Comic Artists' Guild

Cag Annual Publications


CAG #1 (SOLD OUT!)	CAG #2	CAG #3

CAG #4 (SOLD OUT!)	CAG #5 Commander Origin	CAG #6 West Coast Anthology

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Pitches are being accepted for CAG's NEXT BIG ANTHOLOGY (not the title). This 120-page giant will contain stories from members from ALL chapters of the Guild. It will be a themed book based around new spins on classic literature and characters in the public domain. Creators are asked to pitch any short story ideas they have given the following guidlines:

a) Your story MUST be ALL-AGES appropriate (i.e. sex, violence and swearing kept to a minimum). Stories will be screened and edited for adult content.

b) Your story must be based on an existing piece of classic literature or a character that exists in the public domain. Good examples of this would be Dracula, Frankestein, Shakepearian characters, real-life historical figures, etc. IF YOU FEEL YOUR CHARACTER OR PITCH MIGHT NOT FALL IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, DO SOME RESEARCH TO FIND OUT. All stories will be screened and edited to ensure CAG is not put in any awkward legal position.

c) Pitches should be NO MORE THAN A HALF PAGE or A COUPLE PARAGRAPHS in length. We don't want your whole plot summary right now. Just a basic idea of who your characters are, what your hook is and what, if any, is the moral of the story. WE ONLY WANT PITCHES AND NOT FULL SCRIPTS OR ART AT THIS TIME.

PITCHES SHOULD BE EMAILED TO PHILIP CLARK NO LATER THAN JANUARY 31, 2008 at quantumcomic@hotmail.com
It was Wednesday, November 14th, Day 10 of the strike. I took a vacation day from my day job (monitoring school buses for the Los Angeles Unified School District), mapped out which production studio I would visit, and off I went. With three dozen Krispy Kreme assorted doughnuts in tow, I found the picket line in front of Paramount Pictures’ main gate, presented my offering of goodies to the strike captains there, told them that even though I wasn’t a WGA member, I appreciated what they were doing and expressed a desire to support them by marching with them. Their appreciation was almost beyond words, responding to me with a series of heartfelt handshakes and hugs.

“The more, the merrier,” they told me. “Just sign in, grab a picket sign, and hit the pavement. And thank you so much for supporting us!”

This is not an embellishment or exaggerated account I’m giving you. These people were genuinely warm and friendly to me, and were unanimously thrilled that I was there to support them.

It was already 10:30 AM, the sun was beating down on us, and I was walking back and forth across Paramount’s double-arched gate, shoulder-to-shoulder with about 30-40 strangers, all carrying cardboard picket signs with wood handles. I don’t know about anyone else there, but my sign was heavy! I would find out later that my picket sign was used in the previous strike 19 years ago. The strike captains would lead us in periodic chants: “When I say ‘union,’ you say ‘power!’ UNION!” “POWER!” “UNION!” “POWER!” “When I say ‘corporate,’ you say ‘greed!’ “CORPORATE!” “GREED!” “CORPORATE!” “GREED!”

I was taking action behind something I believed in. And I was having the time of my life.

During my day on the picket line, I managed to strike up a few conversations with some interesting people, WGA writers and SAG actors alike. I spoke with comedienne Judy Tenuta, who showed up with a friend who was a writer for ABC’s MY WIFE AND KIDS. I talked with a writer from CBS’ new series CANE starring Jimmy Smits. I chatted with John Pleshette, a character actor some might remember as part of the ensemble cast of KNOTS LANDING from over 20 years ago. Writers from shows such as 227, THE PARKERS and NIP/TUCK conversed with me. I had a lengthy dialogue with the writing team of the hit Jim Carrey movie DUMB AND DUMBER. The general consensus I encountered was that since they discovered I wasn’t just an outsider there to lend his support to the cause, but someone actually working as a creator in the comic book industry, I was suddenly the long-lost favorite cousin everyone was glad to see. I guess things have changed, after all. At the time of the last writer’s strike, only die-hard comic fans thought people that worked in comics were cool. Now everyone thinks people that work in comics are cool. There’s nothing like a picket line to bring people together, huh?

