PRINTING MR. SCOOTLES

[MattBrady]

by Ryan McLelland

It’s every indy comic creators dream: to be signed by a publisher and have their creations go from production at Kinko’s to high-quality versions that hit comic book stores nationwide. For indy comic Mr. Scootles that point finally came in 2006 when it was signed by Open Book Press and its newly relaunched SMASH Comics. When Mr. Scootles’ creator had a disagreement with how his property was being handled with Open Book he was free to null the contract, leave the company, and continue publishing the book on his own. What next happened was a true rarity in the comic book world. Open Book decided to publish the first three issue of Mr. Scootles, openly soliciting the books on such venues as Amazon.com, and a creator who signed a deal only to have it fall apart found himself on the sidelines as his own creation was continued to be printed while he made nothing from it.

The tagline of creator HC Noel’s indy darling Mr. Scootles reads ‘What becomes of your creations when you abandon them?’ For Noel (full name Howie Noeldechen) he has fought long and hard to see his comic see print since Mr. Scootles first appeared in ashcan form in local NYC comic shops like Jim Hanley’s Universe and Midtown Comics back in 2002. Nick Purpura, the general store manager at Hanley’s, remembers Scootles entrance into the store, “When creators come to us in the first place with a new comic, we’re very comic friendly so we’ll give it a try unless it looks like crap. But Howie was cool, very cool with us, and I thumbed through (Mr. Scootles) and remember finding it amusing.” Purpura says that Hanley’s will usually take a small order of a comic and, if it sells, order more from the creator which happened with Mr. Scootles. With a small start in New York, Noel would see a big bump when the trade paperback collecting the first two original ashcan issues was released in a pamphlet sized format. The comic gained not only a respectable following among indy comic collectors it also gained solid reviews and kudos from Newsarama to Wizard Magazine.

When Open Book Press’s Mike Gagnon offered a contract to publish Mr. Scootles, Noel was extremely happy. A deal was struck to republish the first three issue of Mr. Scootles followed by the last two issues of the first story arc, with two other miniseries to follow in later years to complete the Mr. Scootles trilogy. With his newly inked deal Noel went back to work on the first three books of Mr. Scootles, revising some of the art and adding some pages to give more characters some depth. With that work done and shipped to Open Book, Noel kept his lone concern as being only he could approve the book being published. His contract stipulated that Noel would see the proofs for his book before Mr. Scootles was published but as May 1st got closer Noel found himself wondering what was going on. The reason May 1st was such an important day was because that was the date SMASH Comics was putting the book out.

Shelley Madeja, Noel’s spouse/business manager and Noel himself talked back and forth with Gagnon on the phone and over e-mails. Several e-mails obtained by Newsarama have Gagnon changing dates when it came to the proofs to issue one and its release date. Gagnon also replies via these e-mails that the proofs will be sent via e-mail but the proofs never arrived, thus causing Madja to make multiple requests for the book. A May 15, 2006 letter from Noel stated to Gagnon and his business partner Chris Campozzi, “A few problems arose for me. I never received the proofs I was supposed to for Book 1. This stipulation was to protect me when it came to how the final books would look. I am mostly concerned about how the covers are being printed, since Book 2 was recently previewed to thecomicsreview.com with an uncropped cover image. That cover only works when it is cropped properly. Otherwise, it loses its impact and meaning. A sample print of the cover was included with the disc and should have helped avoid this from happening. Mike also informed me that Book 1 was published and I had no knowledge of this. I'm not sure when my copies will arrive.”

Gagnon would follow up that e-mail with one that stated: “Hey guys, I'll run down this list and try to alleviate any problems. I apologize for your not receiving the proofs of book one. I had to made a business management decision in a pinch, and made the judgment call that I felt would be the best choice for the book.

“We were behind schedule and operating on a tight deadline. The book had already been promised to distributors for May 1st and had I delayed production any longer for any reason the book would have shipped late. I did not want a late shipping book affecting our reputation with retailers as well as the public reputation of anyone involved. Had the book been late I of course would have accepted the responsibility, but that often has little
effect on the public at large, and would have affected everyone's reputation regardless of my acceptance of blame. We're caught up now and I will ship you proofs of #2 in the very near future for you to review. I know you're worried as you're dealing with a new company, but trust me we're not going to screw you over by putting out substandard product. We do have our money and reputations on the line as well.

“The sample you've seen online is from solicitation copy. It is an image used simply to let people know what to expect on the cover when it is released. This is generated simply by printing or resizing the actual picture file. In this case I added the logo. In many cases and with bigger publishers (Marvel) the logo is often left off and they use thumbnails of the raw image with no additions. This is part of the solicitation process. When we actually create the print file for the cover of number 2 it will be cropped according to the specs you sent. Thumbnails sent out with the solicitations are often "prototypes", and final versions do vary. This is a common practice in the industry.

“Because of the tight deadline as mentioned before We didn't have time to ship the comp copies prior to release because we were racing to meet the promised schedule. Also as we discussed in the conversation when I phoned you last week I did place an order for copies , which you said never arrived and we are left to assume the order was lost/misplaced. The following day I shipped the last three copies I had in the office to you.”

Noel would not receive his copies of the books nor the proofs. Two weeks went by until a slew of e-mails began between both camps when Gagnon would write a brief e-mail on May 29th, “Does this cover work for you?” The e-mail was responded back to by Madeja saying, “There is a glaring problem with the title font on the back cover.” The rest of the e-mail talked about how to fix such a problem with the font.”

