hemlockjibber8Out of curiousity, if you were paid to make the comics for the site, are they the intellectual property of NS? Or did you just license the comics to them?
Cool project btw. I always enjoy seeing your pics.
This is a
great question. Two answers:
First, what actually happened: I've never actually signed a contract with NS/any of its parent companies over the years. So, when I wanted to make this book I emailed the new owners (congrats guys!) who I've worked with for ages and asked them what they though. They were totally fine with me just going with the flow and running all this content in the book, as long as I credited them as my original clients. I also don't feel bad at all because I am very much not getting rich off this book. My margins are tight - I make the equivalent of about one glass of beer at a brewery on each book I've sold, and so far, I've sold around 40. So, yeah. Not buying a new truck with my sick profits.
Second, how this would work with a more serious client: If we sign a contract (which I don't with most of my clients because I generally work with friends/repeat clients) I almost never give away full rights to my work. Most of my work is licensed to a client exclusively - so I won't also sell the same art to a competitor, but I almost always reserve the right to use that work as I see fit in personal projects like this book. If a client
really wants to "own" a piece of work, I will sell them full rights, usually for a multiple of my normal fee. Most clients don't need full rights, and I like being able to use my own work down the road, so I don't usually give them out. That said, I try to keep it classy, and not ever sell competing merch with any of my clients.
Where this gets murky is places like my last employer, Bike and Powder mags. There I never actually signed a contract for illustration work. So, I would imagine that it probably falls under their typical image licensing in which they have exclusive commercial rights for a set period of time (three months if I remember correctly) and then I can do whatever the hell I want to do with it.
I've been pretty careful over the years to never sell full rights of any work that I care deeply about to any client. The only place I see potential for me to need to negotiate in the future is with my work for Mountain Gazette, if I were ever to want to run a book of all the comics I've done for them. But, if I was to do that, I'd probably work with MG to print and publish that compilation, so I bet it would all be just fine.
