Doing business with Kordey
Well… not really… just making enquiries
I’ll admit it… I am not experienced in doing business with people. Heck, I aint got the money. The dough. But hey, I know where to get them. Anyway, out of curiosity and also interest in knowing how much a comic artist would actually get out of the trade in the States, I decided to enquire the services of a mr. Igor Kordey (of New X-men, Extreme X-men, Black Widow mini-series and Soldier X fame)… notice there are a lot of X’s in all his titles. Well… he replied my mails with:
Dear *Author*,
before we go any further in discussing this potential project, I’d
like you to be familiar with some facts:
As you might know, during my three years collaboration with Marvel, I
was top 20 artist on American charts, even No.1 with New X-men
serial. Therefore, as you may guess, there is a significantly higher
price per page, for the artist of my reputation. I certainly don’t
expect to be paid as high as Marvel used to pay me (them being a
major company), but I wouldn’t go lower than 450 $US per B-W page -
penciling and inking.
Second, since I have other assignments going on (For French major
publisher Delcourt, and American IDW), I’d request to be paid in
advance for complete project, in order to clear out the space and
schedules for 40+ pages book for at least 3 months in a row.
Third, as I mentioned before, quality of the story plays essential
role in my choice of work. So, if you find before mentioned
conditions affordable, you may send me this short story as it is
right now, because I’d like to see what is all about before I made my
final decision.
Fourth, my present style is considerably different than it was during
my stint in Marvel, due to previous mostly unsuccessful collaboration
with different inkers they gave me. One of the reasons I left Marvel
, was my constant complaint about low quality of final inking
results. Therefore, in my next E-mail I’ll present you with some of
my recent artwork done entirely by me (including inking), for you to
consider my present drawing style likable or not.
And one suggestion about format of the book: whether I will be an
artist for this book or not, I’d suggest you to go for 46-48 pages
format. That way this book would be very compatible for
presentations and potential sales on both European (as 1 shot album)
or American markets (2 shot mini -serial).
So much for now; I’m looking forward for your answer.
Sincerely,
IGOR
Well…. you do the maths. That’s a freaking RM1,700 per page!!!! wow… multiply that with my initial suggestion of 40 pages comic book (one-shot) and that is like, RM68,000 just for the artist!!!!!!!!!!! I really like his art and all… (I will show you what he sent) but man…. this sucks.
What do you think? Of course I replied (after talking to ML and laughing about it all) that we are unable to cough out that amount of dough! But in a very nice way. However, this shows the level of income comic book artists enjoy in doing what they do best. By the way, they do better when you factor in the sales that they get by selling off the original drawings to fans… each goes for a minimum USD 1,000. So there!
I like you Igor, but really man… I cant afford you! If it was below RM30,000 I might have considered actually. There are banking loans you can take (I have some contacts) and the returns are actually quite good on comic books, since you are selling not in RM, but in USD. Imagine, a ‘cheap’ comic book costs USD2.50. An artist of his stature would guarantee a minimum sales of 10,000. MINIMUM! That’s a revenue of USD25,000 (RM100,000). So you do the maths… a good bargain… IF it was below RM40k, thereabouts.
There goes another business venture. heheheheh… but it was fun to correspond with a favourite artist!
I’ll try to pull it off with another one ok? 
Getting my comics back
and the digi cam
Ok… I am getting my full collection back this Saturday. I miss it. And since I just got the digital camera back from ML… I will be taking a picture of the whole collection, so that you can understand the extent of my ermmm… hobby (or obsession) with this art medium.
Oh… just downloaded Amazing Spider-Man #512… the continuing episode to the Gwen Stacy and Peter’s Kids thingee… can’t wait to read it. Will have loads of reviews up on my site next week. Sigh… have to study afterwards. Sad, isnt it?