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Moose Baumann Vs Mel Smith

"Two men say they're Jesus. One of them's gotta be wrong" – Industrial Disease, Dire Straits.

UPDATE: Since the original publication of this article, both parties have worked out their differences.

Last year published the first issue of the comic book. This year it published the second. There has not yet been a third and final issue.

The series drawn by Alex Nino, written by Clark Castillo and Mel Smith and colorred by Moose Baumann has hit a few snags along the way. The latest being a legal letter from Baumann instructing Image Comics and Diamond Distribution not to continue distributing the comic or any resultant trade paperback until Mouse Baumann has been paid for his work on issue 2.

Work that Mel says Moose was paid for. Mel's attourney has sent a letter to Moose Baumann demanding that he cease and desist any such activity or be sued.

In promotion for the series, Mel Smith was quoted by Wizard saying

Yeah, the Wizard Fan Award winner this year, Moose Baumann. And that's even weirder because when we pitched the project to Image, they originally wanted it in black and white. They were like, "Why would you want to cover up this amazing artwork?" Image at first wanted to go with the pure beauty, and I was like, "No. Alex specifically wanted it in color. He really did call for it." I've known Moose since we were like 17 years old. I've known him since he was a little Moose, and Moose, man, he also raised that bar. He went farther than I could have imagined and did this beautiful, crazy watercolor monochrome look to it that just stands out. He's taking all those grays and putting grays on top of color and adding warmth and more of a dimension to it, and it's looking great. I couldn't ask for anything more. It's nice to see that when I recruited a team, they were all showing what I knew they were—top-notch professionals. I've got a page and it looks great. I just smile. I'm all warm and giddy over it.

But this seems to have been puffed up promotional parlay. The truth was very different.

Image Comics have a system where a lead creative on a book becomes their point of contact and responsibility. In Dead Ahead's case that was Mel Smith. So Smith is their go-to guy over the series, Smith is the one who gets paid, it is Smith's responsibility to distribute money and Smith to whom any complaints must be addressed.

Initially I understand Moose's work on the first issue was a little late. And there were issues with the way the lettering on the title was handled that wasn't picked by by Mel Smith on receipt of the work and was printed as-was. But then Moose's payment was delayed – he'd turned down other work and taken a paycut to work on Dead Ahead, to be paid a fixed page rate plus from profits on the book, only to find payment details changed from 60 days after handing over work to 90 days – and then he still wasn't paid. He talked to Image and discovered that Mel Smith had taken thousands of copies of the first issue in lieu of profits. Moose wasn't happy, and a string of angry emails and phone calls later, he eventually got paid his page rate.

People apologised, payments were made, and work started on the second issue. The art work was late, and the colouring was later and Mel Smith wasn't happy with the work.

Mel Smith states that he paid Moose for the five pages done at one point, in cash, Moose apologised, handed over the files on his doorstep and said he'd finish the rest of the book for free.

Moose Baumann states that he was never paid in any way for the second issue, did not offer to do the work on the second issue for free, (and I have seen emails from Mel promising to pay Moose repeatedly), was threatened at the doorstep, has instructed Mel that he will call the police if Moose comes round his place again, and that his work has been used and published by Image without payment.

Mel states that Moose has been blacklisted at other companies such as DC Comics (despite Moose working on House Of Mystery this year) and Moose states that Image have now blacklisted Mel Smith until the payment issue is cleared up,(though Mel is working on previously arranged titles such as the reissue of Art Adams' Gumby series).

As it stands there is no proof that Moose was paid.

Mel Smith and Moose Baumann used to be good friends. This series was created without a contract between them. Lesson learned?

Additional reporting by Keith Dallas.

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