New Year Musings

Or: A Conflation of Shared New Images for Old Characters; A Picking of Scabs from Old Wounds; Fan-Speak & Reality; And a General Airing Out of the Virtual Household on the Coldest Day of the Winter Thus Far

It’s been a curious time.

Even as I’ve launched a bevy of new work and labor to wrap up old projects, and we at the Center for Cartoon Studies plunge into the new semester with a heavy workload, and I even manage in one short week to catch up with old friends (including fine face-to-face “catch up” with friends I rarely get to spend time with, like Neil Gaiman and Paul Pope), I find a bit of clean-up from my fond farewell to 2011 is in order before I launch into 2012’s second month.

In short, though the conversation is already here at Myrant—

—the general misunderstandings and misrepresentations that continue to be attributed to my doorstep prompt me to bring the conversation into proper post mode.

On January 18, 2012, at 9:58 AM, Patrick Jarrell asked on the above-cited Myrant comments thread, “Who did you talk to at Image? Erik Larsen is saying on his board that he doesn’t know anything about you talking with Image” [.]

To which I promptly replied:

“I’ve never dealt with Erik Larsen at any point; no axe to grind with Erik (and I’ve always quite enjoyed his work, particularly Savage Dragon, FYI).

The contact was with Eric Stephenson, who I’ve heard from since my recent CR interview with Tom Spurgeon was posted. I replied to Eric’s email. There’s nothing personal in all this; it’s business. I don’t take it personally, at least. I can’t speak for anyone else. Not much more to say.

Again, none of this was intended as an attack of any kind directed at Image—just an assessment of what happened in 2010, nothing more. What was done was done; what wasn’t done, wasn’t done. It was what it was; it is what it is.”

And I added, the next day:

“Remember, however, that this situation is unique in a number of ways.

1. We negotiated, drafted, and cosigned an agreement dividing the creative properties back in 1998. It is that agreement, and not just copyright law (which would, legally, arguably allow for the reprint to exist as long as Alan were paid his fair share of the income, whether he wished it to be reprinted or not—IF a publisher could be found willing to invest in a reprint under those conditions, sans Alan’s signature/contractual involvement), that determined the fate of “1963.”

2. Comics are a collaborative work beyond, for instance, the co-authoring of a novel by two writers. In this case, much of 2010 had been spent tracking down almost all the various creative partners in “1963″ and arranging for permission, pending contracts, to proceed with the reprint. For the record, we tracked down and were granted permission by all but two letterers we could not reach—and all concerned gave permission, pending final contracts.

3. In this case, the most marketable, “powerful” member of the creative team was, from the beginning and in the end, the writer. Finding a publisher willing to proceed without permission to cite or even infer the writer’s name was in and of itself an almost insurmountable obstacle; however, even having that, once the writer deep-sixed the project, that was that—due, again, to the conditions of our 1998 agreement, not simply standing copyright law.

These three conditions are unusual, and make this a decidedly unique case history.”

And, because I wanted a record here of what the full context was for this revisiting of the issues:

“PS: For the record, the conversation Patrick refers to is at

can’t link you to the specific thread, but it’s under the “Ask Eric” thread, pp. 14-15, and the relevant portions read:
________

Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:39 am

John Pannozzi wrote:

What do think of Steve Bissette (your arguments over the Neil and Todd controversy aside, I don’t want to get into that here)?

He seems to dislike Image for reasons that completely elude me, and he mentions trying to get a project going at Image a few years back that didn’t work out. What exactly happened?

[Erik's reply:]

I have no idea. I’ve never talked to Steve about doing anything at Image. Not sure what went on there.
_________________

Stefan

Post subject: Re: The “Ask Erik” ThreadPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 7:07 pm

Location: Germany

Wasn´t he talking about 1963?
_________________

Erik Larsen

Post subject: Re: The “Ask Erik” ThreadPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 8:56 pm

Stefan wrote:

Wasn´t he talking about 1963?

[Erik replied:]

Not to me. As far as I’m aware–he had a falling out with Alan Moore. That has nothing to do with me.
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JayWicky wrote:

Maybe Bissette was talking about his sort-of-sequels to 1963, the ones *without* the characters Moore owns (they cut the cake in two, I believe Bissette still owns Hypernaut, N-Man and maybe the disc-throwing Spidey knock-off, but I’m not sure – the rest is Moore’s). I remember seeing this new project mentioned on CBR and whatnot a couple years back, but nothing happened since then. Maybe he tried to get it running at Image and it didn’t work out?