On the same day Gagnon would respond back with “I had difficulty installing the file and getting it to work on my computer. For some reason my computer (PC) wouldn't recognize it. Anyway, I got around it and made it work. Please find a courtesy proof attached.”

Madeja would not receive the proof file attached and wrote back to Gagnon, “You mean the font? I apologize. I'm glad you got it to work, though. That same font is on all the Back Covers, so now that you have it, it will be easy from here on out! It may have been an extension problem. I think you forgot to attach the proof.”

Two days would go by without a proof being sent out via regular or e-mail. Another e-mail was sent out to Gagnon on May 31st stating, “Hi Mike, Can you please try sending the proof again. We never got the revised. Thanks.”

Following these e-mails, a general e-mail was sent out by Gagnon to all those associated with SMASH Comics stating:

“There's good news and bad news.

The Bad News

We've all been stabbed in the back.

As of today all the accounts for the business were supposed to be changed to my name. Yesterday, before this could happen Chris decided to close them all before the time when we were supposed to change them over as mutually agreed.

Luckily I had already set up most of my own accounts here and had already switched all the info over, meaning I was already getting most of our sales sent to my new business account here.

Where the difficulty comes in is that Chris also arbitrarily closed the credit account that we both shared. This presents a problem because all of our printing, shipping, and file processing fees were automatically billed to our credit account. Now that Chris has gone ahead and closed them before we could have them put in my name he has effectively shut down all our printing, shipping, order processing, and production of new books.

I believe that this was a last ditch attempt for him to try and prove that the company couldn't survive without his help. This from a guy who just told me days ago that he wanted back in when he found out that things were picking up and doing well.

I am away from the office today, but over the next few days I will be taking steps to undo the damage done and get all our production rolling again on a new account.

The company is now totally being run on my work and financing, so I am going to make a couple small changes because I don't have the same resources as Chris. Number one, I don't think we'll be doing any new hard covers anymore, number two, I'd like to talk to you creators about other ideas. One being to do royalties on a quarterly rather than a monthly basis, as most publishers do. This would mean less royalty payments, but the ones you do get would be bigger and reflect a more realistic view of the sales. I'd like to get everyone's opinion on this before I make any changes though.

I will continue to finish the April Royalties and send them out this week, but they may be a little late because I have to work damage control first.

The good news however is that we have new distributors and channels we're exploring.

Dimestore Productions and Locus Magazine are both distributing our product now. And I am also in the process setting up direct sales account with the Barnes & Noble warehouses and retail ordering department.

I'm on a timed computer so I'll have to go but I will send out more info soon.”

Also following the e-mail talking about the troubles Gagnon had with his business partner, Noel would receive this letter: “Just writing to let you know I did get Shelley (Madeja)'s message. Sorry for the delay in response. Things are hectic here. I'm having e-mail problems today too. I actually wrote this whole long detailed e-mail to you already, but the e-mail server dropped the connection when I went to save it and lost the whole dam thing, so I apologize if I miss any details here. Just trying to re-write the whole thing the second time as fast as I can.

I'll just try and cover everything in point form this time.

1. As I mentioned having e-mail problems. I attached the PDF before, but it didn't send for some reason, so I'll attach it again and send to also form my home account.

2. I just wanted to point out, I've worked with other creators in the past who were unhappy, or misinterpreted things and had me deal with their spouse instead of them. I sincerely hope this isn't the case here. I have no problem talking to Shelley, but I also want to build a positive work relationship with you as well. There nay have been some differences and problems with the first version of issue one, but it's nothing that we can't mutually overcome through communication. If you ever have any problems or concerns please don't hesitate to contact me. I know it's hard to hand your baby over to someone else when you've always had the control, but if we can communicate any issues to each other in a respectful manner it would benefit us both greatly.

3. I did get your disk of cover art and will implement the images immediately. Please don't panic if you see other versions of the covers in promotional use. It takes a couple weeks for most distributors and retailers to implement new images, so any images I've used up until now will be up until the places like Amazon and Baker & Taylor process the new images.

4. Since I believe you still aren't signed up for the newsletters I'll fill you in on what was in yesterday's newsletter. As of Wednesday we were all stabbed in the back by Chris. Yesterday and today all the business accounts were supposed to be switched to my name and finalize my taking full control of the company. When Chris wasn't getting his way on a minor issue he decided to close all the business accounts a day early and shut them down completely. This was part of a last ditch attempt for him to try and prove the company couldn't survive without him. I had already set up my own banking here and had all the sales payments, royalties, etc. diverted to that account, so we won't miss any sales payments, but he also cancelled the credit accounts. Unfortunately all our production expenses with BookSurge such as printing, shipping, order fulfillment and file processing were automatically billed to that account. So when Chris closed the account he effectively shut down all of our production. Once I get all the pressing business matters and e-mails done I will be spending the rest of today and the weekend getting new credit accounts set up to get our production rolling again.

5. On the positive side Dimestore Productions and Locus magazine will also be distributing our books, and I am in the process of setting up direct sales accounts with Barnes & Nobles Warehousing and retail accounts.

