I hate to whine, but I thought it would be a good idea to post this...

Last year, two authors ( and ) wanted to hire me to illustrate their adult gay/"yaoi" webcomic, "Wonderland". Although BL/yaoi isn't really my thing (although I am not against homosexuality at all... I just happen to like GL better. ), I was actually pretty excited about the opportunity---especially considering how popular and in-demand BL/yaoi themed comics and art are! HOWEVER, I have had to decline their job offer, sadly, for a few unnerving reasons:

1. PAYMENT. I was only going to be making $50 dollars a FULL COLORED PAGE. At the time, I didn't figure it would be a problem seeing as there would not be very elaborate detail in backrounds... But I also have a part-time job over at Wal-Mart as a photo technician, and ultimately I would only be making maybe $50 to $100 dollars a month on the Wonderland project. If you do your math, that's $25.00 per WEEK, $3.57 a DAY, $0.15 an HOUR if I were to finish two pages in a month. I make $7.65 an hour developing photos at work. Time = Money.

2. CONTRACTING ISSUES. I had asked them for the both of them to sign all copies of our contracts, seeing as they are both the authors and are TOGETHER one part of the contract. For some reason, the youngest author---who was age 19, while the other is entirely an adult at her age of 26---was in charge of paying for postage to send me the signed copies of the contract for me to sign both as well and send the two back their now completed copies. However, the first copies I received only had ONE author's sigature on them. I informed them politely that I was supposed to have both of theirs first, so the younger apologized and sent me another set... Only for me to receive the new copies with the other's signature alone, thus once again invalidating my ability to sign. I find this very peculiar, seeing as they both live closeby to each other in Illinois.

3. DISRESPECT AND LACK OF CREDIBILITY. [DEEP BREATH] This sort of ties in with the contracting... As you probably know if you're familliar with me, I had a moderate driving phobia at the time, thus I did not have my license. I was entirely dependent of my father and grandfather to take me to work, and I do not live in a community where it is safe and efficient to walk---unless you want to get run over by cars flying down the road or snake-bitten after walking umpteen miles to the nearest store, seeing as it is a rural area. Poppop is almost never home, and Dad works every day on the house we will be moving to soon, so miscellaneous tasks of mine outside of home were not openly available. I had explained this to the both of them---eve apologized. I understand if it could sound pretty shady on my part for not being able to immediately send them their contracts back... But it was suspicious of them to not have given me completed contracts for me to validate.

Not only did all this happen, but the older author, , had constantly been very rude and disrecpectful to me, claiming I was "sounding like a bitch and a 'Know-It-All'" often, while I am professional and precise with business. She had also LIED to me, saying that I had actually received both sigatures upon the second contract and told the two of them that I had sent the validated copies for them to keep back on August 3rd... Whereas I had physical evidence in my Inbox and Sent messages---which I more than happily revealed toher to validate my point--- that I had not sent any message of the sort on that date---I did, however, have messages to ANOTHER client regarding a personal commission on the 2nd and 9th of August. Once my point was made, she simply went on about how I myself should change the way I speak to others (???) but that it's perfectly fine for her to be a bitch, which she mentioned she was very proud of being... ???... had not been rude any to me, however, and I appreciated that.

4. AMATEURISM. I would probably get into legal trouble if I revealed the scripting for their webcomic, but I can safely say it most definitely did not have much thought or skill put into the storyline. I very well understand that scripting is very loose and minimal at points, but as far as the scenerios themselves?... I've read better fanfictions. (YES, I went there, folks! FANFICTIONS! We know how the vast majority of THOSE go about, don't we? LOL! Not all fanfics are bad, tho!) Now, I was not turning the offer down solely for the lack of quality, but I did want to mention it only because I realized I wouldn't have any sort of fun working on the comic... "Hey, Mad Faggot, let's go kill someone in a non-chalant but cool fashion and then go clubbing afterward. ~UNTZ-UNTZ-UNTZ-UNTZ~" This comic is pretty much a wet dream about humanized characters in Disney's live-action version of Wonderland.

Siiiigh... The younger girl mentioned she would try to send me compensation for the concept sketches that I worked on here: [link] , but actually they wiped out my logo ([link]) and took me out of the project's DA group before I even told them I am not working with them anymore. And of course I never got any pay for the sketches, but I didn't charge for them to begin with, so oh well.

IN ANY CASE, I am sad that I lost another opportunity, but at the same time I'm thankful that I lost THIS one---if you can call being cheap-skated, lied-to, and spoken to like shit an "opportunity". If anyone of my contacts is asked to collaborate with these two girls, I hope you heed my journal entry about this whole ordeal! Even better, spread the word, because I don't think anyone would be very happy working with such incompetence. (Unless maybe they're thirteen year olds who don't have to work for a living and don't have anything to lose.)

Thanks for your time!