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Robert Boyd On Jacq Cohen Moving From Dark Horse To Fantagraphics
posted August 20, 2009
 

This announcement triggered some memories.

Back in the early 90s, I was working for Fantagraphics. One of my co-workers was Ryder Windham. He got poached by Dark Horse, and later encouraged me to apply there, which I did. I ended up leaving Fantagraphics and working for Dark Horse as well.

I can't say why Ryder left FB, but my reason was purely financial. Dark Horse was offering a salary approximately 60% higher than what I was getting at Fantagraphics. I was tired of being poor. So with regrets, I left FB for Dark Horse.

Leaving your low-paid FB gig for a higher-paying job elsewhere in comics was a common move in those days. Often there were other things that triggered people's moves, but underlying it all was that FB just didn't pay enough to keep people around. And this was in line with their scrappy, always-on-the-edge-of-ruin, small-press image. (An image that accurately reflected the reality.)

So when I see someone leaving a job at Dark Horse to go work for Fantagraphics -- that tells me how much things have changed. I'm sure no one is getting rich working for FB, but the compensation these days seem to be decent and competitive (observing it from the outside -- I have no inside knowledge here). People seem to stay at FB for longer tenures, and now we see them even moving from other publishers over to FB.

I am glad to see it.