Reflections in a Dragon's Eye
What made me think of this today, I don't know.
Back in 1997, I was (along with Jer and Coach) involved in the making of ED, a 48 page monthly anthology, for 3CG. One issue got out fine, but #2, well, that's today's story.
After a hair-raising experience with our first printer, we went shopping for a new one. The first printer we wanted to use was a John Nordland up in Minnesota. At that time his outfit was called Blackbird Press. We'd talked with him, Carter even visited him and took pictures of the setup (have to find those...). But suddenly, we couldn't contact him. There was a flurry of rumors that the building had burned down after SyCo's attempts to buy the outfit fell through (no causality implied). Nordland was unreachable, so we went with an outfit called Domino Printing out west.
The job on ED #1 was good, not great, so we went shopping again. We get a call from a fellow named Marcos Guerra, who introduced himself as the fellow who took over the reins of Nordland's operation. He was Nordland's assistant before whatever happened happened, and he was now calling people off Nordland's customer list to see if he could do any jobs for them. The price was the same, but much much closer to us, so we went with him.
Hoo boy, what a mess followed. Deadlines came and went, and it started to get very very close. The book was to be distributed by Diamond, and they give you several weeks to get your books in after the purchase order. We were assured that it would be a quick turnaround, no problem. Well, deadlines kept passing.
In the midst of this I came to know Chris Gronlund and Cynthia Griffith, at that time working together as Foundation Comics. They too had a book percolating at Marcos' Dragon's Eye Press: Second Rate Heroes. We exchanged many many emails and co-ordinated out strategy to get our books made. The lies and delays piled up from Marcos, and our worries shifted from ever getting our book or our money back to getting the art back. He must have been very close to being done on SRH because that did eventually ship. ED #2's ship date (extended by Diamond when we explained our situation to them) was ultimately missed.
The times I got Marcos on the phone, conversations would go:"So when will the books be done and shipped?" "Oh, soon. Two weeks." One convo went: "You know when Diamond sends an order, they cancel it if you don't get it to them within two months." "Oh, no, I don't think that's the deal. You can just send it in."
So, we sicced the Sheriff on Marcos. Memory is starting to fail me, I believe his name was Tony. Anyways, Tony had a few talks with Marcos and right about the time Tony felt confident that we could go ahead with a stolen property charge, Marcos sent back our art and the films he'd produced. Imagine that. He'd shot barely twenty pages in two months. Our payment of 200$ was not returned. We went to file a Better Business Bureau complaint, but Dragon's Eye Press had ceased to exist by then. The then Candle Light Press (Mike Ayers and Will Grant) had also been approached and lost $400 to Marcos. I was able to get their art back as well.
For a long time (so long in fact that I realized today that I hadn't transferred the page into the new web page setup at CLP), I had a page warning people off Marcos Guerra, Dragon's Eye Press, and John Nordland. Why Nordland? Well, Marcos dropped his name at every turn...using Nordland's facilities, was Nordland's assistant, "oh, it's ok, John's coming in to help me with the backlog", called us from Nordland's customer list...on and on. So in our attempts to get Marcos moving, we repeatedly tried contacting Nordland, but it was clear we were being avoided. So we let Marcos' claim stand, since we had nothing else to go on.
Years pass. Then I get an email from a young lady (I promised her I wouldn't use her name) who was very upset; she'd read the page (Captured for posterity here) and felt Nordland was being unfairly characterized as, well, at worst an incompetent printer and a thief. She was a friend on one of Nordland's kids, she explained; she felt she knew him well, and that there was no way he could be dishonest. I replied and patiently explained how the page came to be. "If you can get him to pick up the phone and answer my questions about Marcos, great. Or if you want to ask him if he really had anything to do with Dragon's Eye Press, great also. He receives blame for this because he hid from us like a guilty man. If he says he had nothing to do with it, fine. We're willing to take his word on it." (not the exact quote, but you get the idea)
A day or so later came the response, that she had asked and he'd said no, he had nothing to do with it. So I thanked the girl, writing "Thank you. You were brave and forthright when others were not." So I changed the page to this. And I'm going to put the page back up again, I think. I wasn't going to, but cautionary tales are a good thing. Plus Marcos Guerra might actually do a bit of ego-surfing one day and get a little reminder that comics people are crazy enough to remember being screwed out of $600 for a pretty long time.
Perhaps I'll add some other details to it, just in case he ever does read it; Marcos even might go thank Sheriff Tony for talking us out of driving up there to add the personal touch.