6. Also regarding your questions relating to Amazon. I'm going to cover all the points when it comes to publishing/sales. Don't take this as me trying to attack or school you, just covering all the points we covered with all the creators. You're in a weird spot where the manual was out long before you were involved with us, and when the newsletters relating to all this publishing info went out you weren't signed up, so you missed a lot of the stuff that everyone else got answered and informed on.

a) Regarding sales and distribution. No publisher can promise a distributor will carry a book before hand. Diamond as an example, any small press that tells you that a book will be in Diamond before it's been reviewed or finished is lying. No publisher, even established ones, can make the claim that Diamond or any other distributor is guaranteed to carry a book, until that actual distributor says they will. Also when it comes to sales no publisher can promise the order number until orders are placed. Every book is different. I can't tell you what Baker & Taylor will order or what Amazon will order. Amazon has been steadily increasing orders for all our books, so that looks good, but we can't predict this orders. As for them having two copies of Mr. Scootles, they do have a small order of stock of the first version, printed on demand, there hasn't been a large order that has gone to press yet, which is good because we're altering the cover as per your specs.

b) In the relationship of publisher and creator the publisher is the employer, employing the creator for their creative ability. Many newcomers make the mistake of believing they are a client of the publisher. This is the opposite. Those who think they are a client make the mistake of believing that the publisher is there to take orders and do their work for them, and that they are in fact in charge. This is a mistake, at no point has the publisher been hired by the creator, and money has never changed ands and been paid to the publisher to perform a service. The publisher's money is on the line, risk and invested in the printing, promotion, and success of the book. The only time the creator is a client is when they are vanity publishing or self-publishing and have paid a company that provides the publishing as a service. We do traditional publishing as a retail sales venture. The reason everyone needs to know the difference is that creators who have the wrong idea often step in an issue orders in a disrespectful manner, treat the publisher as an underling, or request for the publisher to complete their work for them. Creators who behave this way and cannot correct his behavior are often quickly gotten rid of. Especially with the company being solely run on my own financial investment now, things have to be kept professional. Many of these situations can be avoided if creators and publishers maintain a level headed and respectful, professional working relationship between them.

c) Respect and professionalism are a must in communications. We can have fun and I consider many of our creators as friends, but problems should never result in disrespectful communication.

d) A bump in the road is not the end of the world. Don't panic and think the sky is falling. Remember to keep a level head, and take a step back and breath once in awhile. Publishing is an industry of patience. You are involved in the business world now, and in that world things rarely go smoothly, issues and inconveniences will arrive, but the best way to overcome them is with a level head. It's not the end of the world and panicking doesn't resolve any problems. Well thought planning does.

7. If you are still unhappy, or apprehensive over anything and are uncomfortable with giving the production control over to a publisher, I am in the process of launching a new vanity publishing service for those who want to maintain full control of their books. It would be for creators who want the benefits of dealing with us and the work we do, but want to keep full control and pay for our services and publishing expenses.

Read all this through, see if you have any questions or concerns and let me know if there's anything else we need to straighten out.”

Noel, at this time, felt that his characters and the printing of his book weren’t being used in the matter that he as creator and copyright holder were not being used correctly and decided on June 4th to split from the SMASH Comics group stating:

“Open Book Press has broken contract with myself, Howard Noeldechen. In addition to the extremely unprofessional demeanor you project, please see the following contractual provisions that have been broken:

*Paragraph 3, Line 1;* Open Book Press has failed to "produce the property into a published comic book series format". "Comic book series format" size is 6-5/8" W x 10-1/4" H, Open Book Press has published Mr. Scootles in 7" W x 10" H format. Because this is not industry standard, the format stipulated in the contract has not been upheld. A fact that is detrimental to the sales of the comic Mr. Scootles due to the book not fitting on the shelves of comic stores, as well as leading comic book distributors such as Diamond also refusing distribution due to non-compliance with industry standards.

*Paragraph 5, Line 1;* Open Book Press has failed to provide an "appropriate advertising and marketing campaign" to promote the comic Mr. Scootles. An existing relationship with Wizard magazine at the time of signing has been ignored and thus deteriorated, resulting in negative marketing. Popular comic review websites that were mentioned to Open Book Press as outlets for in-expensive or free advertising were ignored, resulting in numerous missed opportunities for appropriate marketing. Uncropped imagery of the comic cover was submitted to review sites, resulting in negative marketing.

Finally, to quote you, "If this isn't what anyone signed on for and they want out now all they have to do is tell me." I did not "sign on" for a stressful, unprofessional publishing experience.

“The above statement is to be considered as proof of the contract granting Open Book Press printing rights to Mr. Scootles as null and void. Open Book Press is hereby refused right to the 1st and 2nd printing of Mr. Scootles by its creator, Howard Noeldechen. Please cease and desist any production of this property.”

Two days later, on June 6th, Gagnon would write back his response to Noel: “It is unfortunate that the situation had to be handled in this way. I have always stated that you could come to me with any problems and work things out. I have continued to send samples and material to Wizard. Also, because the art and cover were still being changed until just recently, it is difficult to promote a product that is not finished. Had you come to me with the concern over the size, we could have made changes to that, so far we have not had any of our retailers express any problems with it. My previous e-mail was sent to fill you in on material you had missed and what was going on here, not to attack or offend, just keep you up to date. I would also be very careful about making statements regarding professionalism and our relationship with Diamond or other distributors as they could have legal repercussions. I will let my publishing contact in France know that Mr. Scootles is no longer available. No reviewers have been ignored, many review copies have been sent out and positive reviews have come in, however we can not force a reviewer who has a copy of the book to post or publish a review, or review the book faster.

Had we discussed your issues and concerns more, several solutions could have been met, such as having you create the print layouts and having us approve them, guaranteeing that future issues would turn out as close to your vision as possible.

It's unfortunate to see things develop in this way, as I did look forward to working with you and building this series towards a common goal.

