What will you do if a licensing company wanted to work with you?

[Chocolate]

Hypothetical scenario here: an agent contact you about possibly working with you on your comic with their company. What will be your course of action?

[BoomerZ]

Hear them out, see what they are offering, see if what the offering alines with what I want, and make a decision.

[thepenmonster]

"How much am I getting?"

[DanielRKM]

Wait, no, that's all wrong...

[Chocolate]

The standard wage in your country. Would you give it a shot? Or is it too little monies for such work?

[Caro]

I feel like there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what agents do and how they work with the people they represent. Not all agents are going to be a perfect fit for your needs.

The first agent who was ever interested in me was relatively new and seeing the other work they represented I decided it wasn’t going to be a good fit. The second one was more promising but only ever wanted to pair me with writers who were POC because I’m also a POC but it didn’t seem like it mattered to her if we were even culturally related in any way— kinda just felt like she was playing diversity bingo. Plus, she ignored the fact that I don’t work with writers and ignored the fact that I didn’t want to do YA fantasy in favor of trying to make more money.

A good agent, like my current agent, understands what your needs are and will listen to them. My agent knows exactly what I’m willing to do and not do and what I’m not willing to give up. They are there to shop my pitches around to publishers I wouldn’t normally have access to and try to get a deal that suits my needs. They also handle my media rights so they can shop around to all the streaming services and sell the movie and tv rights and even within those parameters still trying to meet my needs. And then its their job to negotiate contracts to get the best possible version of something that meets everyone needs. And if they can’t meet my needs, we just move on to the next deal.

Its not abnormal to “shop” around for an agent that works for you and get you what you need. You don’t have to give up all your rights to get something you want.

[darthmongoose]

First, I'd look up the company. There are tons of these crappy scams going around these days, so I'd first want to check if there was any talk of dodgy business, make sure they have a proper website with a company address, that sort of thing.
If that checks out, I'd ask for more information. What's the rights agreement? How much am I being paid? What's expected of me? 'Cause if they're going to ask for like five pages a week, but not pay enough to make it worthwhile to quit my day job to be able to keep up that sort of schedule, they're having a laugh.

Also, I'd need to check if it's even viable with my current contract with Tapas on the Creator Bonus Program, or whether I'd need to choose one or the other.

It's a lot to think about, and not to be rushed into!

[Innocynce]

Try it out: nigh anything is better than what I'm doing now...............

[Chocolate]

Heyyyy! I think this thread is very helpful if you happened to run into a situation similar to the scenario above, read all the comments YALL!

[RedLenai]

Hear their offer, ask all the questions and doubts that I have in the moment, check the Contract, ask a lawyer to properly understand the Contract, ask ex-employees or other artists that have heard of them or worked with them, investigate the Company on my own, debate, then come up with my answer.

I've been approached several times by Latinamerican "Editorials" that tried to create original content but besides I knew the end result of that by just checking how new and informal the staff were, I still gave it a shot, just making sure there were no loses on my end. Most of the time it was for finished works so its not like I had to put on a lot of effort.

The only time I really took my time was when Webtoon Latam approached me to pitch to them a series for Webtoon Latam, focusing on Gen Z and latinamerican culture, I obviously got rejected yet I'm quite thankful for that considering how demanding they are with deadlines and standards, the underpayment of Latam originals, creative limitations, sticking to their formula and so on.
I pitched it mostly to see what would happen, I wasn't surprised and expectations dried quite easily after a few exchanges I realized they didn't read my pitch, mostly because they kept confusing it with a series I work for but that I don't even publish, and how they totally mistook the genre of the series and topics it was about.

[Chocolate]

Yeah Webtoon literally pay their creators crumbs and the artists have to funnel other sources for income. Glad you got rejected.

[AmazementComics]

I agree with everything @BoomerZ said. Unfortunately, once you collaborate with a publishing company or the like, you have to make compromises. But It’s not all bad. As long as they respect your vision and give credit where credit is due: I see that as a win. Hell, I hope it happens to me some day!

[thepenmonster]

Licensing company? Selling merch based on my ideas? For merely the median wage?

They can come back when they're serious about getting me hot tub and swimsuit model money.

[ueonts]

I’d take it in a heartbeat.

[TheLemmaLlama]

My work will be license-free 'till hell freezes over :]