I read the news of the passing of Bob Callahan at the same time I was scanning the two pages (for the Alec omnibus) that were reproduced somewhat poorly (they have problematic zipatones which demand some extra time and attention) in the book he edited, The New Smithsonian Book of Comic Book Stories: From Crumb to Clowes. I quite liked Bob the first time he called me and asked to reprint a story of mine. I never got paid the reprint fee but I mentally waived that since he sent me a great bunch of photocopies of Tad Dorgan's work for a book on the great cartoonist that he was making. If it ever got published I've never been able to find it. When somebody phoned me and asked for reprint rights for a two pager in the Smithsonisn book I didn't know Bob Callahan was behind that too, otherwise I'd have asked him for my tiny wee reprint fee for the first outing way back in 1991. Sure enough I didn't get paid for this one either. So now I've been in the habit, whenever somebody rings about a reprint enquiry, I say 'Hey, Bob Callahan isn't involved in this is he? No? oh, nothing, i was just asking." I guess I don't have to ask any more. Oh well, he'd probably get a laff out of my sketch (I think Tad may have been the first to say it*, allowing for inflation):
(*afterthought, no, it was Hershfield's Abie the Agent. But Harry and Tad worked in the same artroom, so close enough)
Labels: dates (1)
posted by Eddie Campbell at
17:23
8 Comments:
Hmm.. maybe I can learn one thing or two from you about getting money from my reprinted graphic journal..
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
you're right, i did delete it. Sign your name next time and I'll leave it in.
It's always the fifty bucks.
Once, a publisher accidentally included my writer's fee in the money paid to the artist who drew the story I phoned the artist and asked him to send me my portion. He told me he'd already spent it, as if that was end of it.
It was.
Nice wee blog. Keep it up.
Alistair
Geez thanks dude. Did ya get printed. He ate tv dinners for last part of his life. Yeah he would find your joke funny dude. I'll think of you when I clipping the toes nails of the mental ill at my job sucker as you go for that profound artist thing you do. Please have drink for the dead in the desert and know your a good guy.
His son
Oh(hum I am nervous about the world and can dismiss it in two letters)
His son is me David Orion Callahan.
Welcome to the terror dome silly
Speak well of the dead. To speak ill casts the net backwards and drags you into the deep.
Did you forget how hard Bob worked to bring into the light the early workers/pioneers/cartoonists/artists/writers
etc? Did the cartoon and joke at Bob's expense make you feel better?
Perhaps you might want to ask yourself why?
He tried hard, he loved large, and he lived always in poverty.
And yeah, he did screw up sometimes, but he NEVER made any money off anyone, spent all the dough on trying to make it better.
Lived on nothing, had nothing at the end, and died in poverty.
Take down yr damned cartoon.
He never made a dollar on anything he did, and CERTAINLY never made a dollar off anyone else.
I know for sure: most IF NOT ALL of any advance money he got was spent making sure the project went right — which, as you know from you own experiences, often doesn't happen even with the best of care.
Especially with NY publishers involved.
After all: you can't say a thing good? You have nothing to say after a lifetime of work?
After all, after all: let;s look at it:
a pioneer in the alt-comic scene, a life-time cheerleader for all kinds of writers and artists, always willing to go out on a limb for an artist or a writer or a friend but sometimes just not doing it right in the economic world and so seemingly fucked up and fucking up but here, then, here & then let;s tell the truth:
a pioneer, a hard worker, a man of large gifts of support . . . and always poor, always poor,m never made a dime off any work, often in debt because of it .......
Well. If you can't say something good. If you can't. Then, well, if you can't:
Then You've told your own story.
Take your shit down. It's insulting.
Eileen Callahan
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