Also, the contract states that the series would be produced in comic format (with no specifics on size) within one year, signed September 16th 2005. If you saw the current size as a violation of the contract and had expressed that concern we could still have released a new version to your size specs prior to Sept. 16th 2006 and still been within our contract terms.

The points you make regarding the contract are arguable, but I don't believe in forcing someone into a business relationship they don't want.

It saddens me to see you make this decision, as I was already making plans to involve you heavily with promotions and sales in your local area, once we had resolved any outstanding issues with book one.

I sincerely wish you the best of success with Mr. Scootles and all other work you do, and sincerely hope you can find the success you are looking for in whatever channels you choose to pursue.”

Another e-mail sent the very same day also said, “I also wanted to thank you for the professional matter in which you announced the split of Mr. Scootles from SMASH! Comics on your blog. I will issue you a sales statement along with any royalties on orders already shipped on July 1st. Best of luck for the future.”

This hasn’t stopped listings of the comics to appear at Amazon.com for the first three issues. While issue two had been said to be unavailable it was, as of October 25th, available to purchase both the first and third issues of the series. Hearsay caught between the two camps had been said that once Amazon lists a product it is near impossible to take it down. While it is unknown who said this or when, contacting Amazon came up quickly with the following answer from Shaena K of Amazon.com’s Customer Service Center, “If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide Amazon.com's copyright agent the written information specified below. Please note that this procedure is exclusively for notifying Amazon.com and its affiliates that your copyrighted material has been infringed:

An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest; a description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been
infringed upon; a description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the site, including the auction ID number, if applicable; Your address, telephone number, and e-mail address; a statement by you that you have a good-faith belief that the
disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf.”

Thusly it seems that if Mr. Scootles comics are being made available on Amazon.com for purchase but aren’t legally supposed to be sold do the break of contract made between Noel and Gagnon, being able to stop the sale of Mr. Scootles on Amazon.com is a process that is quick to rectify.

Representatives for Baker and Taylor refused to comment on this article. SMASH Comic’s Mike Gagnon had only this to say, “Sorry for the delay in response. As you may know from Howie he and Open Book Press are no longer working together. There is a new management team taking over and if you're interested I'd be happy to provide their contact info for future interest in any of the books we do publish.”

However, for Noel, a sales statement would never arrive, along with no royalties. Why would this matter if the comic was never released? The point matters because as issue one was in fact posted on Amazon.com and soon enough issues two and three would pop up on the website available to be ordered as well. On October 25th an order was placed by this writer for both issue one and issue three from Amazon.com and the order was finally fulfilled on December 8th. However it seems that the third issue had now become unavailable, while issue one was shipped. As of December 10th Noel has never had any response on date of sale, how many copies were sold, or made any profit. No copies of the SMASH Comics Mr. Scootles #1 were ever furnished to Noel even though the books are on sale at Amazon. His book has in fact been printed and someone has seen some sort of profit from the book though Noel, through the book’s creator has yet to see any money or a final product of a book that is still continuing to be sold.

HC Noel has continued on self-publishing Mr. Scootles which recently saw issue 4 released and is currently talking to another company looking to publish the indy comic, posting any new information on his website hcnoel.com. The Open Book Press website looks to be permanently down though SMASH Comics can be viewed at its address www.smashcomics.ca. As of right now the SMASH Comics version of Mr. Scootles #1, the one of which its creator doesn’t not even own nor is making any money off of, is still available for purchase on Amazon.com’s website with issues #2 and #3 still on the site, which after being available for months to be able to be bought are at the moment appearing to be unavailable for purchase.

Noel has not abandoned the cartoon character that has seen him gain a bit of fame in the indy world but the ongoing saga of the SMASH Comics Mr. Scootles comics still keeps going, with Newsarama receiving a copy of the SMASH Comics version from Amazon.com while the creator will never see a dime from the sale. The book features four blank pages at the book’s end, graphics on the back cover which Noel claims were taken from his personal website and used without his permission, and a one sentence biography (“H.C. Noel is an eclectic and mysterious comic creator living somewhere in the state if (sic) Maryland.”) that the outspoken and visible creator abhors.

While sales of Mr. Scootles #1 continue for SMASH Comics and Noel continues work on book five of his work this story will surely be interesting going into the New Year, watching this ongoing story of the relaunch of SMASH while Noel continues to gain nothing from the creation who launched his career.

POSTSCRIPT

Before this article went to press, Newsarama learned of the changing hands of SMASH Comics from Mike Gagnon to new owners Daniel Frey and Doug Crill. A letter sent to creator HC Noel told details of the events stating:

“This letter is from Daniel Frey and Doug Crill the new owners of Open Book Press.

We are sending out a letter to all current and past publications of OBP to inform them about some of the circumstances of the take over and to give them an accounting of the publication of their book/books.

First, OBP was aquired by Dark Dance Productions, LLC to become the printing division of that multimedia company. OBP is being relaunched as a traditional publishing company, January 2007, with imprints covering trade paper backs, graphic novels, YA children's books, children's picture books. All comic books will be under the SMASH! Comics imprint only.

Upon the take over of OBP we learned the following. None of the titles at OBP were distributed to the public. For the years 2005 to 2006, the catalog of OBP was only listed with a few distributors who never distributed them. No consistent advertising or marketing was accomplished. This effectively means that your book/books should be resubmitted to the publisher of your choice because in all essential terms they were never really published. Do to the fact that all books were printed by Booksurge.com, a print-on-demand company, distributors as well as retail chains will not handle such books.

