In 1996, Dragon’s Tale Comics and Games open its doors in West Hall Plaza in Slidell, Louisiana. This was a passion project of one man, supported by his brother. They formed a partnership that launched their town’s only comic book and gaming shop, complete with a small rack of anime VHS tapes for customers to enjoy. After his brother left to pursue other opportunities, the owner continued to keep the shop open while working fast food jobs at night just to stay afloat. He ran that shop until the day he died and cherished every moment of it. It was that love of comics, anime, and art in general that he shared with his child.
That child grew up sitting in the back of that comic shop reading everything she could and exactly 30 years after Dragon’s Tale Comics and Games first opened, she has helped to carry on her late dad’s memory by starting a new business, Dragon’s Tale Studios, also with the help of her brothers.
Dragon’s Tale Studios is a multimedia art collective, producing not only comic books but also films, television, podcasts, books, and so much more. Taking inspiration from everyone from Image Comics to Fat Wreck Chords, Dragon’s Tale was founded on the ideal of creator ownership. But we go even farther, formally adopting “A Bill of Rights for Comic Creators” first drafted by industry workers in 1988, while also championing worker ownership, workplace democracy, unionization, and copyright reform.
What is the difference between creator and worker ownership, you ask? Well, creator ownership refers to the hard fought right of creators to retain ownership over their creations. This is where we get the wonderful world of creator owned comics. Worker ownership on the other hand has to do with who owns the company itself. While many creator owned comic labels still operate on a traditional hierarchical business model, Dragon’s Tale Studios is a worker-owned cooperative, owned and operated collectively and run via the process of workplace democracy. Workplace democracy means that all worker-owners get an equal say in how the business is run.
We are also a strong supporter of the kind of grassroots labor unionism embodied by the Industrial Workers of the World. Some of our worker-owners are members of the IWW and we encourage all worker-owners and freelancers that we work with to turn to the IWW for help navigating any workplace issues that they feel they are having issues resolving. This is especially important since a majority of the people we work with are freelancers who only wish to work with us on individual projects rather than joining as fulltime worker-owners, meaning that they do not get any voting privileges in how the company is run. Having a labor union to organize through to address any issues empowers our freelancers. And, while not technically a union, we do refer people to the wonderful resources, including health and liability insurance, retirement plans, and tax guides, that the Freelancers Union has to offer.
Meanwhile, our approach to copyright is more nuanced. While some of our staff are ultimately in favor of copyright abolition, we all agree that copyright is a useful tool to protect our assets under the current economic reality. So while some of us may fight to create a world where copyright is no longer necessary, we are willing to take a gradualist approach to the matter, at least on a company level. Ultimately, we embrace the creative commons licensing and encourage other creators to do the same. These modified copyright licenses allows for far more consumer freedom without the risk of corporate theft. They allow more freedom to share, duplicate, remix, or create derivative works amongst other benefits. For similar reasons, we also support the BipCot NoGov License as well as a means of protecting against any governmental use of our assets.
Ultimately, our goal is to create a more collaborative art world while producing quality works of art and entertainment.
To learn more about A Bill of Rights for Comic Creators, workplace democracy, the Industrial Workers of the World, the Freelancers Union, Creative Commons, or Bipcot, check out the following links:
https://www.scottmccloud.com/4-inventions/bill/rights.html
https://www.democracyatwork.info/
https://www.iww.org/
https://freelancersunion.org/
https://creativecommons.org/
https://bipcot.org