As for Splitting Image, I guess Don Simpson and whoever worked on this should own it, since it’s parody. Similarily, I guess Giarusso could run his Image United parody as a back-up to one of his G-Man trades if he wanted… or not? Do you have to change the characters’ names (with puns or something) to be safe?

[Erik replied:]

Generally–it’s fine. Asking never hurts.
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Stefan

Post subject: Re: The “Ask Erik” ThreadPosted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 5:50 am

Location: Germany

Yeah, that´s how I understood it as well. Still he said something like waisting seven month talking to people at image.

*Shrugs
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End of conversation in that venue.

“Shrugs” pretty much sums it up.

First, yes, it was the N-Man, Fury, Hypernaut, Sky Solo project about which I entered negotiations with Image Comics with in 2010.

For the record, it’s “fan think” that my candid assessments, occasionally made public, about what happened in 1993 with “1963″ and, now, what didn’t happen in 2010 with Image somehow adds up to “He seems to dislike Image for reasons that completely elude me…”

I don’t DISLIKE Image. Image Comics has done a ton of good in this field. Image Comics, via Jim Valentino, initiated the project (“1963″) that rescued many of us from a post-Tundra Comics “recession,” honored their agreements concerning the existing six issues, and earned me more income in a single year than I have earned the entire rest of my life put together.

I don’t DISLIKE Image Comics. That’s completely inaccurate, and (all due respect to the person who posted that on Erik’s board), a more than glib and rather stupid statement.

I don’t dislike Image Comics. They saved a number of my friends in comics from pretty dire circumstances in the mid-1990s implosion; they’ve done a lot of public and private good, as a publishing collective. I wish I could work with Image Comics. I tried again in 2010 to work with Image Comics.

My statement was clear: for whatever reason(s), my attempt to work with Image in 2010 resulted in seven wasted months. That doesn’t mean I DISLIKE Image Comics; that means, frankly, Image Comics didn’t really want to do business with me.

Does that mean “Image Comics dislikes Steve Bissette, for reasons that completely elude me”?

I suppose, in “fan speak,” it might.

[PS: For what it's worth, per email, Eric Stephenson assured me it does not mean that. So, there, it's official, per both Eric and Erik.]

Of course, in Image fan speak, that cannot be tolerated: Hence, Steve Bissette must be at fault, hence “He seems to dislike Image for reasons that completely elude me” makes sense to some people, for reasons that don’t elude me (Image=”good,” anyone stating something vaguely contrary to that view=”bad,” or at least “suspect”).

I don’t speak “fan speak” when I speak or write; I’m a 30+ year vet of the comics field, I’m a working professional, and this is a business.

I don’t dislike Image Comics. For whatever reason(s), Image chose not to do business with me in 2010; I had no control over their end of things, but it was what it was. We couldn’t do business together in 2010. But I didn’t and don’t take that personally. If circumstances were appropriate, I’d happily work with Image Comics down the road (but if it took over six months to simply negotiate a contract, I’d have to seek work elsewhere, and we’d likely not do business again; that’s up to Image, not me).

I have, however, candidly discussed (and will continue to, when so inclined) a number of issues relevant to Image’s history and its partners, which I understand (even if some fans don’t) DOESN’T per se involve Image Comics, the publishing collective, but rather issues connected to individual members, past and present (i.e., Jim Lee’s role in the “1963″ Annual that led to its demise; the ethics of studio arrangements—which, I hasten to add, does not extend to Erik Larsen’s body of work in any significant way, though it did to former Image pioneer partner Rob Liefeld, and did and does to Todd McFarlane—and the sad, unfortunate case history involving McFarlane, Neil Gaiman, Angela, and Marvelman/Miracleman, which is, to my knowledge, the only aspect of an Image partner’s legacy Erik and I have publicly disagreed about; Erik is dead wrong, by the way, on that matter, which isn’t a personal matter for me, as I don’t have a dog in that race, so to speak).

