The deal is sealed

After a very minor modification of the contract. The deal was sealed and signed just today. If you have no clue on what I am talking about. You should first check my previous blog post HERE.

When I was just starting Kalayaan comics a few years ago. It was solely intended for local distribution only. Never in my wildest imagination that my comics would go international. I am just freaking out right now.

Let me just first introduce you to the company behind it all.

Their name is Forex DKM (Dahil Kailangang Makarating). It is an all Filipino owned company. They are a door to door delivery service that also have a small publishing company in the US. They have a newspaper called Pinoy Herald. They handle money delivery and other stuff that could fit in their box. Just like the balik bayan box of Pidro. :-)

The deal is that they will re-print issue #1 to #8 and any succeding issues of Kalayaan comics that I would make. They are actually going to give it away for FREE to their customers/clients/patrons that will use their services. They will just put a 4 pages advertisement insert in my comics. Other than that, the whole essence of my comics will be completely intact. They will not earn money from my comics because the ads that they will put is an advertisement of their own company. They could (in theory) earn money if they could find another company to advertise on my comics (which is actually included in the contract by the way, which is totally fine with me). But for the time being, my comics is just strictly for advertisement for them and not for profit.

I will be paid in royalty based of the number of copies that they will print. The more copies they print, the happier I am :D. In the contract, it is stated that Forex shall render and submit a report with regards to the number of copies printed or reproduced to me.

I also like the contract that they made for me. It has an additional protection for me and my character. Because for example, if another person or company abroad would use my character for merchandise purposes... let say t-shirt or mug ..etc. Forex company and their lawyers would come after those jerks.

The launch date of Kalayaan comics is set on March 9,2010. But before that, there will be a press release on their news paper Pinoy Herald. With a picture of me signing the contract together with the big bosses. Can you imagine that? And there will be lots of promotional posters displayed on their branch offices abroad. Aside from the many states in the US, they also have branches in Guam, Japan and Australia. I am still waiting for their secretary to send me a complete list. I will post it here once I got it.

They have choosen my comics because it has a very distict Filipino look (Pinoy na pinoy daw ang dating. Which brings me in mind of some detractors that are saying not so good things about flag based Superhero). Having a very distict Filipino Superhero look would be very ideal for the Fillipino community that are living abroad. Since my comics would be given away for free to Forex customers, which majority are Filipinos sending money and other stuff. There were no need to translate my comics to English.

Another reason that they have choosen my comics is because of it's continuity. I have already 8 issues published and still continues to publish more. They have said to me that they could not just afford to wait for the other artist to come up with the materials.

The only thing that a little bit concerns me right now is the frequency of the issues. Starting from March, Kalayaan comics would be released every two(2) moths or 6 issues a year. While it is not strictly written in the contract that I must produce a comics every two months. I just really to not want to let them down. And I also think that 2 months is a compromise frequency issues, because I do now want for the readers to wait four months or longer to read another issue.

Forex would be my publisher and distributor abroad(or outside the Philippines). I will still be the one publishing, distributing and selling Kalayaan comics locally. That is one thing that I have clarified to them very much since I am also in a process right now of talking to a book store in the Philippines that has a nationwide distribution.

The good news, is that I still have one(1) year and four(4) months head start. So after a few months of resting, I have my work cut out for me now. So I better stop writing this long blog post and start drawing now. :D