From our continental correspondent – The Cartoonist’s Ten Commandments | The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

From our continental correspondent – The Cartoonist’s Ten Commandments

Thu, Sep 18, 2008

Comics and cartoons, From our Continental Correspondent

On the occasion of the new school year, the French Artists’ Syndicate’s Comics Creators Group (Groupement des Auteurs de Bande Dessinée du Syndicat National des Auteurs et des Compositeurs) has issued a checklist of ten focal points for young cartoonists, or the Ten Commandments of business aspects of cartooning, which is also very valid for young and budding talent in most other countries too, so we thought it was worth sharing with the English-language world. French journalist Didier Pasamonik paraphrases them as follows on Actua BD:

1 You will not surrender your talent for the rest of your life.

2 You will not surrender your audiovisual rights without compensation.

3 You will not take up your pencil without an advance payment or a suitable financial compensation

4 You will recover your rights if your work is not in exploitation

5 You will obtain valid and loyal information from your publisher.

6 You will not be sold like cattle without your authorisation

7 You will control the return provisions.

8 You will utilise a limited exclusivity (or right of first refusal)

9 You will only surrender the digital applications of your work by means of a separate contract.

10 You will organise all aspects of the promotion of your work with your publisher.

Naturally, it all boils down to “Read your contract before you sign it”, as Peyo used to say. The full text of the checklist (in French) can be found here on a downloadable PDF document.

Wim Lockefeer lives in Belgium, where BD creators have an eleventh commandment which involves stopping working on your comic regularly to enjoy a fine Belgian waffle; you can read more of his work on his own Ephemerist blog.