Buyer Beware: Michael Golden commissions.

The internet is abuzz with talk of a post over at Byrne Robotics message boards, and reading about it has taken up most of my morning.

To sum up, a forum member commissioned a piece from Michael Golden. It cost $500 and he was told that it would take about a month and a half to complete. It took about 4 months and when the guy got his sketch, it was a simple figure drawing which mocked him with a misspelled Dr. Strange incantation (you can see the sketch in the above link).

This story has been covered here and here but the issues with Golden and commissions goes all the way back to June. 

My take? Let's look at both sides of this.

First of all, Golden might be inundated with sketch requests and totally not realizing the amount of time it will take to get through them. That could happen. And Golden is not the only artist who takes longer than promised on delivering commissons to fans.

That being said, I too would be pissed if a sketch I paid that amount of money for took about 3 times as long as they promised and ended up looking like that. All the sketch is is cape. I could do a sketch just as good if I had 4 months (probably less) and I am in no way a professional artist. Add to that the insult to injury that is Golden's adding "Patience is a virue(sic)" to the art.

Sure, Golden might thing that that art is well worth $500. Some fans might agree. I would have preferred to hit the back issues with that money and I probably would have left the convention much happier.

But this should serve as a lesson to all comic fans. If you are going to buy a commission off a favorite artist, take some steps to protect yourself:

• If he/she gives you a time frame of a month and a half, put a date to it. Say "So I should see this around September 15th, right?"
• Ask them what their commission backlog is.
• Ask them exactly what you with be getting for your money before you hand the money over. If what they offer doesn't seem worth the money you are spending, walk away.

If they are treating drawing sketches for fans as a business, you have every right to do so as well.