It’s only apathy if you know you can do something about it but don’t care. It’s not apathy because we have chosen to do something else about it, other than what you think should be done.

In the case of business, my experience has taught me that to complain about being screwed is about as effective as scratching your balls. It feels good but doesn’t really change much of anything for the effort you put into it. My experience has taught me the best way to deal with it is to learn the tools of the trade.

You’re advocating that we do something so that all people become nice and trustworthy in business. If you have any workable idea of how to do that, I’m willing to hear it.

but something indeed can be done: you protect yourself from getting fucked in the ass, which apparently mango has failed to do.

if it helps, you can try taking a long-term view: direk carlo shafts mango while trying to revive komiks industry–industry revives–creatives unionize and demand higher rates. could happen.

http://comicspotting.blogspot.com/2007/07/its-tug-of-war.html

Hahaha napapa hinto ako sa mga trabaho sa kaka subaybay sa 10 pesos komiks na yan hahahha ang gulo…

If they didn’t have a contract, then I’m sorry to say that they were remiss to have hired people to do work already on a deal that’s really not a deal in the eyes of the law. These artists who already did work should be angry with Mango, not Sterling or Caparas.

Business isn’t as ruthless as you think it is. There’s the protection of the law that people can avail of, if they took the time to protect themselves somehow via written contracts, non-disclosure agreements, and/or bonds/deposits (to minimize financial disruption in case of contractual breach). Negotiated (e.g. no formal bid) deals always have this danger if not properly managed. The best way to minimize victimization is to learn how not to be a victim, not to expect that in the thousands of years men have been doing business this way, change might come if we state our indignance over the whole thing.

Mango and the publisher already had a deal. Mango had already put in a lot of work and have already put the first issue together, and when they talked to me, the issue was supposedly already at the press. The publisher already decided to do the project with Mango. That other group came in late to the party, and came home with the cake, leaving none for those who did the baking in the first place.

It may have been a wiser business choice to get someone else like Carlo J., but it’s a business decision that has burned a lot of bridges, and have disadvantaged a lot of the working people that’s actually going to do the job. Ultimately, my indignation at what happened is not for my sake personally. I can always make money elsewhere, and I’m perfectly capable of publishing my own stories or have other people publish my stories. It’s the other writers and artists who I feel bad for, who would have benefited far better from the Mango deal, and I feel bad for Mango, whose hard work had been so horribly undermined.

I don’t know, but I think it’s a far better way to think and live beyond just “business” considerations. To do business in this way is just so ugly and so underhanded. It’s reality, sure, but why is everybody so enslaved by this perception of reality as if nothing anymore can be done? It’s as if everybody is so ready to be so fucked in the ass just because “it’s just the way it is.”

Can a strong, vibrant,and progressive komiks industry can ever be born in a business environment where people screw each other? Where people get slapped down for questioning why that is, for daring to want things to be better?

Regardless, as Zach Yonzon says elsehwere, and I say this in unison with him, that I hope this project will be a success. I don’t wish it ill will at all in any way. A lot of people I consider friends are doing work for them, and reduced rate or not, it’s still a job and it’s something I can’t ever begrudge them. We have lots of time to do our own comics in our own time.

caparas also enjoys all sorts of clout and influence in the media that mango would not have access to.

marketing, politics, leaner bottom line… the more you think about it, the more obvious the choice looks.

of course no one wouldn’t prefer higher rates for the creatives, but like the rolling stones said, you can’t always get what you want.

Sa maliit na nakita ko sa mga pictures ng mga cover sa PKMB, parang yung dating komiks din ng 70-90′s yung art. Pero cover nga lang yon. At wika nga ni Melanie Marquez, “Do not judge my brother. He is not a book.”