My experience with Gene Colan was a perfect lesson in what NOT to do, when trying to get a pin-up from one of your idols, or what TO do, if you want to annoy the hell out of them and make them hate you, and feel ashamed of yourself.
During my hours of obsessing and searching and fantasizing, I found his website online. He was one of the first artists I looked for. I sent him a letter about how much I loved his art, and how great I thought it was he was accessible online. He sent a very brief thank-you-very-much type of note.
At this stage I was new at the whole email thing. In fact, I was new at the whole computer thing. I had had an eighties model, which I used just as a word processor (this was the early 2000’s). But when I met (my wife) Elizabeth, she introduced me to the internet, and to emails.
But as I say, I was new to email etiquette. I would write pages and pages. I suspect most people would read a sentence or so, and then get bored or irritated and delete the letter without finishing it. At least, that’s what I would have done. But I didn’t know this at the time, because I hadn’t gotten any emails yet, so I just kept writing. I also didn’t have any experience trying to get pin-ups from artists. So my strategy was this. I’d write a long, annoying introductory letter, and I wouldn’t ask about the pin-up. I would just say hello and I love you so much. Then I would wait and see if I got a response before bothering to put myself on the line and ask for a pin-up. I guess I thought this technique would strengthen their bond to me somehow, and make them like me so much, that when I wrote a second time, they’d not only remember me, but also see what a nice and polite guy I was, and then we’d be best friends, and they’d WANT to do the pin-up. As if they wouldn’t have done it if I just asked the first time. So after receiving the very brief and appreciative thank-you from Gene, I wrote again, telling him about the book I was doing, sending some samples of the monster pages Dick Ayers inked, and asked if he would do a pin-up I could publish.
I told him if he wasn’t really interested in drawing a monster, he could just include a hint of one. I thought maybe he could do a deserted spooky street, with a monster peeking into an alley, or a giant shadow falling over someone, or a graveyard, with a giant foot stomping down. But something moody, since he’s so good with that gothic horror atmosphere.
This email got another brief reply. This time it was from his wife. She named a price which (in my naivete) I found extremely high, but which in retrospect was a fair price for his work, considering what he had planned to do for that money.
I wrote another way-too-long letter, saying I assumed the price was for an 11″x17″, the standard size for a comics page. I asked if he might be able to do something smaller, or less detailed, for cheaper. I went on and on about possibilities.
Another brief reply from his wife. As for “detail,” she said that Gene works very hard, and if he skimped on “quality”, neither of us would be happy with the result. But she also said that he had planned to do a “22×28″ piece (Holy Christ! That would have been HUGE!) He would do an 11″x17” for half the original price. At the time, I thought it was still expensive (although I’ve since learned that a number of artists charge this much), but closer to a ballpark that I could afford.
So I wrote again, to make sure he was okay with my usual requests, for that price. Me keeping the work, me advertising to publish the piece, me publishing the piece, and him not expecting royalties or additional payments.
His wife wrote back again, and my interpreted from the letter was that she seemed pretty upset. It was a brief, terse letter. She said, absolutely not, forget the whole deal, basically. I wrote back yet another long letter, explaining that it wasn’t my intention to upset or short them. I asked what she had issue with specifically.
She wrote back her complaints, sounding moderately less upset than the previous letter, but I posited there was still a bit of an edge. I interpreted that she felt my asking for “permission to publish the pin-up” was a free-for all of his rights, and that I could take advantage, make t-shirts, posters, stickers, a website and spin-off comic series and video game based on the work, and make a fortune off this image he would send me, and he works hard and the industry is always taking advantage and I was another back-stabbing no-good … That kind of thing. I’m exaggerating, but I think the gist was concerns of being taken advantage of. And honestly I can’t blame her. He’s had a long career, and it’s a tough industry, and I’m sure people have tried to take advantage. I think a lot of the classic artists, especially, weren’t taken very good care of by the big companies. But on the other hand, it was getting a little tiring for me, having to be on the defensive every time I read one of her responses. I just wanted a drawing from one of my idols, and it wasn’t my intention to take advantage. I was also wondering why Gene had stopped responding to my emails.
