Guidebook to Taladas 1
- GUIDEBOOK TO TALADAS 1 - A black ink and gray pencil drawing on an 11 x 14 size vellum paper. It appears on page 84 in the TSR game book, "Time of the Dragons".
During the 1980s I did a lot of artwork for "TSR," the publisher of "Dungeons & Dragons". The editor I dealt with was Peggy Cooper. Peggy sent me lucrative assignments paying thousands of dollars each, making my life easier to manage for many years.
But then, TSR hired an efficiency expert who promptly re-organized the company, firing several employees, including Peggy, and notified me and all the other TSR artists, that from now on all artwork contracted by TSR would be considered "Work for Hire" . . .
A "Work For Hire" contract is BAD for the artist because it gives the publisher full and complete control of the artist's artwork. The artist gets one payment for his artwork and that is all he will ever get for it from the publisher. The publisher can use the artwork for any purpose, as often as he wants. They do, however, have to return the origal artwork to the artist.
Before this change to a "Work for Hire" contract, TSR's contract purchased only First North American Printing Rights to artwork. The art could only be used for a specific one-time publication. The original artwork would be returned to the artist. Any further use of the artwork by TSR, for reprint editions, posters, T-Shirts, mugs, whatever, would require a new contract with the artist to establish royalty payments.
But the new "Work for Hire" contract negates all that additional income for the artist, and although the artwork would be returned to the artist, he could not have it reprinted elsewhere, nor could he even sell his own artwork without getting permission to do so from TSR. Ridiculous!
When a TSR lawyer phoned to explain the new "rules" to me, I got so mad I told him what he could do with his new TSR contract and went ahead and retired, as I had been planning to do for some time.
However, being "retired" did not stop me from carrying on, I just reduced the number of assignments I accepted, preferring to have more free time to enjoy life in general.
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