Collaboration Terms
Ryan Martin, operating as Full Bleed Press (“Full Bleed Press”)
Version 2.0
Let’s make something together.
Full Bleed Press creates short comics through collaboration. Our stories often explore the surreal, spooky, and strange. We welcome artists with different styles, backgrounds, and levels of experience, and emerging artists are especially encouraged to reach out.
Scripts are starting points. Characters, settings, tone, and visual approaches can evolve around your strengths and interests. We agree on significant changes together before production.
This page describes our proposed working model. Each project requires a separate written agreement covering its scope, responsibilities, rights, expenses, and payment terms.
Who does what?
Full Bleed Press
Depending on the agreed project scope, Ryan Martin, operating as Full Bleed Press, handles:
Script writing or development.
Creative direction, editing, and feedback.
Production schedules and coordination.
Lettering or coloring when included in the agreed scope.
Book design and preparation of digital and print-ready files.
Publishing, promotion, sales reporting, and artist payments.
Printer coordination, packing, shipping, and customer service for physical editions.
The artist
Depending on the agreed project scope, the artist handles:
Creating thumbnails and submitting page layouts for review.
Developing characters, environments, and visual storytelling.
Producing pencils, inks, or other agreed finished artwork.
Sharing progress at agreed review stages.
Completing agreed rounds of revisions.
Delivering final files to the agreed specifications and schedule.
Cover artwork, coloring, lettering, and additional promotional artwork are included only when specifically agreed.
We establish page count, deadlines, review stages, and revision limits before work begins. Additional work or major changes require discussion and written agreement.
How profit sharing works
Our standard proposal is 50% of net profit to the artist and 50% to Full Bleed Press.
This is a profit-sharing collaboration. There is no guaranteed upfront page fee or minimum income unless the project agreement explicitly provides one. Sales and profits are not guaranteed.
Net profit means money actually received from project sales, less refunds, chargebacks, payment or platform fees, and other direct project expenses approved in writing. Sales tax collected for payment to tax authorities is excluded.
Our own writing, editing, lettering, coloring, drawing, and production labor is compensated through our respective shares. It is not deducted again as an additional fee.
General business overhead, equipment, website subscriptions, and unapproved advertising are not automatically charged to a project. Any outside specialist expense must be agreed in advance.
Digital editions
After applicable agreed expenses, digital net profit is divided equally between the artist and Full Bleed Press.
Any fee percentages shown in website examples are illustrations. Actual deductions are based on actual costs.
Print editions
Each proposed print edition has a funding goal based on its production and fulfillment budget. We proceed with printing once the goal is reached, unless we separately agree on another funding arrangement.
Print sales first cover approved expenses such as printing, proofs, delivery from the printer, packaging, and transaction fees. The remaining print profit is divided 50/50.
Each expense is recovered only once. If preorder money covers a printing bill, that bill is not deducted again from later sales.
Shipping collected from customers and the corresponding postage costs are accounted for together, without duplicate deductions. Unspent budget allowances remain available for profit sharing.
Each preorder campaign will state its deadline, delivery estimate, and what happens if the funding goal is not reached.
Artist profit payments begin when there is profit to distribute. An unrecovered project cost does not automatically become a debt the artist owes.
Reporting and payment
We provide quarterly to annual sales and expense statements depending on the frequency of sales, and pay amounts due within 30 days after each calendar quarter ends, if no sales happen in that quarter, an annual report will be sent, subject to receiving the artist’s payment details.
Statements distinguish print and digital activity and show sales, deductions, costs still to be recovered, and each party’s share. Artists may request clarification and supporting records for project expenses.
Shared expenses are allocated as agreed and never recovered twice.
Ownership and credit
Our intended arrangement is that artists retain copyright to their original artwork and writers retain copyright to their original scripts.
Before production, the project agreement will address ownership of new characters, adaptations, jointly developed material, and the completed comic. A 50/50 profit split does not itself establish a 50/50 copyright split.
The agreement will specify Full Bleed’s publishing permission, including formats, duration, territory, language, exclusivity, and how that permission ends.
Merchandise, film, games, and other additional uses require separate written permission from the relevant rights holders.
Artists receive agreed credits. Ownership or sale of physical original artwork is addressed separately from copyright and publishing rights.
Submitting an inquiry or portfolio gives us permission to review it. It does not grant permission to publish it.
Human-made artwork
Traditional and digital drawing are welcome. We do not accept generative-AI artwork, including generated images traced or painted over.
Artists provide a manageable selection of process documentation, agreed before production. This may include sketches, progress photographs, screenshots, or drawing recordings. Showing your face is not required.
Public use of process material is agreed separately and credited. Ordinary digital drawing tools, brushes, layers, and stabilizers are welcome.
Before we begin
An inquiry, script exchange, or conversation does not commit either party to a project. No new audition artwork is required to introduce yourself.
Before production, we sign an agreement covering the work, compensation, rights, approved expenses, and what happens if the project changes, pauses, or ends. Any later changes must be agreed in writing.