Why is the Writer’s Guild striking, you might ask? In case you were unaware of the particulars, the gripes the WGA has against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers revolve around rapidly-changing technology. It has definitely proven to be a much more complex series of issues that did not exist when the last writers strike took place almost two decades ago; a costly debacle back then, lasting a devastating 22 weeks. The issues that fuel the fires now are fair pay for “new media,” basically digital downloads and streaming content on the internet. As it stands now, all computers can double as televisions; if you want to watch hit shows like “Heroes,” “Lost” or “CSI: Miami,” you can watch them from your Dell or IMac monitors for free. Want to watch episodes of “The Office” on your IPod? It’s as easy as downloading your favorite songs, all for a nominal fee. And included with streaming video downloads of your favorite TV shows are sponsored commercials, paid advertising you won’t be able to bypass. The networks and studios are obviously making money. The writers want only their fair share, although they clearly deserve much more than the percentages they’re asking for.

When you look at it closely, what they do creatively isn’t really that far removed from what we do. Before we put our talent to paper as sequential art, we must first put it to paper in the form of a story, be it in plot or script form. The writer/artist relationship is a symbiotic one; each feeds off of the best that the other brings to the table, and vise versa. Although there is a bit more latitude given when the writer and artist in the comics medium are one and the same person, the basic principle is the same for the television and motion picture writer’s relationship with their respective producers.

The thing of it is — the writers strike may not affect us at CAG directly at this time — but you never know when it could.

So, with that train of thought in mind, I went ahead and did something I never imagined I would do. I’m not cut from the activist’s cloth, but this was something I felt was too important to just sit on the sidelines and be silent about.

I joined the WGA strikers on the picket line.

9/07

CAG Anthologies are now Bi-annual publications. The next EAST COAST Anthology is due for distribution in April 08.

Deadlines for CAG #7 & Guidelines

The below is for the benefit of CAG as a Group, as any one member can cause a book to ship late. By outlining the following expectations up-front we hope to avoid problems further down the line.

It is also to demonstrate all the additional steps in the creative process that you may be overlooking when running LATE.
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Full finished SCRIPT:
September 15th, 2007

A finished script will meet the following requirements—
1) It is typed, and in a form that the text can be copied for digital lettering.
(It can be an MS Word document, a PDF, or a TextEdit document)

2) Spellcheck has been run on the document. This is a simple request done very well by many applications. It will NOT catch substituted words so please proof your scripts.

3) Your name, full address, preferred email address, and a contact phone number are on page 1.

4) The document's story pages are numbered.

5) A brief description of the main characters are on page 1. This would include ethnicity, and type of clothing so that the artists don't have to search for this information... or get it wrong.

6) The script specifies what story page the dialogue and text appear on.

7) Stories are a maximum of 8 pages in length.
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Full finished ARTWORK
(this would be inked pages, or finished tone work):
HiRes scans are due this date.
November 3rd, 2007

Full finished ARTWORK will meet the following requirements —
1) The pages must be scanned at 400dpi @ final print size (6 5/8" W x 10 3/16" H) [ 6.625"W x 10.1875"H].

2) Special effects discussed prior to this date, and approved by the editor.

3) All areas of the pages that you would like erased must be done BEFORE the scans are made.

4) Scans are labeled as "Story_page1", "Story_page2", etc...

5) Scans are saved as TIFFs
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Full finished PRODUCTION work
(This would be lettered pages in Illustrator saved as Illustrator 10!):
November 10th, 2007

1) HiRes Scans imported into Quark, and Illustrator files placed into the document.

2) A PDF for review purposes is sent to the editor by above date.

3) Files posted with all FONTS included, Illustrator documents, and the single Quark document.