Wednesday, February 15, 2012

You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party


 So I was told by a local artist about the great work that they have received through sites like Guru and Odesk, so I tried them out.  I haven’t received any work through those sites, but I have seen this attitude towards art which I find offensive.  It’s the “draw for free so I can decide if I am going to hire you” attitude.  Forget your portfolio, it's "draw my characters and then I will decide whether to hire you."  I’m amazed by this attitude.  In what business do you go into and use their services then decide if you are going to pay?  You order a sampler plate at a restaurant – you pay for it.  You go for a checkup – you pay for it.  Yet these people want me to work for a week on the off chance that you are going to hire me?  I refuse to give anyone my time for free.  And that’s what it boils down to, the time of the artists – and professional artists should take a stand about this.  It’s one thing when you have me doing samples to see which of your comic books that you want me to draw, it’s another thing when you want me to spend my time working on a cattle call – I put in time on the chance that I might get hired.  I don’t care what type of job you work you want to get paid for your time.  It is unfair to the artists to do that, how many hours of labor did that company get?  Let’s say all the artists are a page a day artists – the company asks for four pages, that four days of work.  Say they do that to seven artists, that’s 28 days of work – for free.  There is no way to justify that behavior.  Anywhere someone would ask people to work several days for free to see if they will get hired they would be breaking state and local laws, but it’s alright to ask an artist to do that after all, they’re only producing art.  We professional artists have to stand for our rights, if we all refused to jump through that hoop, then companies wouldn’t think it was alright to have us work for free.



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