Brian Lee O’Malley, creator of the amazing comic (and soon to be motion picture) Scott Pilgrim got me thinking this morning. Not because of Scott Pilgrim, or because I got told off on his Ning forum for taking a joke about swapping comics for sexytime with women too far*, but more because of what he posted on his LiveJournal. This is what I started thinking…
Art school does a lot of things for you. It takes away a lot of your money, improves your social life and possibly damages your liver forever but what it doesn’t usually do is prepare you for something which is a necessity of working as a professional artist… understanding contracts. Maybe if there was time spent on this then artists young and old wouldn’t get shafted as much or lose rights to their creations. Maybe publishers and clients wouldn’t try to shamelessly use and rip off their creative talent. Maybe the enormous international ‘manga’ corporation called Tokypop wouldn’t get away with doing scandalous shit like this…
I’ve seen a fair few contracts and I’ve written a few too but that has to be the only one I’ve ever seen that is a legitimate work of evil genius. Buddy up to the kids, promise them fame and fortune and never deliver it. It’s an old trick, I’ve fallen for it myself but I’ve never seen it done this shamelessly. Nor have I seen it blamed on the French. If you havn’t clicked that link up there yet click this one and learn exactly what not to do as a client and exactly who you should never ever work for as an artist.
-2hands
*True story. And I still feel really really bad about it 
WHAT TO DO NOW?