famac wrote:
On the question of risk: Marvel is taking the most risk because what if Jack came in with 20 blank pages? From the business standpoint, Marvel has scheduled an entire product on those pages being delivered, and has the most to lose if they are not delivered. Kirby loses his page rate, but Marvel's scheduled product is disrupted and all sort of related production costs are incurred -- plus huge franchise risk.


It's more fundamental than that - if Kirby hands in 20 pages and the book tanks, Kirby still gets his page rate and Marvel takes the financial hit. The risk was all Marvel's.