Accounting

Mr. Scootles
printed: 50
online sales: 0
06 royalty: $0.00

Comment

Due to the high cost of print-on-demand books your book did not clear the printing cost.

We encourage you to keep writing and creating. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact Daniel Frey/ art director or Doug Crill/ managing editor.

Thank you,

Daniel Frey/ publisher OBP
Studio City, CA”

This letter, however, does seem to include several inaccuracies including the fact that Mr. Scootles #1 is still readily available on Amazon.com and had been purchased as research through that site for this article. The books sold by Open Book Press to the retail dealer also does not mesh with the fact that fifty copies of the book were printed while none were sold and not distributed to the public.

Noel has issued this final statement on the matter:

"By signing with Open Book Press, I lost a year of creating, marketing and self-publishing my series, Mr. Scootles. The new owners have informed me of the lack of bookkeeping, actual publishing, and marketing that the prior owner(s) were guilty of. They show no records of sales for Mr. Scootles, however I know several copies have sold and yet I have not made one cent from these sales. Hell, I even ordered one myself.

“I found the final printed product to be below the standards I have set for myself, and was going through the necessary steps to insure the changes necessary would happen when it came time for me to end my contract with Open Book Press/ Smash Comics. The new owners have revealed to me that the comics were being "printed on-demand", something I can achieve on my own at sites like Comixpress. I advise any indy creator who feels it necessary to sign with a company or someone promoting themselves as a publisher, to carefully research who is trying to sign you and whether or not they can accomplish anything you can't do on your own.

“I did some research when the contract was offered, but I was thinking of a bigger picture, and missing the small details in front of me. I only signed with the company to receive more awareness for my story and to build a brand. Since terminating the relationship with Open Book Press, Mr. Scootles has been reviewed and featured on Newsarama, Ain't It Cool and the Ed Norris Radio Show in Baltimore, MD. All of the current issues are available on my store at hcnoel.com.

“2007 will mark the release of Mr. Scootles Book Five and later on, a trade paperback editon of all five issues as well as several "extras". I feel like somebody tried to steal the first book from me and as a way of coming to peace with this, I would like to offer the first chapter of the Mr. Scootles saga, Book One, as a free preview here on Newsarama.com [the preview will be up later today, January 2nd]. I hope this offers readers a chance to discover a new story from the independent scene and prepares them for the trade's release later this year."

[bishop-m]

That's quite the story. I've had the pleasure of reading Mr. Scootles(purchasing them from HC's website) and it is a great indy book. Hopefully this will get straightened out. I wish HC all the best, and urge people to give this book a try...it's quite good...

[Ricber]

Love this book!
I've been of fan of Mr. Scootles for a long time and it's sad to hear these kind of stories from Indy creators trying to get their work out.
I wish Howie the best of luck with all this and look forward to any other work he does.
Anyone thinking of trying Mr. Scootles out, should. It's really unique.
-Rich B.

[Del Gorky]

As comic fans we are all just lucky this happened to Mr. Scootles and not Ms. Marvel. I think all comicdom has dodged a bullet here. It looks like the latest thrilling adventure of Ms. Marvel will instead be published on schedule by Marvel comics this very week. Great thanks go out to Brian Reed for wisely making sure Marvel published Ms. Marvel and not Smash Comics. Way to go Brian; good choices lead to success!

[ziza9]

"Sorry for the delay in response." Gagnon should just change his name to that. What a joker. Did he get his business degree from the back of a comic? Best of luck to HC and Mr. Scootles going forward. Sorry you had to go through this hell to live out your dream.

[hcnoel]

First off, a huge thank you to Ryan for writing this article and to Matt for posting it. I really wanted to warn people out there who are just trying to work towards a "big break" somewhere in the business. Newsarama has geen very gracious to allow me to give to readers what was taken from me.
bishop-m and ziza9-Thank you for your support and for following Mr. Scootles. People like you are a reason I don't quit and I don't let things like this stop me. Mr. Scootles lives on!
Ricber-Thank you! The next beer is on me and Scootles!

Howie

[Mr_Fish]

It sounds like Mr. Noel simply had the misfortune of dealing with someone who was ludicrously inexperienced in comics publishing. They were using a print-on-demand website for all their printing? And the final product had 4 blank pages at the back? That's just sad. To indy creators: Check out your company's reputation before you sign anything.

[katapult]

Oh My God. That is horrible. I'm very sorry that Mr. Scootles has had such a bumpy road. I really hope that with all this press he can find somebody who would be willing to give the book a proper chance.

-Kat

[ziza9]

Originally Posted by hcnoel

First off, a huge thank you to Ryan for writing this article and to Matt for posting it. I really wanted to warn people out there who are just trying to work towards a "big break" somewhere in the business. Newsarama has geen very gracious to allow me to give to readers what was taken from me.
bishop-m and ziza9-Thank you for your support and for following Mr. Scootles. People like you are a reason I don't quit and I don't let things like this stop me. Mr. Scootles lives on!
Ricber-Thank you! The next beer is on me and Scootles!

Howie

Hey, don't mention it. By the way...what a fun website you have. Keep up the good work.

All the best.

[DeadlockRox!]

Crazy. I went to elementary school with that guy! Hope he gets his book straightened out, he always was known for his cartooning prowess.

[hcnoel]

Originally Posted by DeadlockRox!

Crazy. I went to elementary school with that guy! Hope he gets his book straightened out, he always was known for his cartooning prowess.

