An Open Letter from Val Staples, MVCreations President

Posted: Sunday, November 28, 2004
Posted By: Tim O'Shea

A version of this open letter has run at other comic news sites, but SBC thought it worthy of rerunning here.

For over two years MVCreations has worked to give you comics we hoped you would enjoy. We care a great deal about all of the comic projects we worked on and faced a lot of challenges along the way.

But a few things have happened that have essentially ruined our little studio that we could not control. About a year and a half ago, we moved from Image Comics to CrossGen Entertainment to publish our books. At the time, it seemed like the smart move. CrossGen had proven to be on the up-and-up, we had friends there who were very happy and they had programs in place to reach younger readers which was something we always wanted to do. Of course, what we didn't know is that they were sailing a ship that was taking on water at an alarming rate. None of us had any way of knowing.

When payments never came, we complained, fought and eventually sued. And by the time the smoke cleared about six months later, CrossGen went bankrupt right after defaulting on a settlement agreement we had reached. This put their debt to us at almost 60,000.00. This was a crushing blow that crippled our income and our ability to publish comics during that time and beyond.

Determined to move forward, we did what we felt was the smart and responsible thing. We dropped all titles that were not performing well. We dropped all plans to publish new titles that we either had on the drawing board or were in discussions to create. We then continued to budget carefully so we could continue to publish our two top comics: Masters of the Universe and SpookShow International.

The core MV studio made the switch to freelance graphic design, as we knew those two comic titles couldn't make enough money to pay for the people who worked in our offices or help to pay back the debt CrossGen left us. Still, despite putting the best foot forward and working hard to keep that income coming, we had very little luck in finding work in today's tough economy. For an entire year instead of whittling away at the debt CrossGen left us, we found ourselves moving further into debt just trying to stay alive.

We were dealt another blow earlier this year when the details of MOTU character usage rights became clear. Despite our initial discussions prior to getting the license and an understanding of where we were going to go with the story and characters, we suddenly faced not only not being able to bring back fan favorite characters not yet seen, but also not being able to even create new characters and places. Imagine telling a story where you cannot travel to any new places in a world or encounter any new characters important to the story or that served as simply background filler. We ultimately had to scrap six issues worth of story and almost two issues of art for the Volume 3 arc we wanted to do. This pushed our creator debt even further into the ground along along with our now growing studio debt.

Today, we find ourselves facing a debt of a little over 140,000.00.

Not a huge debt as far as most companies are concerned. But for a little studio like ours, it's a monstrous amount of money that we have no way of paying in any relatively short amount of time.

During the past few months, MV's operations have almost been completely shut down. Everyone who worked here took pay cuts after CrossGen never paid, but it was never enough. Now everyone who worked in the studio except myself has moved on to a new job or a new career path. Even our online store depends on the time generously donated by fans like yourself to help pack and ship product. By the end of the year, I will be moving the studio to a much smaller and more manageable location to help offset expenses even further. Myself and the artists across the world who work with me are still engaged in as much work as we can find to help raise money. But it's nearly impossible to achieve our original goal of getting out of this mountain we are under.

I hate asking anyone to help rescue us from what has happened. But I have no other alternative than to turn to my friends and fellow fans for your support. I don't know if raising such a large amount of money is even possible. I'm hoping maybe, with your help, we might be able to at least pay off most or all of the creator portion of the debt (which is about 88,000.00). Then, I might be able to find a way to make payments on the other debts I owe. Or, if I can find no other alternative, file for personal bankruptcy without inconveniencing any of the other hard working creators who helped MV along the way to give you the comics we hoped you enjoyed. If anyone has to go down with the ship, it should be me. But I don't want to see the other people who contributed suffer.

I don't plan to return to publishing for licensed books. My focus right now is on these debts And if we can ever recover, I hope to do some self publishing with other up-and-comers for the profits the books generate. In the mean time, I've put together a free online resource for those of you who have considered publishing or getting into comics. It's even good for working creators who may not fully understand why it's so hard to get by in today's comic book industry.

Feel free to check out the Poor Man's Guide to Self Publishing whenever you want and I hope you all find it of use:

http://www.mvcreations.com/articles/publish.html

We never expected to get hit with these kinds of problems along the way. And I apologize for groveling before you, begging for your help. I know that many of you have your own debts that need your attention. And even if you want to help, it's very hard for you to do so. Not to mention there are many other people across the globe who face problems far worse than our own who deserve the attention. I hope that if you've enjoyed our comics or visited He-Man.org these past few years you will consider helping us out by doing one of three things:

1. Making a purchase at our online store.( http://mvcreations.safeshopper.com/ )Please bear in mind if many of you graciously make a purchase, it may take us longer than usual to send out the items simply due to the magnitude of orders placed. Our apologies in advance if this is the case.

2. Making a donation via PayPal.If you are interested in making a PayPal donation, you can do so by clicking on the link below.

3. Making a check/money order/cashier's check donation via mail.If you are interested in making one of those types of donations, you can do so by mailing your donation directly to the studio:
MVCreations
1316 Jefferson Street
Lynchburg, VA 24504

That address will be good through the end of December. After that, we will have moved to a new location.

Once again, my apologies for burdening you with this kind of request. But this is my last option. I held out for as long as I could so I wouldn't inconvenience anyone else. I should have asked for help sooner, but I actually thought we might be able to recover from the debt. I actually ended up making it worse.

I thank you all for reading this and considering a purchase/donation to help out. We could have never done any of this without all of you supporting our books. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to publish comics that some of you enjoyed and to have worked with a huge roster of extremely talented creators. Thanks again.

- Val Staples, MVCreations President

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