For anyone willing to sign a petition regarding Gary Friedrich vs. Marvel

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Today, I was surprised to hear about two stories involving creators pitched in legal battles over monetary compensation. One involves the creator of Ghost Rider Gary Friedrich and Marvel. The other Tony Moore and Robert Kirkman.

I was in the middle of writing a rant in the midst of watching our 13-month old, only to have stumbled across this article as a response to Gary Friedrich here.

Stephen Bissette’s response sums up how I feel, in general, about the industry right now. In particular, I feel his solutions ring particularly true for me. I’m choosing Course 2. Here’s the excerpt that encapsulates how I feel. Most notably, the sections that I’ve bolded.

Thanks Stephen, for putting into words what I was feeling, and have felt, for a very long time.

“The bottom line is only two things may, in time, alter the course of history:

(1) The creative community—and by that, I include the motion picture industry, including screenwriters, actors, directors, technicians, etc.—joins forces to somehow redress the gross imbalance of power, or:

(2) Utter capitulation, resulting in a new generation realizing (a) there’s absolutely no reason to bring anything of any creative or legal value to firms like Marvel/Disney, and (b) there’s absolutely no reason to believe in a nanosecond in the corporate product espousing “heroes” fighting against enormous odds for “justice” or “right,” since the behavior of the corporate proprietors themselves so transparently demonstrate how meaningless those fictions are.

(1) could begin, for instance, with, say, the star of the GHOST RIDER movies publicly donating $17,000 to the creator of a comicbook character he claims to “love.” If the star wouldn’t take such action, perhaps a co-star, or the screenwriter, or the director, or a collective of grips, or, hell, ANYONE with HALF the backbone fictional characters like Ghost Rider pretend to embody could take such public action.

The Actor’s Guild and Writer’s Guild strike when conditions become intolerable for their members. Well, Guilds, this doesn’t involve your members—but it does involve a definable creative community, whose history now yields more employment for the industries you work in than almost any other pool of creative work, save the public domain realms of Austen, Doyle, Stoker, etc.

(2) takes a leap of imagination, too, that I frankly don’t see even a spark of at present. The baying and bickering on online articles and essays about creator rights reveal a cesspool of animosity, resentment, drones asserting drone capitulation to corporate will, etc. directed at any creative individual who dares to—well, not so much “stand up for their rights,” as “dare to interfere with the ceaseless flow of entertainment.” The masses want their corporate parables without the messy intrusion of real-life battles against insurmountable odds for “justice” or what’s “right.”

Ultimately, given our national identity as a consumer nation addicted to human slavery for everything from our Walmart shoes to our Apple computers, what we’re seeing, I fear, is the national embracing of creative imaginations being codified as another form of slave labor, too. It’s tough to interpret the bile and vitriol coming from the so-called “fan” community as anything other than that.

Me, I’m not even curious any longer about seeing these Marvel movies, and I’ll never spend another penny on Marvel product or Marvel-derivative product of any kind. Marvel/Disney has made it completely clear where they stand on sharing even morsels of the billions they rake in, so I’ll withhold my micromorsels from their coffers. It’s a meaningless decision, I’m sure, in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a start.”

I don’t know about you, but I feel that a due course of action would be (a)Boycott the properties where the creators have been unjustly compensated, or (b) go see the movie, enjoy it and send a few bucks to the creators responsible for the character as well.

If Marvel/Disney and DC aren’t willing to part with their money, maybe we can, to say,”Thanks.”

I do have hope for the comic industry. It was brought to me yesterday in the form of Tim Schafer of Double Fine studios and their efforts to fund a Point-and-Click adventure. The Kickstarter page and story is HERE.

I love the companies integrity, and quality of games. I still haven’t finished Psychonauts, but I can appreciate it for what it is. I want to see a new point and click and am glad I can directly contribute to something that I WANT to see and play.

If I’m going to pay somebody money, I’d rather see it go to the creative forces that Publishers are so eager take advantage of.

We, as consumers, have the power to talk with our money. The change starts there. Let’s start talking a bit more.

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Just got word that one of the books that I worked on for Hi-Fi will be coming out Oct 11. The Invincible Iron Man: An Origin Story!!! I didn’t do the cover, but if you click to preview the book, I did paint the interior 4 pages. Take a look!

Check it out and pre-order it HERE

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Been working on a few books at Hi-Fi for DC’s new 52 launch – OMAC and JLI. Both fun books to work on! Just finishing up issue #3 and they look GREAT! JLI is REALLY coming together nicely

Here are a few pages from the #1′s. Enjoy!

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Quick little update for y’all (I’m kind of in the hospital right now. Wife and I are expecting a baby today )

A book that I colored for IDW is out now on iTunes for a paltry $5.99!!! That’s 104 pages of great story by Tom Waltz(Silent Hill:Past Life), and Guiu Vilanova.

Download that bitch and feed my baby!
Cheap tactic? Yes. Yes, it was

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/after-the-fire/id409161990?mt=8

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I just received word that I can get a table for C2E2 again, so I’m hoping to be there this March. I just need to plop down the dough for a full table. This year I’ll be accompanied by my wife and our NEW BABY. She’s not here yet, but it’s getting close

At the show I will be selling prints. Some will be drawn by the magnanimous Tom Nguyen. Images that I did for his book Incredible Comic Book Women

I’ll also have a few treats of my own. Some prints of my work and very special C2E2 2011 exclusive. All these works works will be posted up in the Prints page as they become available.

See you soon!
-Jon

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Check out some new stuff in the HIFI tab!

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First of all thanks to everyone who stopped by my table for a sketch, and for those of you that I couldn’t get to I apologize. Regardless, I hope you all had a good time!

The con was a great experience in many ways and I learned a lot – this being my first time on the OTHER side of the table. It was great connecting with fans and chatting them up. Of course it helped that I had my lovely wife as my assistant with me. She really made things a lot easier. When doing sketches it’s hard to connect with people walking by. She did an awesome job of getting people’s attention and reeling them in.

To you, my love, my deepest gratitude.

Thanks also to my neighbors Andy and Alice Price, and Chris Rieke.

From a fanboy point of view the show was great and I got to geek out on tons of inkers, Paul Mounts, and Jimmy Palmiotti. It was also great hanging with Comfort Love and Adam Withers, of The Uniques fame, and their crew of Jeremy and Kelly Dale, Marcus Almond (The Razor Kid), and Bryan Glass (The Mice Templar). You guys were great, and I can’t wait to meet up again soon.

Meeting so many great people really fuels my desire to do more cons. This year will be a little hard to do more, but I hope to change that next year. I’m hoping to to Mid-Ohio November.

It was hard feeling like I was a part of a community until I did this show. It’s just not something that one realizes when they’re holed up and trying to get work done. The fun, the fellowship, these are things I don’t get at home and I could go on and on, but I won’t

There are almost too many great things to say about the show to try and wrap up in such a small space.

I’ll be there next year for sure.

Be on the lookout for con sketch pics!

Thanks again all,

Jon Alderink

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In a nutshell it kicked ass. I’ll write much more later, but right now I’ve got to get my ass in gear!

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Just a warm-up that I did prior to some inking for a Uniques Tales story. My W&N brushes are officially on my shit list, and I switched half way through the page to some Rapheals I bought as backups last Fall.

Werd.

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