Breaking News! DFG Comics files for Bankruptcy Protection!

By Fawney Bologna
Special to DFG ONLINE!
Carnage City

Startling news broke this morning when word quickly spread throughout the DFG offices that DFG Comics has filed for bankruptcy protection.  DFG president Dan Graves was quick to issue the following press release:

"Fans will have noted that there have been no DFG publications released in the 2010 year to date. This has been because of an ongoing labour dispute with C.R.A.P.O.N.U. (Creators, Receptionists, Artists, Pencillers, and Oceanic Nautical Illustrators' Union)* local 41.  We have continued to offer generous compensation to all our staffers but they walked off the job in early January and as such no new publications have been produced or released.  This has, of course, affected our revenue stream.  We are now at the point of having Carnage City National Bank calling our line of credit.  This is not the end of DFG Comics, only an interlude.  We are confident that we can work out an arrangement both with our creditors and our staff."

The catalyst that led to the strike was the increasing use of non-union workers, especially the "Todd Abbot Studio"  (which works at a much lower page rate) leaving staffers with fewer assignments and certainly with fewer prestige assignments.  We spoke with Marty "Red" Bullshevic, a DFG staff letterer and president of C.R.A.P.O.N.U. local 41, "The last straw was when DFG VP Darryl Andrews took Todd Abbot and his studio to the new B.C. headquarters.  There were a lot of DFG staffers who thought they would get to move west as well and become part of the 'west coast bullpen.' We were completely shut out and Todd Abbot Studios got preferential treatment over longtime DFG staffers, contrary to the collective agreement.  That's when we walked."

DFG legal counsel, Sir Milton Goldfarbstein, K.G., Q.C., LLB, PhD (who is in remarkably good health for his age, having been born in 1867, and having suffered several health scares in the past few years) made the following statement: "Red Bullshevic and C.R.A.P.O.N.U should go back and read their collective agreement.  There is nothing that states we have to favour them over contracted studio work.  We would have never been so foolish to let labour run the shop at DFG."

The stand-off continues with DFG on the brink of collapse.  And all of this begs the question, if the Todd Abbot Studio is so favoured over DFG staffers, why has it failed to produce any material this year?

* Editor's note: The Oceanic Nautical Illustrators joined the union in 1932 when they were being treated very poorly by despotic ship captains.  Other artists and support workers in the creative world rallied to their support in a show of solidarity and later that year C.R.A.P.U. became C.R.A.P.O.N.U.