The Summer Specials from DC Thomson are in the shops now and I've just picked up The Dandy Summer Special from WH Smith. Amongst its 68 pages are four Kid Cops reprints of pages I wrote/drew for The Dandy weekly between 2010 and 2012.
Although it would have been nice to have done new pages for the Special as I did in previous years, it's an honour to have my work reprinted alongside classics such as Desperate Dan by Charlie Grigg and Corporal Clott by Davey Law. Here's the cover to look out for, drawn by Wayne Thompson...
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Cover art by Wayne Thompson.
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Brand new Kid Cops pages will appear in The Dandy Annual 2024, out this Autumn.
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11 comments:
The cover isn't bad but I think his take on some characters could have been a bit better, but not bad and no problem with that.
though the designer (more then the artist) is being a bit checky with the 'including brand new and exclusive stories'.. I mean, okay, it probebly DOES include new stories and ones which are only in his special (though exclusive is often a weird term because you get 'shared exclusives' now so not exclusive and techinally, doesn't it mean will never be reprinted? else the moment it is, it's not exclusive.. anyway).. it's a bit.. implying more then saying stuff.. quite a common checky marketing thing but.. yeah..
What's D.C. Thompson reprint prices like these days? Still they pay for the work and get free reprints for life, or time based, or do they offer reprint fees these days?
The designer sets the layout but it's the editors that decide what goes in the cover captions. They've been prooting the new material that way for years.
No reprint fees for contributors unfortunately.
"Prooting". Sorry, I meant to type "promoting".
^_^ fair enough.
They do need to promote the fact it has new content. I don't see the problem with that "new and exclusive" caption, I was pleased to see that. Until a couple of years ago, the Dandy Summer Special was all-reprint and the Annual was the only actually new Dandy content each year.
Obviously the reprints they do use keep the costs down (unfortunately, because of the fact you don't get paid for them). They need to, considering it presumably sells less than the (all new) Beano one. And to be fair, it's been 11-13 years since these Kid Cops strips were first printed, longer for the other stuff, so it's probably all new to the target audience of kids anyway.
Yes, even I couldn't remember the plots I'd written after 12 years! :)
I've no problem with the reprints and stuff. While it would be better to pay something for reprint fees, Mixing reprints with new is fine (though when you do that.. mm.. it reminds me of bands who release a 'best of' which includes one new track and if you are a fan.. you are kinda screwed into buying what you already have again just for that one new track ¬_¬) it was more while not saying it doesn't, just seams to give a bit of an impression that it was all new when it was a mixture.. but that's fair enough marketing.. I probebly would have worded it to say a mixture of new and 'classic' or 'much loved' or some such marketing term for old reprints.. but then, I don't make the money ^_^
I don't think it's right artists\writers don't get paid for their reprint work, maybe not the full page rate but a few quid should be given.
For a short while Marvel UK paid a reprint fee. I received £6 a page for the Combat Colin reprints in Bumper Comic. Viz pay a reprint fee too.
Lew - It’s good to hear that you get reprint fees from Viz.
To be fair, as well as the regular comic issues they subsequently re-issue in a softcover book collection so I suppose it’s only fair.
I remember Viz before it became relatively mainstream. TBH I don’t mind the “coarse” humour - I’ve even had a few words/phrases published in Profanisaurus.
Cheers,
Geoff
Yes it's when the strips are reprinted in the hardback annuals that we get a reprint fee. I haven't worked for them for years though so nothing of mine has been reprinted for a considerable time.
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