Posted in: Comics | Tagged: George Pratt, joel meadows, kickstarter, kickstopped, tripwire

George Pratt Vs Joel Meadows And Tripwire Over $50,000 On Kickstarter

A Kickstopped Special for Bleeding Cool: George Pratt Vs Joel Meadows and Tripwire over Kickstarter-funded Art Book and $50,000

Last year, Bleeding Cool reported on a Kickstarter campaign for Into White: The Art Of George Pratt, a 200-page 9×12 hardcover celebrating the career of acclaimed American artist George Pratt, from pop culture to fine art, with a paperback version available as well. It was published by a longstanding UK small-press magazine and comics publisher, Tripwire. George Pratt was designing the book and was also to provide signed plate copies.

George Pratt has brought fine art sensibilities, especially watercolours and oil painting to comics over the last forty-three years, beginning with Epic Illustrated for Marvel in 1983, Enemy Ace: War Idyll for DC Comics, as well as Batman, Wolverine, Conan and Sandman, with many graphic novel projects on the go. While Tripwire has published magazines reporting on comics and interviews with creators since 1992, as well as graphic novels and art books, and currently works with Mad Cave Studios. It is owned and run by Joel Meadows, who has been in this game about six months longer than I have. Tripwire raised £41,237 against a £5,000 goal from 304 backers, which is around $50,000. And everything was coming along. On April 5th, George Pratt posted a Kickstarter update.

"Great news! We've finalized the design and the copy editing has been done. Now we go to proofs, then full steam ahead on printing! Once it's in the printer's hands that means 14 weeks give or take we should have the books in hand and begin to fulfill your orders. To thank you all for your support and patience we've added 80 pages to the final book, making it come in at 336 pages!"

And on Facebook, he added, "Here are some Chapter spreads to whet your appetite!" People were excited. Positive responses came from his peers. Kelley Jones said, "Outstanding work, George." Bill Sinkiewicz said, "Can't wait!" Dave Dorman asked, "Not sure how I missed this!! How do I order?" Dan Brereton said, "Truly anxious to see it, George, a long time coming for us fans! Your work has inspired me since I was an art student hoping to break into Comics- and saw pages from the (then as-yet unreleased) ENEMY ACE! Just as excited about your work now : )" Jonathan Wayshak said, "Fantastic." And even Barry Windsor-Smith posted, "Your stuff is terrific, George. Glorious Good Luck with this art book. BWS." But then on April 14th, on the Kickstarter page, Joel Meadows posted a new update. And it was bad news;

"So George Pratt has cancelled the book and we are trying to arrange a refund schedule for everyone. However George Pratt is now in possession of $20,000 and it is unclear how those funds will be used to issue refunds towards all of the pledges on this campaign. It is unfortunate it has come to this but this book has been killed by Pratt himself. At Pratt's specific request, Tripwire is also no longer involved with any aspect of this project."

This was certainly a surprising development. People asked what the problem was. And then George Pratt sent the following message directly to the Kickstarter backers. Bleeding Cool received a number of copies. It read;

"When I posted an update on April 5th, the book was finally done. We were ready to order a printer's proof and then move ahead and run the books once we were happy with the press quality. Very exciting! That's when Joel told me there was only $20,000 left of the money he raised through the Kickstarter. He had spent all the other money on "Personal Expenses." $30,000.00. Over 60% of the funds. Joel ran the Kickstarter campaign himself and controlled all the money. I assumed what we raised was in safe hands. Untouched until press time, right? When I found out he had spent the money, I was shocked, enraged, and brokenhearted. I demanded that Joel wire me the remaining funds – the $20,000 – so that he couldn't mishandle any more of the money. He did wire me that money on April 9th. Mind you, I had never had access to a single dollar of the funds prior to this point. Once I received the money, I realized I could no longer trust Joel as a partner. He told me he had no plans to replace the money he spent. So I told Joel he would no longer be publishing my book. I gave Joel a cease-and-desist to stop him from contacting any distributors, comic shops, book stores, etc., to prevent him from making any money on preorders or in any way being a representative of my book. I began speaking with representatives of Kickstarter (the company) for their advice on how best to move forward to get everyone reimbursed. However, once I informed Joel I was speaking to Kickstarter, he removed my access to the Kickstarter campaign, and then posted the update you received about the project being cancelled. Since Joel posted his update, I have received many emails of concern from the amazing community of artists and supporters like you, providing help and solutions. I want to assure you, I am not going to let Joel's actions get in the way of this book finally coming to life. I just spent over 10 months of my life pouring my heart and soul into this thing. I am beyond proud of what I have created and cannot wait to share it with all of you. This book will happen, and you will all receive a copy. I did manage to secure all of your email addresses before Joel locked me out of the Kickstarter, and I will continue to update all supporters via email. Thank you again for your support. It means everything to me."

Joel Meadows then posted his own response on behalf of Tripwire, which Bleeding Cool also received, saying;

"With George Pratt making a public comment about the campaign for Into White: The Art of George Pratt, we felt that it was important for us to issue a statement. As anyone who has run a Kickstarter knows, and we have run at least a dozen successful campaigns before, the purpose of any campaign is to cover the expenses required to print the book to satisfy the people who have pledged on the campaign and also to cover the running and admin costs of the publisher. It is not designed to cover an indeterminate amount decided arbitrarily at a later date without the consultation and full consent of the publisher. I took money out of the campaign because I started the campaign, ran and administered it from June until the end of March. The purpose of running a campaign is to bring in revenue as part of an arrangement between a creator and publisher in this case. This has been our business model for Tripwire over the past few years. So the money is currently there to print the book as per our original agreement, page count and format but Pratt has decided to act unilaterally and has changed the format (added 86 pages without our consent, dropped the paperback even though the campaign had a number of pledges for a paperback edition, included text content in the book without any consultation with us and vastly increased the print run). Changing the format and page count increased the weight of the book, which incurs extra postage costs for fulfilling the campaign. All of these decisions he took unilaterally, way beyond the costs from the original estimate, and the first we knew of these changes was when he announced them as a done deal to us without any consultation with us. I would dearly love to see this book published, and a few days ago, I contacted Mr Pratt to suggest a solution whereby we reduce the print run to the amount we had originally intended to print, but he wasn't prepared to listen or compromise. Because of George's decision to pull the book, we are hoping that we can remunerate everyone who has pledged to the campaign. But currently, he is holding the funds, which he insisted we send him back without explaining what he will be doing with this money. For us to offer any kind of refund towards this campaign, he needs to send this money back to us, as the campaign is in the Tripwire name. The book could still be published as per the original Kickstarter campaign, even with the additional page count and weight, but any decision to move forward lies in the hands of George Pratt, as he is in possession of the remaining funds from the campaign and the final designed book. This is our final statement on the matter at present, as we are currently seeking legal advice."

These are the facts and statements as we currently have them. Bleeding Cool hopes that an accommodation and conclusion can be reached by both parties acceptable to all, and especially the donors. But it is a reminder with Kickstarter, as with any crowdfunding publication, that these things can happen, and it is always caveat emptor.

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