[PS: Privately, we've never agreed or disagreed on anything, as we've never spoken otherwise, to my knowledge.]

For the record, Erik’s spot on: I never spoke to him—in fact, other than his agreeing back in 1992 to draw Savage Dragon as part of the planned “1963″ Annual, which we MAY have spoken on the phone about, I don’t believe I’ve ever spoken or had a conversation with Erik. I love his work.

Also for the record: I didn’t have a falling out with Alan; Alan took umbrage with something (I still don’t know what) I said in my Comics Journal interview back in 1996, and never spoke to me again. That’s, technically, Alan having a falling out with me, if you will. I still have no idea what it was really about.

[In "fan speak," of course, or those who still work with Alan, that must mean "Bissette had a falling out with Alan," once again disposing with the "inconvenient" element [i.e., me] in the equation; I must have been at fault. Shit, I “dislike Image,” so it must have been MY fault then, too!]

Erik’s right, that had nothing whatsoever to do with him (or Image).

Per usual, my thanks to Erik Larsen for his candor, speaking his mind, and not fomenting all kinds of craziness over the questions that were put to him. Thanks, Erik.
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And that, I hope, will be that (though I know for a fact it won’t)… and if you find this at all tedious, well, put yourself in my shoes for a moment.

Me, I’m well into new work with my characters on my projects for 2012, and the hell with the rest of it!

[The Unbelievable N-Man™ and above art ©1993, 1998, 2012 Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved.]

Bissette Blathers Into 2012

2012, Week 1: Context is Everything

As noted at the end of 2011, I’m cutting back my blogging to once per week; too many pressing projects and obligations to continue daily (or almost daily) posts. I’ll keep ‘em meaty, still, or link to meatier Bissette blather current elsewhere online—as I can today!

If you care to spend some time with me, jump on over

That should provide an ample Bissette “fix” for the first week of the new year!

Which leads me to

which was about a very particular situation on a very particular project with a very particular collaborator, and wasn’t intended to tar either creative collaboration nor advocate for work-for-hire.

as did my old FantaCo pal Roger Green on his comment to the original Myrant post.

Tom wrote,

“I found a bit odd the way Graeme McMillan presented this link to a Steve Bissette piece on not being able to release 1963 material because of Alan Moore’s active disinterest. I had a similar experience to Steve in terms of losing out on such a gig because of another creator’s choice, and while I was of course similarly disappointed, I don’t think I would ever say my situation was a case against creator ownership, or even against collaboration.”

Nor did I; I merely noted how ironic all this is, which seems utterly self-evident, given my positions for creator ownership and against work-for-hire on principle. Again, that peculiar case history is neither a reason to oppose creative collaborations and co-creator-ownership per se, nor an advocacy for work-for-hire per se.

It is what it is: a peculiar, individualized circumstance, all the more ironic since it involves Alan Moore.

For the record, I continue to enjoy many fruitful creative collaborations and partnerships, and many past partnerships continue to be fruitful: i.e., the Center for Cartoon Studies is a constant and daily dance of creative collaboration; David Lloyd recently reprinted our one-time collaboration (“Remembering Rene,” originally published in Eclipse’s Tales of Terror #7); Stanley Wiater and I profited in 2011 from 2010 and 2011 reprints of select Comic Book Rebels interviews; etc.

For those with long memories and/or long lifespans in comics, my generation learned this lesson at the very outset of the creator publishing movement for the Direct Sales marketplace, via an aborted series entitled D’Arc Tangent (1982).

1963 was different, in that (a) the six issues of material exist and were published, and were instrumental in both (b) linking Alan and Image, to the benefit of both (though Todd McFarlane and Alan’s Spawn collaborations saw print first, 1963 was the launching pad project and original conduit, an opening Todd and other Image partners understandably jumped upon, to the detriment of 1963), and (c) pulling Alan and myself (I can’t and won’t speak of the respective situations of our collaborators) out of the post-Tundra fiscal holes we found ourselves in.

