WaveDancersCover6.Szekeres

Originally painted in 1994, This was the sixth issue cover for the Original WaveDancers comic series. The art features the hands of Jormak and Winnowill. Jormak was a minor villain in this series, and one of the support characters. The point of this image was the viewer was not to know if Winnowill was to be grabbed and saved from the cliff edge as she escapes the wrath of the WaveDancers, (as was attempted by Jormak in the series), or pushed off the cliff.

In the new series of Elf-Fin that Julie Ditrich and I are currently working on, the new treatment will be without the heavy character linework.

Art © and ™ 1994-2007 Jozef Szekeres
Jormak © and ™ 1993-2007 Black Mermaid Productions

Winnowill © and ™ Warp Graphics (I include this here as it should be, Warp Graphics should show the same legal courtesy to Black Mermaid Productions on their ElfQuest website and credit our work and legal ownership of our characters with our legal copyrights on their WaveDancers page...as shown above.)

On the WaveDancers' subject...

The original contract was very clear. BMP had the reversion of rights to the work we created (rights held by WaRP during publication…with rights then reverting 12 months after the last issue released). It was agreed to in this way because BMP originated the WD story and characters, including all the character designs in our original submission of the property to WaRP. It was not farmed out work originating from WaRP. The reversion of rights aspect was agreed to in contract by all parties at the beginning of the relationship.

The "volatile" aspect was not the personalities, but the manoeuvres done by WaRP graphics. At first a hiatus at the end of issue 6 was declared, then we were given an ultimatum (due to the series' popularity) while I was painting the 6th issue. Richard sent an ultimatum in which BMP had to sign over the reversion of rights to WaRP Graphics if we were to continue. Up until this point there were no issues between us. We didn't want to hand over our rights (just to continue on to the other 3 preplanned series), so the project finished.

The other added volatile element was that Richard Pini called me up in Sydney Australia and asked that I ditch the other two members of BMP (writers Julie Ditrich and Bruce Love), and continue the WaveDancers with him alone... with me doing the art and him doing the story. I was horrified at the suggestion, as not only would it be ever so disloyal to my co-creators and friends Julie and Bruce, but Bruce and I being more then just friends, were in a committed personal relationship with many years behind us at this point as well. Obviously very underhanded of Richard, and an inconceivable outcome in my mind.

The reversion date was coming, and new Original WD art created by WaRP in their b/w comic was hitting the stands. Definitely outside our contracted agreement. So we had to stand by our rights and responded legally to stop the continuance of the use of our characters.

The usage stopped, but it took another 5 years to get the rights acknowledged by WaRP. Richard would respond with every other clause but the clause of reversion. We pursued it for about 2.5 years from Australia till it was shown that Richard would constantly skirt the clause consisting of our rights, for from Australia, all we could really rely on was that the publisher would be good to the word of the contract… but that was obviously not how this would play out. During this time WaRP had publicly announced that they owned the original WaveDancers but due to personal and contract differences and the work now being deemed to be non conical and thereafter maligned publicly by WaRP as not ever being EQ (while in publication… it was), and also that they didn't want to use them and created a new WD tribe. FInally taken on by the international legal help for artists, we were represented in NY to fight the case in the district of the written contract. FInally a court date was to be arranged, and WaRP recapitulated and returned our rights….as per the original contract.

There was a parting agreement with Warp that divided the creative elements. WaRP's work is theres... our work is ours (Such as characters and world aspects), and the published 6 issues can only be republished up to 50%. Certainly my usage of my WaveDancers artwork is well within the usage rights of the parting agreement.

This experience, ongoing for over 5 years was exceedingly draining. It almost turned me off comics altogether.

There is no grudge on my or our part. There is no reinvention here, just the facts as experienced and documented in the contracts. The bottom line is that we have complied with all aspects of our parting agreement with Warp - the WaveDancer page on our website contains an accurate statement and copyright notice. Warp has never published the same statement which they were legally obliged to.

That's it really…