Studio insurance is something a lot of artists go without. I am both under-insured, and unprepared for emergencies, so I’ve been online mucking about. Here’s what I found.
The Craft Emergency Relief Fund is a great resource for artists. You hear about this or that creator losing everything in a flood or fire, but never hear of cartoonists availing themselves of public services like this. We all need to be more aware of our rights and resources.
The site is offering a free series of webinars for teaching artists, trainers, and other professionals. CLICK HERE.
The organization also offers a handy studio preparedness reference kit called The Studio Protector Guide for Emergencies. This wall guide holds all your important resources and contact information. Proceeds go to benefit The Craft Emergency Relief Fund.
Here’s a handy video:
I’m of the opinion that keeping this in your studio is not necessarily the best idea. Maybe you should get two: one for the studio, and another for a safe place. If the studio burns down, you’ve lost your resources guide.
My medical costs have skyrocketed since I first wrote this post a few years ago on health insurance for artists.
I’ve restored some data, but the most important link is the Artists Health Insurance Resource Network, which has been folded back into The Actors Fund website.
This is the most comprehensive directory for creators of all kinds on the internet. You do not need to be an actor to avail yourself of The Actors Fund benefits. If you work in entertainment, you are eligible. New Yorkers who work in the entertainment industry have access to the Al Hirschfeld Free Health Clinic. This may include artists who have Warner or Marvel Entertainment on their resume. Check it out.
I am baffled, perplexed, yea and verily, utterly flummoxed when I hear of poor, starving artists going up against big bad corporations and nefarious industry individuals, and these poor creators are utterly unable to afford legal advice or representation, when I REPEATEDLY RECOMMEND THE VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS to them AS IF I AM CHANTING A FREAKING MANTRA!!!
By the way, I would like to point out that the person who first directed me to the VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS was Bill Mantlo, a former comics creator who took up the law as a public defender. Mantlo was badly injured in a freak accident while rollerblading and has been living with brain damage ever since.
Mantlo did me a great service, spent hours with me going over my case, helped secure me a link up with the VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS, and kept in touch with me until the matter was resolved. My total financial outlay over several year’s worth of legal struggles was only $1,000. I call that a bargain. It saved my project A Distant Soil.
I am eternally grateful to Bill Mantlo. Thank you for your kindness, your decency, and for giving me the information that I was able to pass along to other creators who also had very satisfactory results with the VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS.
In fact, the next time I donate to a legal fund, my money is going to the VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS.
VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS SERVICES, all right there online for anyone to read, any day, any time, for months and months and months:
Legal Services
VLA delivers legal services and legal information to over 10,000 members of the arts community each year. For more information call The Art Law Line : 212·319·ARTS (2787), ext.1
Education
VLA plays an important role in educating individual artists, arts professionals within arts and cultural institutions, attorneys, students and the general public about legal and business issues that affect artistic and creative endeavors. For more information on our classes, workshops, and panels, please click here, or call our Art Law Line at at 212.319. (ARTS) 2787 x1.
Advocacy
From its inception, VLA has played an important role as an advocate on behalf of the arts community in different ways, ranging from participation in litigation, making public statements about matters of interest to the arts community, and making recommendations about pending legislation.
Art & Law Residency
As legal and judicial issues now permeate every aspect of social, political and cultural life, artistic production is no longer immune. The Art & Law Residency provides an intellectual and artistic setting for participants to engage in ongoing discussions and debates that examine the overlap and disconnect between artistic production and the law from historical, social, ethical and intellectual standpoints. Using law as both a discourse and medium, new visual artwork and critical writing will come into being through the Program. All the participants will also gain experience and knowledge they can carry into the future beyond the Program.
MediateArt
MediateArt pairs artists with mediators to mediate or resolve arts-related disputes outside the traditional legal framework. Through MediateArt, qualifying clients may elect to use this service for negotiation counseling as well as contract negotiations.
But wait! there’s more!
VLA serves artists and arts organizations in every discipline, including: acting, animation, architecture, book making, choreography, composition, three-dimensional design, costume design, craft and folk arts, dance, directing, fashion, film, graphic design, installation art, literary arts, modeling, multi-media, music, photography, playwriting, poetry, printmaking, screenwriting, sculpture, songwriting, theater, video arts, video game design, visual arts, and web design.