And to address the copyright points raised on the comments thread on the Newsarama post, repeating statements already made on Myrant and elsewhere in the past: (a) In 1998, the three core partners on 1963 amicably and contractually divided up the primary creative properties, leaving me sole proprietor of The Fury (and that comic title), N-Man, the Hypernaut, and Sky Solo, and all relevant supporting players and concepts, as well as the anthology title Tales of the Uncanny; the rest is co-owned by the other two core creators. (b) I in no way regret that 1998 decision; at least I am left with something to work with. (c) While I understand completely the point of copyright law being raised, given Mr. Moore’s position on things in this world, I for one would not lift a finger on, agree to, advocate for, or pursue a 1963 reprint without some form of release or contract from/with all participants in the original series—with Alan’s first and foremost signed and in hand, before anything else was begun, and since that’s nothing I can accomplish, c’est la vie.

I made a public notice of the culmination of the 1963 debacle—now in its 20th year, since we began work on the project in 1992—to note one of the many downsides of 2011 for me, and the upside of still earning quarterly royalties from collaborative work with the same creative partner(s) for DC as work-for-hire hired hands.

I could have gone on to cite the fact I am essentially left to using either transfer-of-copyright or work-for-hire contractual language in all my recent N-Man, Fury, Hypernaut, and Sky Solo creative collaborations and/or commissions.

While everyone working with me on these will earn a share of any, if any, profits, having to retain absolute ownership of the trademarks and copyrights on everything done with the characters has not been comfortable, nor conducive to making any great commitment to such a venture.

More on this later in 2012, when I celebrate the 20th anniversary of our beginning work on 1963 with the print-on-demand publication of Tales of the Uncanny and one companion volume—and that’ll be that, I reckon.

Something Like an Ending, Part 2

Wrapping Up the Wreckage

A bit more on 2011, before we slide into 2012…

First, the hard lessons.

First and foremost, know that we had it good; we’ve had it easy.

[Left: Main Street Museum, August 2011, the morning after Hurricane Irene; photo ©2011 Matt Bucy]

Seeing the real devastation caused among our friends and neighbors and families in 2011 by fire, flood, tornadoes, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, and lack of effective health care (or, more to the point, abandonment by that system), believe  me, I’m thankful for all we have, and all our blessings.

Keeping perspective is essential.

So, look.

Whatever follows, know that we’re good. We appreciate that we have it good.

We’ve been lucky. We still have our lives, our health, each other, a home, our now-adult children, and our jobs.

2011 was a kind year to us here, while it played hell with lives and deaths of many people we know and love.

[Right: Springfield, MA after the June tornado hit; photo ©2011 Marjory Bissette]

If 2010 was a year of hard lessons—from the terminal illness and violent death of my old friend Steve Perry, to the ultimately fruitless seven-month-dance with Image Comics over a planned project, to the kinder & gentler lessons of my pal, employer, peer, and CCS-cofounder James Sturm reaping far more international internet attention and points for staying off the internet than I’ve/I’ll ever earned/could earn for posting daily—2011 was full of far tougher life lessons and refreshers.

Let me just share a few of the lessons of 2011, and leave it at this.

Mind you, it was indeed a good year, in many ways (more on that in the next post).

Then again, it was full of life-changers, too.

Personally, it was at times a rough year.

However brutal the passage of Steve Perry in the spring of 2010, the far more direct, intimate process of being with another close friend Mark “Sparky” Whitcomb (again, since the Johnson State College days, and, like Steve Perry, one of the four people who convinced me to seriously pursue a path in comics instead of minding the family store in Colbyville back in 1976) every week through a long, lingering illness literally to his dying days in the spring of 2011 cut deeper. Man, I loved Sparky; seeing him go at all was a heartbreaker. Seeing it all go down as it did, despite the loving care he received every single day, was soul crushing.

After much deliberation, I made Sparky’s life, our relationship, and his passing central to my graduation speech to the CCS Class of 2011, which helped me get my own head around what burned in my own heart and head, and state in no uncertain terms the life-and-death nature of pursuing a creative path in life… or, conversely, refusing it.

Despite our many 2011 blessings, we survived the loss of many loved ones.

Sparky was one of ‘em. There were others. Such is life, especially once you’re in your 50s…

That kept everything in perspective on my meager “career” concerns, which necessarily took a back seat to the life-and-death demands of 2011, among other speed bumps. Let me just cite one example.

