Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine So today I was fired…

So today I was fired…

Not From my good, job that I’ve had for several years

But from a side project I was working on, around April I was contacted by this guy who through a work friend named David whom I haven’t spoken to in years, David recommended me for my very first comic book as the soul artist.

This was kind of bad time for me, I was trying to work out where I was going to live because I couldn’t stay with parents to much longer cause they hated me being there, on top of this my boss was thinking about moving a few thousand miles away and pressuring me to go with him, even though I lacked the money to do so, but in the end my Ego got the best of me and I really wanted to do my own book.

Now this summer , lots of things happen, 1) I moved to Nj since my boss was telling me was going to look for a place in Brooklyn 2) my Boss moved 25 minutes closer to my parents after I moved away. 3) I and my Boss pregnant wife packed 90% of all his things 4) my boss went away for almost two months leaving me to unpack all his things. 5) My computer started to crash every ten minutes.

I sat down with this guy and showed him layouts; off his script that was really lacking in descriptions sat down talked about everything and busted my butt to give him 5 pages in a week. He sent me notes on changes that need to be done on the said pages, and when I went to get paid he gave me a letter saying they didn’t want to use the pages I had, in a way that said I want you to fallow layouts from a guy he is friends with who made some more detailed version of the script the thing is this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing , storytelling was off pacing was bad, so I had for a second time had to do lay outs that takes a two days at least (for crappy ones), I then spent four hours going over every detail of the book so we both on the same page. I started to really hate this book the more I worked on it.

I explained to him that was very busy, that my other job was steadier and I was pretty much doing this as a favor to David, at the time had been working long hours doing both jobs and was having trouble sleeping, due to stress and all the muscles in my back tightening do all the moving and crappy bed and I only had 20 dollars in my bank account since my other boss forgot to send me my paycheck three times, now here is the thing I wanted to be done with this project in August, that didn’t happen this was mostly due to my stress levels and a lack of motivation on the project, the Key here is that he told me it need to be done by the end of December, the thing I need to stress about my field is that if you don’t say this needs to be in by July 9th at 4:15 in the afternoon, 9 out of 10 times that means you are not getting it until a minute before July tenth , end of August was my goal not his. I then shot for September, that didn’t happen.

Every time I said something his guy got a smile on his face that clearly said, he didn’t want me to be any part of this project, this guy kept saying he was the Talent and I was just a tool to get the project done, I won’t go into detail on everything this guy did to drive me crazy, but in the end my friends kept telling me I should Quit that this wasn’t worth the money

So he sent me a Email today saying I missed two deadlines , and that I was no longer on said project, he then said this very passive aggressive thing about being disappointed in the time wasted and won’t bring it up if we see one another at party and I’ll be getting a kill fee for pages done .

I sent him a response, saying I was confused as the deadline was December , if he wanted me off the project fine, that I’m a professional, this is not something would bring up at a party we had a business arrangement that didn't work out, and I was insulted that he would imply I would. I explained that I got the distinctive impression that he didn’t like what brought to the table. And I also explained when I signed up for this book I was promised a lot more freedom with the book and that was taken from me. I sent him well wishes and hoped that the next person he works with will be on the same page since we clearly weren’t.

Things I learned….
Doing your own book from start to finish is hard.
I know that doesn’t really need to be said, but I defiantly learned that even if I do a good chunk of my boss work as a ghost, there is still a lot he does

Just because you really want something to work out, even if you push yourself to the brink,
sometimes it’s not meant to be.

I really wanted this to work out not just for the money but I really wanted my name on a book, I knew the story in the book wasn’t that great but I wanted to have a book to show around and get my foot in the door.

You can’t reason with a brick wall

Again something I know I should
have known, but over and over again I tried telling myself wile I whined and complained about having to re do a lot of the work, this guy was set in his ways and what he wanted and that was it.

I need to be better at responding..
I’m not sure this was due to my anger toward the man who hired me or my general lack of responding to people who I just don’t want to talk to.

If someone doesn’t know what they are doing, it might be a good idea to not work with them

I felt like was doing a ton more work then they who came to me to just draw the thing , it’s great that he wanted this so badly, but anything I had to suggest as professional advice seamed to go in one ear and out the other

the thing is im not upset, im bummed that I'm not going to have my own book, and i am worried the money since i barely have enough to feed myself after rent, but this job made me so miserable and i hated it so much, that i don't care that i don't have it any more

Sounds like a terrible experience all the way around, with the guy being unable to articulate what he wanted (making him a poor choice to be writing or scripting something, IMO), and unable to settle for any other interpretation of it, despite obviously having some familiarity with your artistic style before choosing you for the job.

Hopefully you can walk away from the stress. That passive-aggressive crap at the end, with the 'I won't mention it if we run into each other at parties' thing makes me think that he very much *is* going to complain about it to all and sundry, and blame you for his own failure to get this project off the ground, rather than admit to his own shortcomings in the process (since he may have boasted to friends and family about this project, and now feel the need to manage expectations down and shift the blame for it not happening).

If you've got friends in common, you might want to prepare yourself for that sort of nonsense.

I'm sorry to hear about this, it must have truly been a draining experience.

It seems to me that what the writers need to do is WRITE and let the artists stick to the art. It also helps if the writer is flexible and doesn't have a metaphorical rod up their butt.

I get that the writer may want a certain scene shown a certain way, I get that. But the writer HAS to trust that the artist can deliver the goods without having to dictate what every little scene IS going to be.

He sounds like a terrible collaborator. You're better off.

Reading that makes me worry that I myself have said rod.

