Valentine's Day seems to have gang aft a bit aglee this year, with so many strips saluting endangered or destroyed relationships that I can only feature a few, starting with Luann, who appears to have cut things off with her Aussie.
I say "appears" because she also "appears" to be jumping the gun and assuming things that might not be true, letting a combination of insecurity and immaturity screw up a good thing. So I guess we'll see, but, if you haven't been reading this strip in recent years, the addition of Greg Evan's daughter, Karen, as a partner has brought new discipline to the "Luanniverse" and her eye for relationship issues makes it safer to bring real-world logic to your predictions.
This same "Ready-Shoot-Aim" approach to love has been on full display at Between Friends, where Maeve's coworker asks her husband to help spark up their long-term marriage with a date night and then ... well start here and move forward.
So far, it's a heartbreaker and I assume there will be some redemption coming, though maybe not, given that Sandra Bell Lundy handed the storyline to a minor character rather than to one of the stars. But I'm sure it will be worth the ride.
The pain continues over at Sally Forth, where a long story arc about Hilary breaking up with her boyfriend seems to be over and now Ted's brother is coping with divorce. And unemployment.
While, speaking of Hilary and teenage romance, Judge Parker is now dealing with a teen who is trying to maintain her virginity, or at least her dignity, in a relationship she values.
Oh, shut up, Jess.
Bear in mind that the people who think comics are supposed to be light-hearted and funny read different ones than I do. Somewhere, handyman-husbands are hanging off roof gutters, wives are overdrawing their checking accounts and small children are making a mess in the kitchen.
I'd rather be reading these, because, y'know, if it didn't hurt so good, there wouldn't be so many covers of this:
Want to know what else hurts? Not being paid!
The constant whining on Facebook about artists being asked to work for free makes me wonder if people with other mixes of friends hear as much whining from chefs whose friends want free wedding cakes or seamstresses whose friends just need something taken up a little or lawyers asked to just draw up some incorporation papers for a small company.
But Mike Lynch has a pretty good perspective on the issue, which he lays out on his blog with some links to previous well-honed rants.
Nancy Reagan had the answer to this problem: Just Say No.
But Lynch gives it a little more thought than that, and the example in his latest piece on the topic provides a good example of not getting it: It's a writer who wants illustrations for a project he hasn't sold.
He makes a nice offer of 70% of the revenue, only there isn't any revenue and may well never be.
So (spoiler!) Mike said no.
Facebook whiners go on about how silly it would be to ask other people to work for free, which, I would note, is not as valuable a use of their time as looking for work that does pay.
Besides, as noted above, people get asked to do things for free all the time.
A photographer friend of the bride shot our wedding free, but we didn't ask him to: He offered it as a wedding gift.
One of my son's fellow volunteer firefighters repaved my driveway for the cost of materials, but my son was still living there. It's a "thing" among VFD's that members help members.
An attorney I knew through an alumni club handled my side of my divorce for free, and I did ask him, though I actually asked him what it would cost and said that I was flat broke. We'd known each other for a decade, so he chose to do it pro bono.
So, really, none of those count, but a printer I worked with was making up flyers to protest a Klan rally and asked me to provide the copy. He made up the flyers on his own dime; I wrote the content for free.
And I wouldn't have written one for the Klan at any price, so it averaged out. Or something. I'm not an accountant.
Point is, the world is full of choices.
Go read Mike's piece, and the linked ones, because he has a solid, non-hysterical take, and also check out the comments, because they say much of what I would have.
For instance, as Brian Fies notes, it's okay to start out by doing freebies for small, local publications, and I did that: None of them could pay writers, none of them survive today.
The exposure wasn't worth a damn, but the clips gave me a starting point, and I learned a lot about dealing with editors, so it was like -- the horror! -- an unpaid internship.
Then I wrote for lousy pay, at which point the exposure factor kicked in and I occasionally got work from people who'd seen my stuff. And those clips were more valuable because the publications were more credible and eventually I got a for-real job as a for-real writer with a for-real paycheck.
As for the fellow who wanted Mike to work on spec, hiring an artist is a start-up expense, like having business cards made or buying stamps to send out your query letters. If you can't afford the start-up costs, then you can't do the project.
On my projects, I offer artists a share of the take, but with front money to at least compensate them for their time, if not enrich them. (Dylan Meconis did this one as a college senior. It didn't pay off her student loans, but she's made more on it than the front money.)
Anyway, having quoted Nancy Reagan, let me close by quoting Ann Landers: Nobody can take advantage of you without your consent.
For details, see Mike's blog.
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