[kkowalczyk]

It seems it all boils down to this: he didn't make as much money as he wanted.

I don't want to trivialize the issue: making money is not easy, but the guy over-plays the victim card.

He seems to be a successful artist. He quits and it's all a fault of other people, who don't pay him as much as he deserves.

Again, not to trivialize the issue, but an artist with a lot of fans should be able to find a way to make money.

Did he try to follow the steps of many cartoonists that make decent money doing daily cartoons on the web, like theotmealguy?

Did he try to create anything outside of work-for-hire arrangement that he entered (willingly, as a consenting adult) into with Disney?

No evidence of that.

According to him, it's just the system conspires against poor artist.

According to me, he's just a lousy businessman who lacks awareness of his own shortcomings and oblivious to many ways he could have made money with his art. Instead he chose a safe route of employment and as an adult he should understand that it also usually comes with limited upside.

If he wanted a bigger upside, he should have taken more risks.

[woodchuck64]

> Instead he chose a safe route of employment and as an adult he should understand that it also usually comes with limited upside.

Did you even read the article? He turned down a lucrative career in a family-owned construction company to do this. He quit largely because a detached retina makes it impossible for him to draw. He's been doing this for at least 20 years; The Oatmeal has only been in it for 3. Have some perspective and modicum of respect.

[zeitg3ist]

I don't think you read his article very well. He doesn't give a shit about making money. He's just pointing out that in the Disney comic system there are no royalties and artists get exploited.

[pmelendez]

I don't think this is particular to the Disney comic. How many game developers are being paid proportionally with sales? Usually sales and marketing people are the ones with those benefits, not the content generators. On a flip side, is not like they invest any money on the final product as they are generally being paid as a regular job.

[pandaman]

Before 7th generation pretty much everyone paid royalties in the games. I believe one of the major reasons the industry is in shambles now is that, with the advance of the 7th generation, 3d parties moved to cut off royalties either by acquiring studios or by rigging contracts. Still, 3d party owned studios working on profitable titles are paying bonuses that are proportional to sales more or less. For example, check out Activision vs. Infinity Ward GMs lawsuit.

[chipsy]

I think that with respect to game royalties, that ship set sail a long time ago. Publishers in the earliest generations would often give creators huge royalties, and it's just been on a gradual decline since then.

The topsy-turvy situation the industry is in now, though, has countless factors - it's going to be discussed for years to come, and the signs of disruption are appearing on all fronts.

[pimeys]

How many game developers do everything in the game and then get their game marketed in his/her own name. Then people would buy a lot of copies because of the name and the original author will not get anything.

You have to remember, selling a duck comic carrying the names of Carl Barks and Don Rosa is a very big business here in Europe. The comic's don't sell because of Disney, because of the ducks themselves. People adore those two gentleman.

And they don't get anything out of it.

[mech4bg]

The bit he was actually focusing on seemed to me to be that they started using his name to sell the books.

If _the artist_ is the product being sold, don't you think the right thing to do would have been to work out a new agreement?

I thought it was incredibly well written and quite forgiving of him.

[msandford]

People seem to have this idea that the world should be "heads I win, tails you lose" in their own favor. I can't say that I blame them, it's incredibly depressing to see a company get rich off of your work. But it fails to take into account that a person might create absolutely nothing of value while they draw a paycheck/salary and in that case it's the company that loses, not them.

That's how things go in engineering, though, you generally don't get employed unless you're willing to sign over whatever IP you are going to generate at the job (and sometimes even off-the-clock ideas too).