Access to VLA’s pro bono legal services is available to low-income artists and nonprofit arts organizations. VLA’s other services and programs are open to the entire arts community. For more information about VLA’s services, please call the Art Law Line at 212·319·ARTS (2787), ext. 1.
Wow. Look. Real money. Real lawyers. Real power. Real experience.
At the UK Daily Mail, a look at Wallace and Gromit, with lots of cool schematic drawings and info on development. Also, creator Nick Park’s first animated video, created when he was only 13 years old.
Ted Rall discovers that one of his syndicated cartoons made a whopping 8 cents. This article is a bit depressing, and outside of the occasional crow-worthy kickstarter campaign, I’m really not sure what the future is for these folks. Some have modest luck with self syndication.
“I have a big web audience,” says Bors, “and a lot of my cartoons are incredibly popular. They fly around the web more than a lot of articles do, but for whatever reason, cartoons aren’t on the budget.”
He waited on $31,000 through November 2009; by February, the company still owed him $20,000. Wisdom, who said he had had a perfect credit score until then, racked up over $20,000 in credit card debt, and his bank raised his interest rates to 30 percent. He was paying more than $500 a month in credit card interest, and withdrew from his retirement accounts to make ends meet.
I feel your pain, dude. It’s been over a year, and a producer still hasn’t forked over the dough.
Bootleg copies of the “Dark Knight” and Shenzen sweatshops churning out fake Louis Vuitton bags are only part of the problem. Last March, the United States International Trade Commission banned imports of cast steel railway wheels made by the Chinese group Tianrui. Tianrui had hired nine employees from the Chinese licensee of Amsted Industries of Chicago, a maker of railway parts. They came with an armful of trade secrets that allowed Tianrui to muscle into the business.
What really happened to htmlcomics. You may recall I had a run-in with this scary dude, a convicted felon pirating comics, some time ago. He followed up my post several times with some vaguely threatening emails, odd complaints I had lied about his kindly cooperation with my request he stop pirating my work (read the link and decide for yourself,) and demands to remove anything I had ever said about him online, all of which I ignored. I did not publish any of his later emails, especially after learning what he did to this cop who pissed him off. That’s so not normal. I just handed the letters to my attorney.
He also made the odd claim that he had been released from “all charges”. Whatever charges he thinks they were, the real story is that he was sued by the federal government and had his servers and websites permanently shut down and forfeited. You can read all about it at Copyhype.
Copyhype’s article also lays to rest some of the online cheering from people who claim they had the dude shut down via their blog posts or something. The investigation began in 2009.
The case of htmlComics.com is, as far as I know, the first time a domain name has been forfeited under 18 USC § 2323(a) as property “used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of” criminal copyright infringement.
And while my bottom line has gone up considerably since I first wrote about the perils of digital book filching, I’m chalking that up to the many thousands I spent on advertising, having the website redone, and other rather expensive incentives, not to mention my ubiquitous web presence.
I’m also working with Image Comics to create A Distant Soil digital books. The first 14 issues of A Distant Soil were not published by Image, and they are undergoing a major cleanup operation. They also require new covers and will have some new content. They should be available soon, but this art is more than 20 years old, and digital files did not exist back in the day. We’re doing major restoration here.
I also hope you enjoy the online comic experience at my official website. It’s been fun bringing it to you.
“Musicians and journalists are the canaries in the coalmine,” says Lanier, “but, eventually, as computers get more and more powerful, it will kill off all middle-class professions.”
At Plagiarism Today: “Why I don’t Fear Chilling Effects.” Chilling Effects sometimes posts the personal information of people who file takedown notices for copyright infringement online. I think that’s kind of creepy. Here’s another take on the matter.
First, the name Chilling Effects, to many copyright holders, sounds very accusatory. Though Chilling Effects “aims to support lawful online activity against the chill of unwarranted legal threats” it does so by being an impartial database of notices. Not every notice in Chilling Effects is “chilling” free speech in any way, in fact, the vast majority are not.
