3 Things I Hadn’t Thought Of Before

* is Chad Carpenter and his Tundra getting a Sarah Palin-related bump? This article makes it seems like that is so, although it's hard to tell with any one article what is standard operating procedure and what is the interests of a specific reporter. I have no idea why this interests me, as just about any advantage one can ply in this market would probably be a good thing for that individual comic.

* like one supposes is the case with many circles of friends with freelancer contingents, my not-comics friends and I have been circulating and discussing stories about the practice of behemoth corporations when it comes to keeping some of that money to release the checks earlier. This is kind of a disgusting practice, and I think is a clear sign how the country's one-time conservative business culture has slowly become an aggressive, corporate business culture. I worked for a very conservative businessman in the 1980s (his son was the country's leading conservative politician for four years there) and you could file a single sheet of paper and get your paycheck a week early if you wanted -- say you had a vacation coming up, or you wanted to get your check before Christmas rather than after. They didn't charge you anything. One time I asked about it, and the response from the HR person was "Hey, it's your money."

Anyway, I mention this for a lot of reasons and not just because some of those companies own cartooning/comics market major players. I think it represents potential industry culture change. One of the defining elements of the traditional comics business over the last dozen years in particular is that its bigger companies have bought a lot of good will over the years by paying promptly -- paying with an almost furious alacrity in some cases. That could change as big-corporation practices settle in, and I think that would be a bigger change than a lot of us realize. I think it's worth thinking about whether or not the move of big corporations into more active positions with comics companies even means the kind of company conduct industry veterans expect from such companies, or if they'll frequently be a different kind of beast altogether.

* do media industry leaders misrepresent basic points concerning on-line issues purposely or because they don't know any better? I read this supposed high-end interview about newspaper seeing their contents lifted, and the person advocating for the newspapers' point of view fails to make the very simple and very crucial distinction between fellow publications lifting content and search engine leaches doing the same. I don't know about most journalists out there, but I figure there's a difference between having a story about, say, Jeff Smith lifted by a fellow comics site with superficial changes made to it or perhaps having all my money quotes republished in a post ostensibly "about" my article and the common occurrence of having one of my articles show up on of those sad clearinghouse sites that republishes all the stories with the name "Jeff" in them.
 
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