I really hope that guy was being honest with all that "I won't mention it if you won't" line. Did I type that right? I don't want to sound condescending or someone who's not fully interested.

when i say this script was lacking in description i meant it. for a 24 page book the script was less then six pages and after two pages he stopped numbering where the pages end. 90% of it was charterers talking, over and over he said we only have one issue done before this so you'll have tons of freedom to interpret the story. in the end he put more detail into his buddy's crappy drawings that often had things that made no sense example a clown in one panel then gone the next and when i pointed out something he wanted that's not in the script he would say its in the drawings

Artist love it when they are handed long scripts you know why beacuse then they know exactly what the writer wants, they explain their vision. its always better to subtract then add this guy really didn't give me much for the amount of details he wanted,and he kept saying 'i forget you don't know whats in my head' i had to bite my tongue to stop my self saying.that's what a script is for

from what i can tell you don't seam passive aggressive. this guy couldn't tell me if he didn't like something i did to my face, made me do Five pages over again because he couldn't say 'this isn't what i had in mind'

and as long as you never say 'I'm the talent here, and you are just a tool to get my vision out there.' i think your good.

Well, KF2Fan, it seems like you are better off for being "fired" by this guy. I hope things pick up for you.

Having never been in the industry, I can not fully apreciate the difficulty of what you do, but I can apreciate the difficulty of working with/for an incompetant twit that makes unreasonable demands and then takes all the credit for your work. You certainly have my condolences. Before leaving TRoT I worked under a couple of 'supervisors' that would seem to have a lot in common with the guy you describe (not what they did, but definitely how they did it). I hope you find much better experiences coming your way soon.

Amigo, that sounds rough. I know what its like to work hard at a job and have the people around you or even over you set you up to fail no matter what. Hope it works out better for you.

One thing you can take from this, however, is that as an artist, you only need a basic story. A great way to start is something along the lines of a short story. And here is where you can excel as an artist.

Write up a short synopsis of a story. Just something simple. then, take the story and flesh it out with your art. Make sure it follows the rules of storytelling...ie: a beginning, a middle, and an end. If you wish, add a twist ending. What you are doing as an artist is giving yourself something to illustrate that has flow, dynamic telling through art, and do it in a timely fashion. Set limits to how long you can be on one page, and then hold yourself to it. What you are doing is finding a workable, real pace, say a page a day. When you've done that, if it comes up to your standards for artwork, then you can do an ashcan type thing. Shop it to some of the independents, because that is where most comic artists start from what I have read.

The story can be as simple as a guy walking his dog, seeing a pretty gal across the street, and having a misadventure or two getting to her to ask her out.

Hey, there's a simple story. Use the Michael J. Fox commercial for the Pepsi ad. Change it to fit what you need, and then illustrate it. You might be surprised at what you wind up with.

Good luck. Hope it works out for you.

while i do want to do my own stuff, i see that as a down the line kinda thing, right now i just want draw, that is what i wanted from this project

i still need to learn a lot about writing to make a story work, secretly i am holding out to meet some one who i click with and together we come up with something awesome mostly because at times i feel like i need a cheerleader cause after a while i have a habit of thinking 'well this sucks and is not worth working on, hence the need for some who is equally invested to say shut up

what Pepsi add i found 3 on youtube

I'm sorry you had to go through that, kf2f, but you've learned several valuable lessons from the experience.

Here are a few more suggestions:

1. Trust yourself. If it's clear that the writer doesn't know what he's doing, do you really want your name on his project? Sloppy work can damage your reputation whether it's your sloppy work or not.

2. Investigate a potential collaborator. Ask for references and check them out. If the guy has publishing credits, ask to see them.

3. If the guy has no credits but is adamant about hiring you anyway, don't be afraid to ask for a certain percentage upfront. This way, if he is a flake and doesn't want to pay it, you've lost nothing and saved yourself some time and heartache. If he agrees, you've at least been compensated for your time if the deal goes bad.

(If he's an established professional or has some credits, I wouldn't demand up-front payment, though. I'd take a chance on his reliability.)

4. Ask to see the script, or a portion of it, before you commit to the project. Then you can judge the writer's competence for yourself.

1) next time if its clear they don't know what they are doing and and don't want any advice i am going to stay away

2) he was self published, and i did as the previous artist what they thought and they gave him a good recommendation, and they said he couldn't afford there rates anymore other wise he was a okay job to have

3) that's a big yes to that, i was supposed to get half upfront but i didn't push. i learned for next time

4)when i signed on the script he sent me was 'a work in progress' and i though it had potential little did i know that was the finished thing

This one works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvsbeQbj8tM&NR=1

The point is to go to ridiculous lengths for something relatively minor. Improbable situations, stuff like that.

It can be a short story easily.

Guys looking for "x". Several shots of him simply standing still maybe holding a dog leash with a cat, or standing at the bus stop, water splashes up from passing car, he's drenched. You know, simple things that would be highly irritating to the character, but funny to the average person. The little frustrations that drive people nuts.

You can use a kind of standard background for several panels, but change the foreground details for comical effect. In one panel he's dry, next panel he's wet and has a slow burn look on his face. One panel he's walking a dog, next panel has him being dragged down the sidewalk by a large group of dogs that his has joined. One panel he's simply standing at the bus stop, the next he's being gang tackled by a mugger and several cops taking the mugger down.

You can go light on the narrative, but tell the story through the art using the descriptive paneling and facial expressions. In just a few panels you've shown versatility in what you can draw, shown that you can aid a story with facial expressions, and with the script, shown that you can provide a story narrative with art.

Hope that helps.