does someone ever worked for bluewater and get paid?

[Andrew Cramer]

I don't see anywhere in the BW contracts that a book has to reach a certain level of profit for the artists to start getting paid their 15%.

And if so many artists are not getting paid cos the books are "not making a profit" how are they able to keep producing comics!?

[Marc Lewis]

I don't see anywhere in the BW contracts that a book has to reach a certain level of profit for the artists to start getting paid their 15%.

And if so many artists are not getting paid cos the books are "not making a profit" how are they able to keep producing comics!?

It's probably because wrapped into the costs of making the book are the salaries for every non-contract employee, Darren's mortgage, car payment, insurance, etc. And if he goes to cons to promote books then that cost would need a fund that needs to take monies from the books.

[Nathan]

Darren's mortgage, car payment, insurance, etc.

Oh sure, yeah, those items go on the budget for a comic book. Also, Darren has to do laundry, eat at Ruth's Chris on Saturdays and hit the titty bar on Tuesdays, plus there's that student loan officer still nagging at him to pay back all that cash he borrowed in 1984 to attend three semesters of general studies at community college. These are all expenses which must be included in the production budget for issue 8 of the 10th Muse.

[Marc Lewis]

Sarcasm or agreement, Nate. Can't tell.

[robbdaman]

Sarcasm or agreement, Nate. Can't tell.

Seriously?

[edbrisson]

I worked for them as a letterer at an embarrassingly low page rate. I took it to get some more superhero style stuff under my belt, hoping that I could at least use them as a springboard to get better work down the line.

For the first two books, things went ok. However, on the next four, I had to send invoices up to six times with constant reminders in order to get paid. It was crazy how often someone could "lose" invoices or have them "caught by the spam filter". After having waited about 6 months to get paid, I walked and stopped doing any work for them. They did eventually pay up, but it took a lot of effort to get them to do so.

During the above situation, someone who'd worked on one of the books that I worked on contacted me to see if I'd been paid. He'd taken a back-end deal and was told that the book hadn't made any money. I wasn't surprised, to be honest -- It didn't seem like it was going to be a big seller. The person didn't know much about how distribution worked and thought that it was a lie that Diamond was only giving about 40% of cover price, so I kind of dismissed his claims at first. Then he sent me a spreadsheet of expenses and income that he'd been sent from Bluewater and asked me to look over to see if it made sense. I was shocked to find that the cost of lettering was listed at TWICE what I was paid.

Maybe there's a logical explanation as to why the lettering cost was listed at twice what I was paid, but I can't think of what it would be. What it looks like, to me, is number fudging.

That, coupled with the problems getting paid, is enough for me to warn anyone off doing anything with them.

[BennyFuentes]

a friend of mine sent me this link a couple of minutes ago:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2009/09/07/ ... oductions/

[Andrew Cramer]

Seems to be popping up all over the place now...
Im still waiting for the Trade of the books I worked on to materialise... and that was supposed to have happened a few months ago!

[Alex Sollazzo]

I worked on a bluewater book a year or so back, though i knew about their reputation for not paying and used it as more of a sequential practice that would eventually get published. Turned out resonably well as the lineart was fairly decent and at the time i was doing practice colourings for my portfolio anyways so i had nothing to lose.

[uli steppe]

Funny review about the last Bluewater 'how to make comic cash fast' book:
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2009/11/1 ... -twilight/

[Hi_Fi_Guy]

Tidal Wave owed Hi-Fi $$$ when they went bankrupt. I was able to stop them from publishing some of the work we colored. Never able to collect once they were in bankruptcy. Tread these (blue) waters carefully.

[Andrew Cramer]

My god that comic is bad.
Surely for a comic with such a "high profile" subject matter, their must be some sort of artistic standard?

Im all for giving new and upcoming artists a chance but I also believe in quality standards.