Thor: New Beginnings artist Manuel A. Carmona is on a bit of a mission, after noting the growing trend of artists selling unlicensed prints at conventions of properties they down’t own. He’s written a blog post on the subject, pointing out potential legal issues and the difference between such activity and commissioned work.
He also offers some alternative suggestions as to how artists can make money at such events.
“As an artist myself, I’m all for artists making money doing what they love to do,” he says, “but when my colleagues decide to use properties that don’t belong to them and make money off of it… I have a problem.”
Manuel Alejandro Carmona is the Co-Founder and President of Truthful Comics and President of the non-profit organization Comics For Christmas. His credits include Thor: New Beginnings, written by Darian Korvach and he was penciler on the sequel to Captain Action‘s first story from back in the 1940’s.
He not only draws comic books, he’s also worked as colorist of various Phazer comics published by RZG Comics.
His credits include the cartoon strip “Life With Zombie” written by Matt Herring, illustration work for the Disenos del Arte Inc. ad agency and Santillana Publishing, where he worked on various educational and children’s books.
While 2015 sounds like it was something of a bad year for Manuel he’s nothing if not determined to succeed and his main focus at present is creator owned Project: New Wave to be published under his comic book imprint Truthful Comics.
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Read Manuel’s post on unlicensed print here
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The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
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I completely agree with the No-fanArt-No-IP-stealing rule enforced a bit everywhere.
Also all the talks of “if an artist doesn’t do drawings of established characters, even if they are not his/hers, he/she won’t make any money at conventions”
that’s pure crap talking!
People are always looking for new and interesting ideas, I know many artists who draw exclusively their own stuff and are doing really well in conventions.
One example? Destiny Blue. The girl is travelling all over the world and doesn’t draw one bit of fan art or other people’s IP! She created her own lovely style. (check her out, http://destinyblue.deviantart.com/)
and I could add many more artist to the list.
I never did fan art (for sale) and I never will. I have nothing against having some pieces in your portfolio just to show your abilities, but if those pieces are for sale, things are different.
Create (and sell) your own things, people!
That work by Destiny Blue is fantastic – thanks for winging over a link.