If you\u2019re an artist who participated in this year\u2019s World Science Fiction Convention Art Show, or plan to participate in a future Worldcon Art Show, then the following is for you.<\/p>\n
The good news is that this year\u2019s Worldcon in Montreal is supposedly getting ready to pay its artists their Art Show revenues. The bad news is these checks were, by Worldcon\u2019s own rules, due to the artists within 60 days of the show. 60 days to pay a check is a lenient turnaround by any reasonable measure and by that standard, the artists should have been paid by mid-October. End of story. It\u2019s now mid-November and this is still not the case. <\/p>\n
American artists were in fact mailed checks well after the 60-day period. However, those checks were drafted with questionable routing number information that were subsequently denied by many American financial institutions. A letter accompanied those checks stating that the checks provided a legitimate US routing number, when in fact, they didn\u2019t. They were effectively foreign checks that would necessitate gross collections fees and punitive processing delays of up to eight additional weeks. Not acceptable. When this was communicated to the con, its response was \u201cthe checks are fine; it must be your bank.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wrong answer, Worldcon.<\/p>\n
There is no evidence of criminal wrongdoing on Worldcon\u2019s part. Don\u2019t get that idea. However, there\u2019s plenty of evidence of miscommunication, defensiveness, finger-pointing, and he-said, she-said. I had hoped that the matter would resolve itself in a reasonable amount of time, and therefore, I originally refrained from making the matter public, out of respect to the con and its volunteers. <\/p>\n
Here\u2019s why I decided to post this \u2014 I\u2019m a fan of Worldcon. As a whole, I very much like the people that run them. I want to see Worldcon live long and prosper. However, I\u2019m first and foremost a working pro illustrator, and sf\/fantasy art is my business. I don\u2019t like being screwed. I don\u2019t like being patronized, and I don\u2019t like my fellow artists being shafted. If I stay quiet about this, then I\u2019m in effect endorsing that it\u2019s OK for this kind of behavior to occur again. I can\u2019t do that. Worldcon is better than this.<\/p>\n
Artists \u2014 should we continue to participate in Worldcon Art Shows? Good question. Many have already migrated to other shows that attract larger audiences, and better marketing than Worldcon affords its artists. That was certainly evident at this year\u2019s Worldcon when you looked at the artist roster. And for something like this to occur, it doesn\u2019t help future Worldcons. I chose to participate in this year\u2019s Worldcon Art Show, but I wouldn\u2019t if I knew it would treat its artists\u2019 payments this poorly. Will I participate in future ones? I\u2019d like to hope for the best, and hope that future shows will see this, and take measures to not repeat the same.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m disappointed that this happened. I hate that it did. Let\u2019s hope for better days ahead, Worldcon.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you\u2019re an artist who participated in this year\u2019s World Science Fiction Convention Art Show, or plan to participate in a future Worldcon Art Show, then the following is for you. The good news is that this year\u2019s Worldcon in Montreal is supposedly getting ready to pay its artists their Art Show revenues. The bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conventions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5te7x-2n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}