That's awesome. Thanks for the support! I must also mention, that I was pretty good at dodgeball too.

[ducko5]

Thanks for this article. I think there's not enough articles out there about what could go wrong for indy creators.

Good luck with all your future business deals!

[codazen]

I also signed a contract with Open Book Press for the production of a trade paper back of my comic book Underlords. My story was similar to HC Noel's but with much less headaches being that my book was a 4 issue mini and not an ongoing series. I know Mike Gagnon and think he simply got in over his head. I am not making excuses. Believe me, I was very disappointed that my book was not handled or promoted to the level I felt it should have been. However, as disappointed with the original experience as I was I have to say the new management group has impressed me with their professionalism. I stuck with Open Book through the ownership change and have received regular and in depth communications from day one of the restructure. Point being, to all creators, stick to your goals. Weather that means changing publishers or riding out the storms at the one you are with. Best of luck to HC Noel. Keep pushing the dream.
Nice article Ryan.
Greg

[ShinAkuma666]

Crazy story, thanks for sharing, hopefully it will help many more creators.

Also, good luck with your comic, it looks like a fun ride, will check your website more later on.

[innocentboy]

sad story.
wish i knew what to say.

[hcnoel]

Originally Posted by ShinAkuma666

Crazy story, thanks for sharing, hopefully it will help many more creators.

Also, good luck with your comic, it looks like a fun ride, will check your website more later on.

Thank you! I think you'll enjoy Mr. Scootles trip through Hell, even if poor Scootles doesn't!
Don't forget to play the Mr. Scootles rag doll game when you vist my site...it is a great time waster!

[MGAGNON]

Several claims made in this posting are innacuarate. I bear no ill will to those involved, but I sincerely hope that readers take time to consider the information and make an informed decision from both sides before passing judgement. If anyone has questions or wants to hear my side, or even send me hate mail about it, you can e-mail me directly at mgagnon@bmts.com

I stand by my position and feel it is very unfortunate that several of these false claims have been made.

Mike Gagnon, former publisher of SMASH! Comics/Open Book Press

[RyanMcLelland]

In reaction to Mr. Gagnon’s response in the Talk Back section, the following should be noted:

The article ‘Printing Mr. Scootles’ took several months of research to write. Within that time frame the quotes used within the article are taken verbatim from Mr. Gagnon’s e-mails. At no time did Newsarama take Mr. Gagnon’s own words out of context or attempt to provide readers with an imbalanced article. Should Mr. Gagnon feel that his e-mails were taken out of context, those e-mails are available to print to provide Newsarama readers with a look at what he, in his own words, exactly wrote.

Newsarama made several attempts to contact Mr. Gagnon for this article. After those numerous tries to speak with Mr. Gagnon the only response received was the following: “Sorry for the delay in response. As you may know from Howie he and Open Book Press are no longer working together. There is a new management team taking over and if you're interested I'd be happy to provide their contact info for future interest in any of the books we do publish.” which, again, was printed verbatim from Mr. Gagnon’s e-mail into the ‘Printing Mr. Scootles’ article.

Should Mr. Gagnon feel that he was improperly represented in any part of this article, he can completely feel free to reach out, as Newsarama had tried several times, to talk about his experiences with Open Book Press, SMASH Comics, and the ordeal with HC Noel and Mr. Scootles, including the fact of Mr. Scootles #1 still being available for purchase on Amazon.com while Open Book Press’ own accountants verify that not one copy of the book has been sold to the public even while at least one copy was sold to Newsarama for research for this article.

Ryan McLelland
Writer - Newsarama

[MGAGNON]

In response to Mr. McLelland:

Although I do respect your right as a journalist to report news, I have never recieved an e-mail specifically asking me about the claims being made by Mr. Noel.

Had your e-mail stated you were inquiring because of claims of wrong doing I would have handled it directly and at that time. When I recieved your e-mail I assumed it was general media interest which is why I forwarded you to those who would better be able to help with that.

I do not dispute the e-mail excerpts posted in your article, however the claims being made in the rest of the article are false.

In either case I will be responding via a press release to the media which will be accompanied by documentation which will prove these claims are false, as well as another posting here directly addressing your previous post and the statements made in it. This material will be sent out over the next 24 hours.

I want to re-iterate, I do not have any personal beef with you, and I even hope the best for Mr. Noel and his future career, but I cannot stand by while false statements are being thrown around in a public manner.

Mike Gagnon

[Tim Tylor]

Originally Posted by MGAGNON

I do not dispute the e-mail excerpts posted in your article, however the claims being made in the rest of the article are false.

One claim made in the article that can easily be confirmed: the Open Book Press edition of Mr. Scootles #1 is still on offer at Amazon.

[MGAGNON]

As I have explained to Mr. Noel on more than one occaision. Amazon placed and recieved thier order for Mr. Scootles prior to the termination of the contract. Any distributor or retailer who recieved thier orders prior to the end of our contract is legally within thier rights to sell off thier inventory. Just because something is listed for sale on Amazon does not mean there are any actual sales. In the case of Amazon, when they buy from a small publisher all orders are on consignment, so we only get paid for what sells. When they ordered It was a very small order which they are still trying to sell off. That's why he's not making "big bucks" off his comic, it isn't selling. Within the next few hours I'll also be posting documents proving that Mr. Noel did in fact recieve royalty statments and sales records and that the expenses of preparing the book far outweighted the handful, and I mean handful, of books sold. You can't make money on royalties if the book doesn't make any profit.

