News (kind of) for the RBR show! As some of you may know, I dabble in comics from time to time as do a few of my buddies, including one dude who's got quite a resume as a colorist and had been working on the Shad Gaspard graphic novel "Assassin & Son". Then Shad stopped paying him... *cough* From his blog:
To get the ball rolling, we'll "out" our first deadbeat: Shad Gaspard, formerly of the WWE tag-team duo Cryme Tyme, and Blackline Comics. I was commissioned by Blackline in 2010 to produce inks and colors for their Assassin and Son series, created and produced by Gaspard. The page rate wasn't fantastic, but it was good, and the script and art both looked solid, so I was happy to join the project. Per the contract that all parties signed, I'd be able to invoice after every ten completed pages, to be paid via PayPal by Shad. This was the case for the first few dozen pages, but then trouble came down hard. Late payments, excuses, and ultimately a screw-job to the tune of around $1,000 that was owed me. A new deal was proposed to me (one that would have seen me on the losing end) that I rejected, and then... nothing. Radio silence for months. And months. And months! Six months, I believe, although I'd have to check some dates on some emails to be sure.
Long story short, I destroyed the work. It no longer exists. Which is a shame, because I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I put a lot of time into it. And, really, I also put a lot of money into it, since I never got paid for it and it prevented me from working on other projects that might have actually yielded some money for me.