High among the portions of this website that have received the most hits and "thank you" messages are my articles on what I call Unfinanced Entrepreneurs. Put simply, these are people who try to hire writers and artists to work, not for money, but for vague and shifting promises of money somewhere down the line if and when the project is successful. It has been my observation (and, sadly, experience) that few of those projects are ever successful and that even when they are, the promises are rarely honored.
There is no creative person alive who can't tell you a dozen stories of how they got screwed over by accepting such propositions. Still, most of us fall for them now and then, and of course it's the newest people who fall the hardest. Last month, I was contacted by a friend whose son is an aspiring comic book artist. The son is so eager/desperate (pick one) to get into comics that when an established writer of some success offered him the chance to illustrate a 64-page graphic novel "on spec," the son leaped at the opportunity and quit his real job, which paid him actual money. From there on, it's a long, ugly story so I'll cut to where it stands now: The kid spent six months drawing the graphic novel. The writer has the pages, will probably never do anything with them and will not return phone calls or e-mails. Except maybe as a practice exercise, the experience could not have been more of a waste for the young artist. His work will not be published. There will be no payment. He doesn't even have the original artwork to sell or show around as a sample.
This kind of thing happens way too often so we have to keep reminding each other. To that end, one group is doing something about it and about one party in particular.
Gail Simone, a fine writer who believes she was victimized by this party, is one of the key organizers. Also involved are Scott Shaw! and Sarah Beach and several others. They have a website with the glorious, apt name of Unscrewed. It's apt because they're out to turn their negative experiences into positive ones, not only righting some of the wrongs of their shafting but creating a bit of empowerment for creative folks who encounter swindlers. There's a forum over there and details on an anthology they're assembling to raise funds and I'm all for it. We'll never stop this kind of abuse but we can sure make creators less likely to fall for the malarkey.