[Nat Gertler]

Originally Posted by MGAGNON

You can't make money on royalties if the book doesn't make any profit.

Just to keep things clear: this may (or may not) be true for the Open Book contract. It is not something that is generally true. Plenty of people make royalties off of projects that do not make a profit.

[MGAGNON]

As promised I have returned with proof of my defense against the claims made by Mr. Howard Noeldechen and Mr. McLelland.

As the body of this response is going to be long enough I will not try to post documents here. My official press release and links to documents supporting my defense and proving the claims to be false can be found at my personal weblog at http://lightning.motime.com

You will find file links and information there directly contrasting the article by Mr. McLelland. There are documents there that support many of the responses I will be writing here too.

Now I will cover the article itself here regarding its claims and points.

“Open Book decided to publish the first three issue of Mr. Scootles, openly soliciting the books on such venues as Amazon.com, and a creator who signed a deal only to have it fall apart found himself on the sidelines as his own creation was continued to be printed while he made nothing from it.”

We never published issues 2 or 3. No books were ever printed and there have been no sales. Just because a book is listed on Amazon doesn’t mean there are sales. Also all title listings and solicitations were completed with Mr. Noel’s knowledge and before the contract was terminated, not after as the article suggests here. Publishers have to solicit books a minimum of six months before the release date, they have to work that far ahead with retailers and distributors in order to generate advance orders and thereby determine print run quantities etc. Issue two and three had been solicited well before the date that Mr. Noel ended his relationship with Open Book Press.

“A deal was struck to republish the first three issue of Mr. Scootles followed by the last two issues of the first story arc, with two other miniseries to follow in later years to complete the Mr. Scootles trilogy.”

This claim is false. There was no commitment or agreement for Mr. Scootles beyond the first mini-series. A long term commitment for an unproven property is unheard of. I honestly would have been more comfortable with a shorter mini-series. There is part of our contract that supports this claim.

“His contract stipulated that Noel would see the proofs for his book before Mr. Scootles was published but as May 1st got closer Noel found himself wondering what was going on. The reason May 1st was such an important day was because that was the date SMASH Comics was putting the book out.”

Same for this claim.

“Gagnon also replies via these e-mails that the proofs will be sent via e-mail but the proofs never arrived, thus causing Madja to make multiple requests for the book.”

Many attempts to deliver these files by e-mail were made. E-mails were continually bouncing back and being rejected by their mail server, messages that the inbox was full were quite common, and attempts to verify that I had the proper current mailing address to send a disk of the files via mail were never responded to.

“A sample print of the cover was included with the disc and should have helped avoid this from happening.”

The disk with the cropped cover did not arrive until after the original material had already been sent to www.thecomicsreview.com

“Two days would go by without a proof being sent out via regular or e-mail. Another e-mail was sent out to Gagnon on May 31st stating, “Hi Mike, Can you please try sending the proof again. We never got the revised. Thanks.”

Again attempts to respond were chronically rejected.

“This hasn’t stopped listings of the comics to appear at Amazon.com for the first three issues. While issue two had been said to be unavailable it was, as of October 25th, available to purchase both the first and third issues of the series.”

This is incorrect. A quick check with the records of both BookSurge and Amazon shows that no copies of number 2 or 3 were ever printed, shipped, or sold. I am currently getting additional documentation to support this and will be added to the documents already up on my weblog. Mr. Noel was informed on several occasions that the listings on Amazon were not a result of the books availability, but the advanced solicitations prior to his decision to leave Open Book Press.

“While it is unknown who said this or when, contacting Amazon came up quickly with the following answer from Shaena K of Amazon.com’s Customer Service Center, “If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide Amazon.com's copyright agent the written information specified below. Please note that this procedure is exclusively for notifying Amazon.com and its affiliates that your copyrighted material has been infringed:

An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest; a description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been
infringed upon; a description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the site, including the auction ID number, if applicable; Your address, telephone number, and e-mail address; a statement by you that you have a good-faith belief that the
disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf.”

Thusly it seems that if Mr. Scootles comics are being made available on Amazon.com for purchase but aren’t legally supposed to be sold do the break of contract made between Noel and Gagnon, being able to stop the sale of Mr. Scootles on Amazon.com is a process that is quick to rectify.”

I could not agree more, legitimate matters of copyright infringement are quick to rectify on Amazon. FOR the copyright holder! Who we have already established, supported by the contract and this article is none other than Mr. Noel himself. If Mr. Noel really felt this material was such a problem, and he had a legitimate concern about copyright infringement he should have contacted Amazon directly and had it removed without delay. He is the copyright holder and is in his full legal right to do so. You’ve even got the instructions for him on how to do it right here! Could it be that there was an ulterior motive for sensationalizing this situation and drawing attention to it, giving him a reason not to take action?

“Mike Gagnon had only this to say, “Sorry for the delay in response. As you may know from Howie he and Open Book Press are no longer working together. There is a new management team taking over and if you're interested I'd be happy to provide their contact info for future interest in any of the books we do publish.”

This response was to an e-mail you sent me expressing a basic, general interest in Mr. Scootles, and I forwarded you to those who could help you. At the time you did not detail any concerns of claims of copyright infringement. Also, later in the article you claimed to have found out about the new owners after going to press with this article, but in the article you just quoted me here as telling you about it in my e-mail when you first enquired.

“However, for Noel, a sales statement would never arrive, along with no royalties. Why would this matter if the comic was never released? The point matters because as issue one was in fact posted on Amazon.com and soon enough issues two and three would pop up on the website available to be ordered as well.”

