Evan Dorkin Opens Up About Comic Book Industry Hardships

Spencer Baculi |

Nov 28, 2018

Evan Dorkin is a veteran comic book creator best known for his original creations Milk & Cheese and Beasts of Burden. Having worked in the comic book industry since 1989, Dorkin is no stranger to the inner workings and professional hardships that his job entails. Recently, Dorkin took to his Twitter to express his honest feelings on the devastating hardships and oft ignored downsides of working in the industry:

I always used to say I’d never quit comics but I also said I’d never do variant covers and I caved on that one. I’m getting too old to live this marginally, especially when I have a collaborator comicblocking the most profitable project I have going. I’m just tired of all this.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

Dorkin begins by discussing the financial difficulties that his career has entailed:

I should have just gotten an agent and tried to do animation stuff full-time when I had the chance. We had better credits than a lot of full-time animation people. But I was fearful and resistant to change. I should have left SLG a decade earlier, but I was loyal and fearful etc.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

I should have chased money and stopped pushing my own work bc the 90s are long dead. It’s okay for me to live a cartoonist’s life, and your partner makes the crazy choice to be there, but your child doesn’t. I’m tired of still having to convince people to buy my stuff, 30 yrs in.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

I don’t make GNs and there’s no place for my humor stuff in the direct market. I’m down too deep to become a webcomics artist. I’m a comics writer now, I have no time or reason to work on Dork or anything like that. At least I have Beasts of Burden, working around the co-creator.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

KS and Patreon isn’t for everyone and/or every situation, btw. I can’t drop commitments and add ore on just to make some gag comics. Maybe the time is just over for that side of my career, for a while, at least. Times change, I didn’t. Dinosaurs die.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

The only things that have really made us solid money have been outside comics. Magazine/book work, illustration, animation writing/design/pitch bibles, and the thing we did this year which we can’t discuss yet. But stupid me, I concentrated on comics because that’s my heart.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

He then turns to discuss the frustrating situation regarding the delay of additional Beasts of Burden stories due to the work ethics of his Beasts of Burden co-creator Jill Thompson:

I joke about not ending up like Wally Wood, and yet I go wasting my life on comics. No life, money always a problem, feeling like the pages I ache over get tossed into a well. Then Beasts of Burden is successful — and the co-creator won’t finish a 5-yr old script It’s a joke.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

I don’t think many people understand that when someone throws a project under the bus, It’s not just that the book sits. There’s a domino effect. No second GN income. No foreign rights income (7 eds), no third and fourth GN. I can’t write/get paid. I have to find work.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

The letterer gets no work. DHC doesn’t recoup advances until after the collections. We’ve had one Beasts of Burden collection out, pub in 2010. A mini-series was written and only two issues came out. The fourth script was turned in 5 years ago. Anyone remember this tweet? I do. pic.twitter.com/2dHJz6Uow8

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

If you think I — and people at DHC over the years — haven’t done all possible to resolved this, think again. I’ve pleaded, cajoled, listened, walked from the book, walked back, brought in a new artist on side stories. There’s no dirt. No fall out. Also no new pgs/movement.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

ON a positive note, the collaboration between me, Ben Dewey, Nate Piekos and DHC on the Wise Dogs material has been the complete opposite experience. And we’re doing more. But until things get smoothed out, the main series storyline will not move forward, as it hasn’t in years.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

If you think I feel great venting like this, let me tell you, I don’t. It’s as stomach-ache-inducing as having someone throw you and your favorite project under three buses. I have written scores of e-mails, made calls, talked to editors, publishers and therapists. I’m exhausted.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

PRO TIP: ALWAYS HAVE A CO-CREATOR AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU AND COLLABORATORS ON A CREATOR-OWNED BOOK. EVEN IF ITS A GOOD FRIEND YOU’VE KNOWN FOR DECADES. Because you don’t know what could happen, and without one, you’re fucked. I learned it the hard way.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

If you still support this book, I thank you. No one should have to wait nine years for a second volume. That goes for the people working on it, as well, especially as it affects our incomes and lives, and sometimes our emotional well-being.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

The latest release in the core Beasts of Burden series, What the Cat Dragged In, was released on May 4th, 2016. The latest story from the Beasts of Burden universe, titled Wise Dogs and Eldritch Men, came in 2018 from Dorkin, with Benjamin Dewey providing art in place of Thompson.

This is not the first time that Dorkin has commented on his frustration with Thompson’s schedule. In an interview with CBR in 2014, Dorkin stated:

“Basically, when Jill’s available to work on the book we work on the book. I have three notebooks of material right now, the entire storyline is pretty much sketched out, with room for diversions and side-trips. If I had my way I’d be working on Beasts full-time, it’s my favorite project and the one I’m always thinking about. It’s a labor-intensive book and Jill’s in high demand so it takes awhile for us to get these stories out there. I wish we were on a regular schedule, but unfortunately I don’t see that ever happening.”

It is interesting to note that while this quote appears both in a link to the original CBR interview as a result of a Google search and on the Beasts of Burden Wikipedia page (which cites the CBR article as the source of the quote), the quote appears to have been deleted from the current CBR page.

Dorkin concludes his thoughts by detailing the heartbreaking effects that these issues have had on him personally:

I’m just very unhappy these days, for a lot of reasons, and some of it is comics, and lot of that is what’s been going on w/Beasts. Life in comics is marginal enough to be dealing with people who were supposed to be on my side. I’m not willing to put up with this anymore.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

And I think part of my problem is I need to maybe get off Twitter. I enjoy talking w/you all here, and appreciate your being here. But I’m often here for the wrong reasons (OCD, boredom, avoidance, need for attention). I’ll be on IG more than here, at least that’s the plan.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

I just want a regular night’s sleep away from this. I have my own problems, and my own anxieties and fears. Plenty, in fact, thank you very much. Making a comic book shouldn’t be one of them. If my work has to be something to take to therapy, let it be for me, not someone else.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

Here’s to a better tomorrow for all the important things, and a few not so important things like some stupid guy’s dumb comic book about magic fucking dogs.

Good night, good bye, don’t take it personally if I don’t reply.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin) November 28, 2018

Dorkin’s comments stand as a stark reminder to many that though the comic book medium is one of the most conductive to creativity, the industry itself is still a business. Dorkin’s comments are not to dissuade creators, but to give an honest insight into the reality of working in the industry. A creator may fall victim to adverse partnerships or unsatisfactory publishing agreements, and for those reasons, creators should remain ever vigilant in protecting their works and ensuring fair partnerships.