Building on the James Sturm/Slate/offline lessons came the decisive 2011 ride involving Alan Moore and the wake of the final stroke in the remnant of that relationship. It’s a shadow I’ll forever live in, since some of my best work in comics from 1983–1993 was done with Alan; and so the dance went on, over what had been, what almost was, and what I’m able to make of what was 1963, and what I actually own of the wreckage.

[Left: Cover, April 1993 issue of Inside Image; Mystery Incorporated is © and TM Alan Moore and Rick Veitch; art by Rick Veitch and Dave Gibbons. Posted for educational/archival purposes only; fair use laws apply.]

Oh, the lessons Alan has taught me… I’ll be discrete, and polite, and frame it as succinctly as I can.

Like many people in comics, I owe a lot to Alan. I paid all the debts I could to him over the years we worked together, as best I could. But it’s been a curious relationship, more curious still since he exiled me from his life in 1996.

The man who told me via phone in 1992 that his goal was “to become invisible” remained as visible and omnipresent as ever—a powerful form of invisibility, that, but what less to expect from a shapeshifter and shaman?—though for what it’s worth, much of his hold over me and mine ended resoundingly in 2011.

After working hard all through 2010 with former 1963 creative partner(s) to arrive at a planned (with Alan’s permission throughout 2010) reprint edition of the original 1963 series (circa 1993) that would adhere absolutely to Alan’s demands—including that of not using or mentioning his name or affiliation with the project (yes, we found a publisher despite that)—it all ended in a heartbeat early in 2011.

Alan simply pulled the plug, and thus it was all over but the tears.

So, an end to it. And, as a result, I no longer care about mentioning or not mentioning his name. That ended with the 1963 project, save for the legal agreements I signed in 1998 concerning my share of the 1963 properties. There’s no appeasing Alan; that dance is over.

For what it’s worth and not worth, 1963 will never be legally reprinted in any language in our lifetimes.

Maybe, after we’re gone, our now-adult kids will be able to sort it all out.

So, consider this:

In creator co-ownership, one partner can forever and willfully deep-six any future in any co-owned work—even completed, published work, that still has perceived or potential market value.

That, too, is part of creator ownership, and co-ownership, and creator rights, and must be taken into account in any discussion of the subject.

All of us who worked hard on 1963 back in 1992–93 earned whatever we would or will ever earn from that work back in 1993, and that was that.

We will never see a dime from any of that work again, while the quarterly royalties from the DC/Vertigo collected Swamp Thing editions (for which I wrote two book introductions in 2011, more on that in a moment) and John Constantine/Hellraiser arrive, for the most part, like clockwork.

[Above, right: Swamp Thing, Book Six, 2011; Swamp Thing® and ©2011 DC Comics, Inc./DC Entertainment, Inc.; cover art by Thomas Yeates. Posted for educational/archival purposes only, fair use laws apply.]

If you had told the Bissette of 1990 that he’d never see a dime on any work done with Alan save the work-for-hire collaborative ventures we’d already put behind us by 1990, the Bissette of 1990 would have laughed and spit and ranted about the evils of work-for-hire.

Given the past decade’s long-distance and close-range spectacles related to Alan wanting to remove his name from, and/or the existence of, key collaborative works from prior decades, and experiencing first-hand the repercussions of his doing just that (with 1963), and surviving first-hand being exiled forever by said previous pal and creative partner, the Bissette of 2011 can only thank his lucky stars that he did his most extensive and lasting work with Mr. Moore under work-for-hire conditions for DC Comics.

For any who choose to take offense, rest assured I could (but won’t) say more, much more.

Suffice to note, the ironies cannot be overstated.

__________________

That said, one of the quiet joys of 2011 was writing that final introduction for Swamp Thing: Book Six. I got to send a fond and proper farewell, there, to a lot, in a venue that will (hopefully) outlive 2011.

Headway was also made with Tales of the Uncanny, what I’m building (still) from the wreckage of what was 1963. More on that in 2012.

So, in a world where not being online draws more attention than actively engaging; in a world where creators who refuse to engage online and wish to be invisible are more visible than ever; in a world where I’ve hit ceilings and walls I can no longer test, some has been lost, some has been gained—much has been learned.

I’m walking away from some wreckage, repairing what I can, giving up at last on what I can’t.