Statements were sent to Mr. Noel on or about November 16th 2006. This is nearly a full month before your later claim that he had received nothing by December 10th. Statements were sent by mail and e-mail; the mail package also contained copies of the book, all files and documents we had related to Mr. Scootles, and a document detailing why Diamond had turned down the book. Also, issue two and three were never available for sales, and the listing did not pop up at that time, the info listing had been up since before Mr. Noel had terminated the contract. If it was a concern for all that time I guess Mr. Noel should have followed those infringement instructions you posted above.

“As of December 10th Noel has never had any response on date of sale, how many copies were sold, or made any profit. No copies of the SMASH Comics Mr. Scootles #1 were ever furnished to Noel even though the books are on sale at Amazon.”

As I have explained by this time Mr. Noel had received his statement and the books were not being printed or shipped. 2 & 3 were not available for sale and never were, and Amazon is selling copies of number one ordered prior to the end of the contract.

“The Open Book Press website looks to be permanently down though…”

No, it appears Doug and Dan have the site up and running just fine.

“While sales of Mr. Scootles #1 continue for SMASH Comics”

The total number of books ordered by Amazon was 8. 8 copies. All before June. They still have 2 left they are trying to sell. Also note an attempt to order five single copies of issue one was made on Sunday January 7th. Rest assured that none of these orders will be printed or shipped.

“Before this article went to press, Newsarama learned of the changing hands of SMASH Comics from Mike Gagnon to new owners Daniel Frey and Doug Crill. A letter sent to creator HC Noel told details of the events stating:”

You just quoted me from an e-mail earlier in this article as telling you about the changes at Open Book when you first e-mialed me, and now here you're saying you found out last minute. The current owners of Open Book Press feel that the information posted attributed to them was misunderstood and taken out of context. A brief quote from them is part of my official press release on lightning.motime.com

“This letter, however, does seem to include several inaccuracies including the fact that Mr. Scootles #1 is still readily available on Amazon.com and had been purchased as research through that site for this article.”

If you bought a book it was from those original 8 sold to Amazon. However I did send a letter to Mr. Noel in Early November telling him about your interest in the book, your address, and that you had requested a review copy. The letter is among the documents posted online. Quite a coincidence.

"By signing with Open Book Press, I lost a year of creating, marketing and self-publishing my series, Mr. Scootles.”

I’m not sure how Mr. Noel lost a year of creativity. Why would someone stop creating because they signed with a publisher? Shouldn’t they do equal or more creating? As for marketing, I always encouraged and expected every creator at Open Book Press and SMASH! to take an active role in the marketing process, Mr. Noel included. The last thing I would have done is try to hinder his marketing efforts. If self-publishing was what he wanted to do then Mr. Noel should have continued with that. One of the issues I brought up to him was that he wanted so much control it was like he wanted to continue self-publishing, but have someone else to pay the bills, which is not how it works.

“They show no records of sales for Mr. Scootles, however I know several copies have sold and yet I have not made one cent from these sales. Hell, I even ordered one myself.”

Although I can’t speak for the accounting provided by Open Book’s current owners, I can say that Mr. Noel hasn’t made a cent from the book and he knows exactly why, he has the royalty statements; no one has made any money off of it. I have lost some of my own personal money on it.

“The new owners have revealed to me that the comics were being "printed on-demand",”

At no time in the history of Open Book Press during the time I owned it was it ever a secret that we used Print-on-demand. We were quite open about it and it was in all of our promotional stuff, books, pamphlets, and website. I even discussed it with Mr. Noel on the phone at least once.

Regarding Mr. McLelland’s later post:

“Should Mr. Gagnon feel that he was improperly represented in any part of this article, he can completely feel free to reach out, as Newsarama had tried several times, to talk about his experiences with Open Book Press, SMASH Comics, and the ordeal with HC Noel and Mr. Scootles, including the fact of Mr. Scootles #1 still being available for purchase on Amazon.com while Open Book Press’ own accountants verify that not one copy of the book has been sold to the public even while at least one copy was sold to Newsarama for research for this article.”

In response I will leave you with the closing of my Documentation of Defense, pasted from the recent entry on my weblog ( http://lightning.motime.com ):

It’s unfortunate to see Mr. McLelland go public with an article without thoroughly verifying the facts first. As he suggested to me on Newsarama that I should have “reached out and touched someone” if I thought the allegations were false, he too could have simply looked up my name on www.411.com or used the phone to call me, if e-mail wasn’t working for him, he could have called or sent a letter using the contact info that was on the website when I was still the owner. Especially for an article with such damning information, essentially trying to ruin a person’s reputation and career, I would think someone would want to take every means necessary to make sure it was accurate before putting it out there.

I sincerely hope Mr. Noel and Mr. McLelland will let this rest; continued false claims will result in criminal and legal charges.

[khuxford]

I'd like to see more on this topic. The sales numbers that were passed to the new management seemed to indicate no sales, which is obviously inaccurate if Amazon had and was selling copies of even just one issue.

[MGAGNON]

As I've stated previously, I can't speak for the accounting by the new management, but all accounting on my part when I was owner has been accurate and supplied to the creator well before the new management took over or this article came out. The current management of Open Book Press should not be made to suffer in any way for these false allegations.

It is quite probable the the new owners never had any records of this book, or if so were simply filed in storage as the book was cancelled well before they took the business over from me and they had absolutely no association with the book at all.