I wrote back again.”Look, phrase it however you want so that I’m not taking advantage. I just want to publish it in my book.” I gave samples of how we could re-phrase it to her liking. A way-too-long, blow-by-blow explanation of my stance, full of descriptions, apologies, and suggestions for resolving our differences. And in my exasperation, if she wouldn’t agree to something, I would selfishly ask for something else in exchange. That didn’t help. At one point I suggested maybe he could throw in a sketch of Dracula too, for the price. I was envisioning a little ten second scribble. She explained that Gene’s sketches are real pieces of art, and how much they charge for them.
I really wanted a pin-up from him, and the more she protested about this or that, the more I wanted it. It was getting exhausting making all these negotiations. We finally got to a near complete agreement, except that she three in a last condition. That if I sell over 25,000 copies, that I send Gene an additional payment.
I hadn’t yet published a comic, so I thought, “Well maybe I will sell 25,000 books” (what a naive moron I was…). And at first glance, I thought, well if I could sell that many, I guess I could pay him some extra. That seems reasonable. But it made me sit down and think, and try and really calculate costs of publishing for the first time.
I thought, Sure, I’d like to keep the art, but I’m paying him a lot of money. More than the industry’s page rate. I’m a new and unknown comics guy, and I’m taking a chance here, and putting up all the money to pay him the price he’s asking, and then I have to pay all the money to get the book in print too. So all the risk and cost is on me, and there’s no risk to him, because he knows he’s getting paid what he asks for a pre-specified job. But if for some crazy reason the book were successful, I should see the benefit of that, because I’m the one completely at risk (I felt). The only risk he has to take is that he won’t get paid more than he asked to get paid, whether the book is successful or not.
I started writing out all the things that were going to cost me. Printing. Advertising. All the Dick Ayers inks for the Doris Danger stories. The other pin-ups I’d gotten. I realized, if I DID sell 25,000 books, I might break even, but WITHOUT GETTING A CENT FOR MYSELF. (Maybe my math was faulty, looking back.) So next thing I knew, and to my horror, I had sent him a many-page description, in explicit detail, of all these figures, and why I didn’t think I should have to pay him royalties. I asked if he could please waive this request.
Looking back, it was so idiotic, because I only sold 600 copies of that first book. I missed his request by 24,500! I would have had to have sold OVER FORTY TIMES what I sold. There was absolutely no danger, ABSOLUTELY, of having to worry about this request. But I did it for principle.
I got a letter back from them that was so funny and so simple, it made me ashamed. It said, Fine, he’ll do the pin-up. Don’t send any more emails. And then it said, “Seriously.” How embarrassing. How humiliating.
The money was sent on June 6, 2003. Shortly after, I found a message on my answering machine from Gene in New York! He just wanted to check on the composition he had in mind for my pin-up. I was so excited, I saved the message special to play for my wife. I was trying to figure out a way I could record a copy and save it for my personal records. At this time, I was saving the envelopes artists sent me their pin-ups in, because it had their names in their handwriting, and it was really cool to me to have these little pieces of their everyday lives.
I called him back, and it was a rush to speak with him on the phone. He was so polite and friendly. He made no mention of what a pain in his ass I was. He said he planned to draw a graveyard with a kid in it, who’s jumping back in shock, right as a giant foot stomps down at him. Sounds great, I said. Do whatever you like.
That day, when I got home from work to share the phone message with my wife, I went to the answering machine to play it for her, and the machine said there were no messages. I literally howled with anguish, and she came running out. I said, “There was a message on the machine I wanted to share with you!” I was crushed. She had seen a bunch of old messages on the machine and assumed they were all ones she had heard, so she deleted them without listening to them first. I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock. I was devastated.
The pin-up came, and it was gorgeous. And it was still huge. Even though I’d asked for an 11″x17″, it ended up being 14″x22!”