Connect with us

Comics

Told Ya So: ‘Hack/Slash’ And ‘Mercy Sparx’ Colorist Files Suit Against Devil’s Due Publishing

Published

on

Yesterday we brought readers the news that “HACK/SLASH” creator Tim Seeley would be taking out a personal loan in order to pay the debts owed to the various artists who had contributed their work to his story since ex-publisher Devil’s Due couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pay up themselves. In that article I postured that lawsuits would likely be filed before the month was up, and boy was I half right. Read on for the skinny.

Today website Bleeding Cool broke the news that colorist Rachelle Rosenburg (“HACK/SLASH”, “MERCY SPARX”) had already filed suit against the publisher, and according to her hearing in Chicago, was due $3530 from the publisher. Here is an excerpt from the article.

“Comic book colourist Rachelle Rosenberg has won a court judgement for $3530 against Devil’s Due Publishing. She wrote about the process here, but the news today is that, after traveling to Chicago for the hearing, the judge ruled in her favour.”

The full article can be read at Bleeding Cool.

The news came straight from Rachelle’s official blog, which detailed the situation, and did so in a very tasteful way. Here is part of what the blog had to say…

“In three days, I am going down to the court of Illinois and filing suit against Devil’s Due Publishing. I have been fairly quiet about it for several reasons. One being I am just scared out of my mind what people might think. However, the truth of the matter is that I did the work. I did it well. And I didn’t do it for free. Yes I love coloring and I love my job, but I do it to help pay the bills and put food on my table. I am one of those amazingly, lucky people that gets paid to do something they absolutely *love*.
I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty details or start slandering anyone, even though I would be fully justified. I loved working with the people at DDP. My editors were amazing and you can’t say enough good things about people like, Tim and Sam. And while doing work for them, I grew. You can’t look at my first cover for them and look at the one I finished almost a year later and say, that I didn’t grow as a colorist. I will always be grateful for the opportunity they gave me. However I love this industry and the fact that there are many publishers like DDP getting away with not paying the talent is just not right. And I don’t understand why so many people seem to just turn their head and look the other way. It’s wrong… and on Thursday, I am going to stand in front of a judge and take a stand for myself and what I believe is right.
That’s not to say I’m not trembling at the thought of it. That I didn’t wish they just paid me. Or that I wish someone else was taking the stand instead of me.”

To read the rest head on over to her official blog, here.

I think I stand firm with everyone else on this when I say: good for you girl. It’s not a fun, glamorous, or easy process to go through, but it is only right. Comic book artists, writers, colorists, all the way down the line are hard working, dedicated people who deserve to be paid for what they do. They have bills to pay just like the rest of the world, and lord knows they aren’t able to go out and buy $30 million dollar houses like Lady GaGa. I hope she gets what she deserves from them. What say you?

Comics

[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

Published

on

Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

Continue Reading