to old, to slow, or unfashionable, they don't really mind letting you fall to the wayside with no safety net. Folks like Joe Q say hey what about Heroes?

     Heroes only helps people who are sinking publicly, and make noise about it. Out of all the tradesmen artists that have walked through DC and Marvel doors, what % do we suppose stayed in contact with fans or peers after getting washed out by new blood and had the dubious fortune of being saved from a crisis by Heroes? Is that our retirement plan then? We give up all control, most likely to maybe if we're lucky be save by fund raising fans at the last hour? Oh wee, give me a life time of just getting by making others rich followed with grinding poverty until this glorious end. 

    Hrrrrmmm, can you tell i've thought about that outcome before? Me, i way rather put teaching kids at the start of all that AND have the same outcome - would be a lot more proud of the teaching than the Saint Sinner and Dr Strange.

    I've learned from my own time and watching others, without the Marvel name attached, limitations like the Diamond benchmarks are almost as much a problem for known Marvel or DC creators as they are for the rest - the selling point on Marvel and DC books for outfits like Diamond is the brand and characters, then maybe the creators but not really that much for the majority of cases. It's a very small list of exceptions.

    Odds are we're not on that list really.

    Better I think to do work you love, do your best work, and own it for better or worse

    Like Dean says, if it's good enough and in their genre of interest, sooner or latter the big two will come sniffing. Mention you love what they do here and there if you're really keen to be courted, send editors you dig copies of your books to make sure they know who you are. But make them come a calling, don't chase them. The hotty will prostrate themselves for you if they think you have something they want. If you're really keen on getting work then this is a lot better, you'll have more of a shot of doing it on your terms.

    And if marvel never happens for you then least you have your own work to be happy with. Make making that work the "day job" - it looks harder but all told, if you have any chance of making Marvel a day job, you have a shot at making your own work one too. They would NEVER hire us if that was not true. No money in it.
  • if you have any chance of making Marvel a day job, you have a shot at making your own work one too.

    I like that.
  • if you have any chance of making Marvel a day job, you have a shot at making your own work one too.

    But, see...

    I want to create my own comics. But creating my own comics isn't what got me into comics in the first place, it's just a side-effect. What got me into comics was finding comics I had an affinity for. And that affinity makes me want to contribute to them, to get the chance to, basically, get paid to do the same sort of fan-fic writing that got me started writing in the first place.

    Maybe that'll change over time. But I have basically as little interest in doing 100% creator-owned comics right now, as I have in doing 100% WFH. They're both things I love — and both things I want to do.

    (We'll see if that sentiment lasts.)
  • Max, you pretty much summed up my feelings on the whole matter. I don't think I have much more to add.
  • I myself have experienced this frustration many times!

    Out of the many times I've been asked to pitch WFH, I landed two: a one-pager and a 10-pager, both for DC. Both turned out great.

    Out of the many times I've pitched indie, I've landed a 5 issue Image miniseries, a 24-pager broken up into 3 parts (with more to come, hopefully), a four-page kid's charity project, a six-page adult project, and a five-page horror project. Plus, I did that webcomic for a year.

    When you're doing your own stuff, it tends to get produced on a more consistent basis. And you own it. This last part can't be underestimated.

    Work for hire is a ton of back and forth and compromise and not hearing back (especially these days, with fewer editors even looking at stuff from new writers...) 

    Like Dean said, do your own stuff. If Marvel & DC want you, they'll talk to you. And don't quit your day job!

    (Man, do I wish that Challengers of the Unknown pitch had made it...)
  • edited March 2012
    Sure, @BrandonSeifert - As much as I loved some of the characters, the older I get the less I want to have anything to do with Marvel DC or anyone replicating their business models. But I don't think you need to defend your career tactics. I have said before if what they are offering you fits, if you want to work with them and they don't string you on in the fashion Dean talks about in his post too much, it might be great for you. But for sure as we've both mentioned before, I think it's more of a problematic for artists because of the limits on time and energy - i think the idea is for sure don't waste too much time chasing them though. Work on being really good and standing out. Let them find you? Which is more or less what you did right? And then be aware of the fickle hart of the guerrillas you get in bed with if they do come calling. It might not be as good an idea as you thought at first. Read the contracts and don't expect the virtues of superheroes to be reflected by their publishers [the lessons of Alan Moore], ask the awkward questions. Advocate for yourself, as much as you might express being eager to work for them. As the other stuff i mentioned sums up - never count on the industry to be your safety net or have your best interests at hart, even if they love you and publish everything you pitch. They get over us fast enough when the time comes and tend leave us with less than we came in with. Successful IPs you own are better if you're hoping for your body of work to support you later in life at all.  Harder for us doodlers to juggle both, and at this point I'm not willing to let the blood they would want from me. Never really was. But writers can play both sides of that fence with a fair bit of ease comparatively.
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