Back in 1997, I was (along with Jer and Coach) involved in the making of ED, a 48 page monthly anthology, for 3CG. One issue got out fine, but #2, well, that's today's story.
After a hair-raising experience with our first printer, we went shopping for a new one. The first printer we wanted to use was a John Nordland up in Minnesota. At that time his outfit was called Blackbird Press. We'd talked with him, Carter even visited him and took pictures of the setup (have to find those...). But suddenly, we couldn't contact him. There was a flurry of rumors that the building had burned down after SyCo's attempts to buy the outfit fell through (no causality implied). Nordland was unreachable, so we went with an outfit called Domino Printing out west.
The job on ED #1 was good, not great, so we went shopping again. We get a call from a fellow named Marcos Guerra, who introduced himself as the fellow who took over the reins of Nordland's operation. He was Nordland's assistant before whatever happened happened, and he was now calling people off Nordland's customer list to see if he could do any jobs for them. The price was the same, but much much closer to us, so we went with him.
Hoo boy, what a mess followed. Deadlines came and went, and it started to get very very close. The book was to be distributed by Diamond, and they give you several weeks to get your books in after the purchase order. We were assured that it would be a quick turnaround, no problem. Well, deadlines kept passing.
In the midst of this I came to know Chris Gronlund and Cynthia Griffith, at that time working together as Foundation Comics. They too had a book percolating at Marcos' Dragon's Eye Press: Second Rate Heroes. We exchanged many many emails and co-ordinated out strategy to get our books made. The lies and delays piled up from Marcos, and our worries shifted from ever getting our book or our money back to getting the art back. He must have been very close to being done on SRH because that did eventually ship. ED #2's ship date (extended by Diamond when we explained our situation to them) was ultimately missed.
The times I got Marcos on the phone, conversations would go:"So when will the books be done and shipped?" "Oh, soon. Two weeks." One convo went: "You know when Diamond sends an order, they cancel it if you don't get it to them within two months." "Oh, no, I don't think that's the deal. You can just send it in."
So, we sicced the Sheriff on Marcos. Memory is starting to fail me, I believe his name was Tony. Anyways, Tony had a few talks with Marcos and right about the time Tony felt confident that we could go ahead with a stolen property charge, Marcos sent back our art and the films he'd produced. Imagine that. He'd shot barely twenty pages in two months. Our payment of 200$ was not returned. We went to file a Better Business Bureau complaint, but Dragon's Eye Press had ceased to exist by then. The then Candle Light Press (Mike Ayers and Will Grant) had also been approached and lost $400 to Marcos. I was able to get their art back as well.
For a long time (so long in fact that I realized today that I hadn't transferred the page into the new web page setup at CLP), I had a page warning people off Marcos Guerra, Dragon's Eye Press, and John Nordland. Why Nordland? Well, Marcos dropped his name at every turn...using Nordland's facilities, was Nordland's assistant, "oh, it's ok, John's coming in to help me with the backlog", called us from Nordland's customer list...on and on. So in our attempts to get Marcos moving, we repeatedly tried contacting Nordland, but it was clear we were being avoided. So we let Marcos' claim stand, since we had nothing else to go on.
Years pass. Then I get an email from a young lady (I promised her I wouldn't use her name) who was very upset; she'd read the page (Captured for posterity here) and felt Nordland was being unfairly characterized as, well, at worst an incompetent printer and a thief. She was a friend on one of Nordland's kids, she explained; she felt she knew him well, and that there was no way he could be dishonest. I replied and patiently explained how the page came to be. "If you can get him to pick up the phone and answer my questions about Marcos, great. Or if you want to ask him if he really had anything to do with Dragon's Eye Press, great also. He receives blame for this because he hid from us like a guilty man. If he says he had nothing to do with it, fine. We're willing to take his word on it." (not the exact quote, but you get the idea)
A day or so later came the response, that she had asked and he'd said no, he had nothing to do with it. So I thanked the girl, writing "Thank you. You were brave and forthright when others were not." So I changed the page to this. And I'm going to put the page back up again, I think. I wasn't going to, but cautionary tales are a good thing. Plus Marcos Guerra might actually do a bit of ego-surfing one day and get a little reminder that comics people are crazy enough to remember being screwed out of $600 for a pretty long time.
Perhaps I'll add some other details to it, just in case he ever does read it; Marcos even might go thank Sheriff Tony for talking us out of driving up there to add the personal touch.
posted by John Ira Thomas at 11:07 AM
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