Contract Watch 1 – DC and Dave Sim

This is a great opportunity to read over a 2005 DC contract offered to Dave Sim of Cerebus fame for a contribution to an anthology. We strongly advocate that education on creator rights is fundamental if you want to be a working professional. The base of the matter – at least for us – is that if you are going to sign a contract such as this or any other, it is imperative that you understand the fine print and what the implications are in the near and distant future. Operate from the point of view of the informed, not the naive or lazy. Ultimately, it is about taking responsibility. And by the way, we think Dave Sim's requests and notes are quite reasonable. And while you are checking out this most excellent website, make an electronic pit stop at the original Creator's Bill of Rights page. We read about this in a comics press in the early 90s, well before the Internet became as big as it is now. We cut the article out and put it in our files. That article was shown to all the workshop participants we had in the interim – the ideas behind it are as relevant now as they were when the original team of comic book stalwarts put it together in 1988. Thanks to Colleen Doran for drawing our attention to the contract.