I’m leaving behind some worthwhile and productive experiments by applying the hard-earned results, and moving in what I hope will be more positive and rewarding directions for 2012.

More shortly…

Something Like an Ending

Wrapping Up Before the New Year? Maybe So…

The first sketch ever posted and sold at Myrant via the Sketch Gallery showcase headliner spot, circa January 2nd, 2009; ©2008 Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved.

_____________

As the 2012 New Year approaches, I’m pondering what precisely to do with Myrant.

Do I stay, or do I go?

I’ll likely trim the sails back to a once-a-week outing, and keep the blog and website going. But we’ll see. We’ll see…

My first-ever blog post was back in the late summer of 2005. I’ve posted damn near daily since then, and it’s been a hell of a venue, sans any real gatekeepers. A book or two has grown out of it all, and I’ve sold many a sketch since January 2009 (see above), but as I move into the beginning of 2012 with my second-heaviest semester of teaching ahead of me at the Center for Cartoon Studies, a number of book projects looming (and a major deadline on one of them approaching), and the need to carve out more drawing board time in 2012, something has to give—

—and I reckon this is what, and where. After all, who reads blogs any more? I’m also cutting back my Facebook posting considerably in 2012.

I’ve never had any pretensions about what this is, or was, who I am, or what might come of it. It’s been fun, for the most part. While I’d hoped it might yield something of merit over time and build something like an archive or bibliography of my body of work, it’s inevitably been a more crazyquilt venture from the beginning to this, an ending of sorts. I am who I am, and it is what it is.

Prior to that, my online venues had been limited to the first version of comicon.com (wish I’d archived all that material) and a year or two on a board called “The Kingdom,” where I had a wee fiefdom called “The Swamp” (and oh, how I wish I’d archived much of that material, which included the most intensive overview of the Tundra experience posted anywhere that I’ve ever seen).

Here’s my first-ever post, just to kick off this week with some sense of reference…

_______________

SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 2005

Test, eh? Well…

It all began with the monster movies I grew up on: Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion creatures, 1950s sf gems and turds, the Universal rogue’s gallery (Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Creature), the Hammer horrors, Mario Bava’s BLACK SUNDAY. It all began with the beloved comics of my youth… STAR-SPANGLED WAR STORIES (“The War That Time Forgot!”), GORGO (see cover at left), KONGA, and best of all KONA, MONARCH OF MONSTER ISLE!

Welcome to Myrant, the Bissette blog. It’ll be anything goes, day to day, but out of this will emerge a chronology of my current adventures — as a writer, as a cartoonist, as a teacher. As of September, I will starting a new adventure, teaching at James Sturm and Michelle Ollie’s amazing new Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT (see LINKS on the RIGHT of the screen; lots of good stuff there to check out besides the CCS, too!).

This turn of events brings a major arc of my life and career full circle: I began working as a pro in comics as a student at the first-ever class in a new experiment in education, the Joe Kubert School for Cartoon and Graphic Art, Inc. in Dover, NJ (Sept. 1976-June 1978). Now I’ll be among the faculty for the first-ever class at the Center for Cartoon Studies — a new experiment in education — on the other side of the classroom. The fun begins after the September 10th Grand Opening, and who knows where it’ll go from there! I’ll be posting my thoughts, perspectives, and misadventures here, so stay tuned!

At the time of this first blog posting, I have also completed the first volume in a new book series, S.R. BISSETTE’S BLUR, compiling my weekly newspaper column “Video Views,” which appeared in the Brattleboro Reformer from Sept. 1999 thru October of 2001. Volumes 2 and 3 are now completed and being formatted, all of this out soon from my dear friends at Black Coat Press.

This weekend seems momentous, too: The Brattleboro Museum is hosting a remarkable 24-Hour Comic Creation marathon, which has already attracted an incredible 48+ (final count forthcoming later) participants. I am the Crypt-Keeper, so to speak, the Master of Ceremonies who ushers in and ushers out the event. I’ll be posting at length, here, as well as providing links as they’re available.

OK, enough for now — more to follow… time to begin the blog proper. This was not just a test.

POSTED BY SRBISSETTE AT 11:58 AM

Merry Christmas to All…

…And to All, A Good Night!

Artwork ©2010 Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved.