Gary Roberts

[ROBERTS]

Oh don't worry, DragonSabre has it's story and it's ending, but there are a few episodes..this one is DragonSabre 1...Conquest. The invasion and enslavement of the planet. Then there's DragonSabre 2....

[Mr.Farrier]

Hello Mr Roberts, just to say of all the great stuff I have discovered here your work is my favourite, hope you keep going for a long time to come. Also, do you do commissions?

[ROBERTS]

You know, I do commissions, but with conditions. I am not very good at "hired gun" purely commercial art assignments...I don't draw just anything and everything. What I ask of people who want custom art is this: Send me a detailed description by Email. roberts a darkstarprods.com
If your concept matches what I can do, then we'll do the deal. I'm not cheap though.

[arrakur]

and slow.

[Marlene38EE]

and slow.

Gary, if I may...???

"One must not rush Artists, lest the spark be lost."

Martin Wilkins
(My husband)

[arrakur]

What I am doing here is breaking a promise I gave Nuria some time ago. But frankly, I feel a bit tired of my "nice guy" - routine, so bear with me while I satisfy my baser instincts with this:

In August 2009, on a whim, I contacted Gary Roberts. I praised him for his artwork and declared myself a dedicated fan of it. And I inquired about the possibility of commissioning a drawing. He was flattered and good-natured and said he´d be doing commissioned artwork all the time and asked what I had in mind.

After some consideration I came up with my own personal short sequel to “Circus Armageddon”. He seemed highly interested and agreed to do this. Three pages in full colour according to my script. The fee would be 200,- USD for each page.
I agreed and paid him 600,- USD in full and advance on August the 17th 2009. His response on the same day:

Thank you very much for your commission and payment.
I'll get started as soon as I'm done with these Hustler comics, in just a few days.


There went some emails back and forth clarifying the details of my “scene” and then the waiting began. There wasn´t a contract, no deadline established; nor did there seem to be a need to. From the initial exchange this seemed to be a matter of a few weeks at most. Well, time passed and after the first month I inquired about the artwork. Roberts made the first of many excuses and referred to unexpected workload because of unexpected demands from his regular publishers (Hustler, DoFantasy).

I'm sorry, these guys at Hustler expanded what they wanted and put me on a tight deadline. I should have contacted you on the delay. They put in for an additional 4 pages and want it all before the 25th.

Fair enough, I thought (and said), no big deal, I´ll just wait a while longer. Then at least I could put in a few minor changes into the scene. Would that be a problem at this point? The reply was:

Of course. It's YOUR artwork. You paid for it, you get to make adjustments of course. Better to do it now before any drawings begin.

Nuria at DoFantasy thinks these are a great idea, and she wants to know if she can display these drawings on Roberts-Comics or on BDSMArtwork when done. I told her they belong to you, not me, so that decision is for you alone. These are yours personally.

From September 2009 on, I inquired about the artwork from time to time and got no news about my artwork but numerous accounts by Roberts about all the stuff he was busy doing at this time.
December 2009 Roberts apologized again for the delay and referred to major life changes of his. He went through a divorce and got together with a new companion and that had set back all of his work. I offered my understanding and patience and kept waiting. His reply on December the 15th 2009:

we are both grateful for your understanding.

Your artwork is of course a very high priority to us now. We do value the support of our fans very much. We are going to get right on this and produce the artwork hopefully beyond your expectations. Thank you again.

Time passed. And everytime, about once a month, I inquired about my artwork, I got accounts of all the things he was busy working on right now. No mentioning of my artwork, at all.
About March 2010 I became somewhat impatient. Still politely, I pointed out the long time this was taking as opposed to the indication from August 2009 that this would be a swift affair. He apologized and promised to get on this these days.
On March the 18th 2010 (7 months after payment) he contacted me and asked for my commission again. He had lost it.

Hey...

I'm completely embarassed. All of my Emails archived from this last 6 months have been erased. I have no records.

Can you send again your complete descriptions of the scenes you want?

Truax and I will begin to fulfill this commission as soon as you can send the old Emails. Sorry, i had a crash and my archive was lost.

Jesus, I thought. But what the hell. I sent in my script again and, behold, one day later I got a sample drawing. 7 months after commissioning and paying for the artwork, a sample drawing. Work is being done on this. Hurrah. My spirit went up and I approved the setting with the slightest minor changes, relieved that Roberts would be creating exactly the kind of setting, mood and action, I was going for.

A 600,- USD drawing.


And time passed. With me inquiring about the artwork and him reporting about his huge workload and all his commitments and with absolutely no comment about any progress about my artwork. As the first anniversary of my commission approached, while being still polite, I became a bit more forceful and asked about my commission.
On August the 1st 2010 he aplogized profoundly, sported disbelief about the long time himself and requested that I “reminded him more often”. He also stated that the first page of my three-page commission was “near completion”. Weeeeeell, I thought. Fair enough.
A bit later I inquired, due to the long time waiting, if I could get the single pages once completed instead of waiting for the whole thing.

Our exchange from September the 19th 2010 (over one year after payment):

Since you did not respond to my previous four mails, I`ll just try once again.

In your mail from august the 1st you said I "should remind you more often", so that´s what I am doing. I am still patient but want to stress that now 13 months have elapsed since we made this deal. So, I just want to know how for it has progressed.
In addition, I am once more inquiring if it is possible to receive the commissioned artwork in parts. Given the long time that has past, I wouldn´t mind receiving the work, let´s say, one page at a time.
It might be that you feel reluctant to do so. I could imagine because you might have to do some changes to the first page once the other two are being completed.
If that would be the case, I would accept it, no problem.


Oh really? Sorry. Been having a bad time with this service.
Seems to be working today.
We're buried in the next Hustler Taboo comic right now, will be done with it tomorrow.
Pages are pretty much finished and set as they are done..not likely to go back and change things. So if you want the pages as they get completed, that's fine.


Fine…except, nothing happening. At this point, I was getting really impatient and annoyed. All the more so, because from that point on, Roberts did no longer respond to my emails. Late October 2010 I tried to reach him through my hotmail-service. No reply. I sent him two private messages on his own “Darkstar-Prods.” Site´s message-board. No reply. I practically begged him to get in contact with me through two additional private messages on the “DoFantasy”-forum where he dropped in daily. No reply.
The waiting for the artwork was one thing. But that he did not even bother to reply to the inquiries of his client, who did pay in good faith over a year ago for a job not being done yet…that really grated on my nerves.
So, I saw two options to get a rise out of him. Post this story (as far as it has progressed at this point) on one of the appropriate message boards….or involve Nuria, the publisher of DoFantasy, Roberts-Comics.com, BDSMArtwork.com, who had shown interest in this commission over a year ago.
I contacted her and offered her the artwork…and thereby giving up the exclusitivity of it, meaning I paid 600,- USD for artwork and would be one of countless internet-users who got to see it someday; but at least there was a change I WOULD see it….only that she would be the one who had to worry about getting Roberts to do it.
That maneuver was, of course, a childish thing to do (and I was somewhat intoxicated when I did it) and it was designed to put some pressure on Roberts.
Nuria responded with sympathy and said she would “see what she could do”. She forwarded my mail without further comment on her part to Roberts.

He was not pleased at all.

And the month-long malfunction of his email-service evaporated on November the 5th 2010:

This action is not acceptable.

I will refund your money.

I apoligized to him but pointed out the long wait and the fruitless attempts to contact him (I was a client, right?):

Sorry to hear that.

It was not my intention to anger you. But the constant lack of replies was becoming increasingly irritating. All I was asking for was a short notice if and how much the work has progressed. Since I have gotten no reply, I felt this was one way to go about it.

But I can´t accept full refund. Since you did invest a lot of time in communicating and actually doing some of the artwork (one page was supposed to be almost finished), I would think that half, or perhaps one third of the fee should be appropriate.

Again, if I offended you I apologize for it. But after 14 months of waiting and the last two months of them being...seemingly ignored...I felt, I had to take some action.

His instant response (email working fine today):

By bringing this to my publisher, essentially, my EMPLOYER, you jeopardize my "job". This is not acceptable.

Well, that´s it then, I thought. I contacted Nuria and thanked her for her effort and gave her my word not to bring this to the public and not to discuss this matter with online friends.
She expressed her sympathy and her final comment on the matter was:

Sorry to hear that. I forwarded your email to Mr Roberts with no further
comments on my part. I understood and understand that you paid for a job that
has not been done and this is not correct.

And frankly, I was pretty disgusted with the whole affair and refused to take any further action on this. f@ck this.
More out of morbid curiousity I contacted Roberts on February the 13th 2011 (one year and five months after payment) and inquired about the refund. His instant response:

Can't we finish this artwork?

Two inquiries on my part seemed to confirm that he actually really wanted to supply the artwork. Thinking this might actually be happening in the foreseeable future after all, IDIOT that I am I said yes.

I could bore you to tears by repeating the sequence above. The same dance began and continued with me inquiring about the artwork and him reporting on all the many, many projects and obligations he was busy doing right now.

My only indicator about if work has been done on my commission or not was that I did not receive any. The first page was “near completion” on August the 1st 2010. As long as I did not receive that first single page due to our agreement (on which I reminded him a few times) I had to assume nothing was being done on my commission.

September 2011, two years after I commissioned and paid for this and received one single pencil drawing in all that time, he became tremendously apologetic again. He promised to get to work on this and just to make things just a little bit interesting for me, I sent in my script again with some changes to the dialogue. He accepted gracefully and confirmed that he was working on this now.

October 2011 he declared that he would complete all private commissions still open and mine would be completed first, of course. He boldly stated that they (Roberts and Truax) would do THIS and ONLY THIS until every one got their artwork.

Well, once in late October 2011 updates on Roberts-Comics.com came in and I haven´t even received my first page yet, I realized that the “THIS and ONLY THIS”-line has just been another promise.

From that point on, Roberts did no longer reply to my emails.
I asked for my commission. No reply. In November 2011, I proposed (not demanded) a deadline for this artwork…January 31st 2012…after which this project should be considered canceled and a partial refund should be in order. Deadline and terms fully negotiable. Still polite that Arrakur-fellow. No reply.

Mid-February 2012 I once more inquired about the artwork. No reply. I briefly considered trying to sent him private messages on his message board but decided to not bother this time around. Why would he respond to them this year if he ignored them during his “Silent Running”-phase in 2009?

On February 26th 2012, over two and a half years after commissioning and paying 600,- USD in full and in advance in good faith, I canceled the commission with no further obligations on Roberts part:

A vague remark from Nuria on the "dofantasy"-forum about "some hard months" for you and you mentioning that your computers went down a while ago on the "darkstar"-forum indicate that you had some difficult times. I sympathize.

Even so, I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Two and a half years waiting for this and no replies whatsoever to my mails since November last year have reduced my patience into nothingness. Also, I have been thinking about this artwork a LOT in the past months and came to a sad conclusion: This being a sexual fantasy (of sorts) it is not something that necessarily stays with you for the rest of your life. Fact is that I have moved on and the last time I felt some passion for this was when I made up new dialogue for this scene (and you indicated that it might finally come to pass in September/October 2011). As of now...I´ve lost interest in this.

So here is my position on this: Feel free to discontinue work on this. The artwork is no longer required. Since you have invested time and work on this... a refund (either partially or in full) is NOT required as well. I want nothing back and nothing in return.

I am simply walking away from this.

In case of this offending you I am willing to apologize beforehand but frankly, that doesn´t bother me at all at this point.

Despite all, best wishes to you and good bye.


To this day, July the 28th 2012, no reply.


To summarize:

· 600,- USD being paid in August 2009 for a commission which has not been completed nor even partly delivered after two and a half years.
· One pencil drawing received over half a year after payment. The ONLY prove of work actually being done on this. Agreements have been made for me to receive single pages once completed. After the commission was re-instated on February 2011, I politely asked for additional sample-drawing, pencils…something to keep me interested in this. As of February 2012 nothing received.
Just this one pencil drawing received on March 2010.
· Two… just two out of numerous mails by Roberts actually mentioning that work is being done on this commission. One in August 2010. One in October 2011.
· Since my commission has been accepted in August 2009 roundabout 180 pages being published by Roberts on BDSMArtwork.com alone (The Grove, The Collection, Sex-Slave TV, Dragonsabre)

Certain rules apply to private commissions between the client and the artist. Even if a deadline is agreed upon it should not be chiseled in stone. Time should not be of the essence and the client has to make allowances, naturally, for sickness and “Acts of God”. In Roberts´s case, I have been very patient and a divorce, moving your studio from one US-state to another, illness…all that are, of course, “Acts of God”. But two and a half years? This simply can´t be right!

Where do we stand?

I canceled the commission, basically no longer giving a shit about the artwork or my payment. In effect, I find the loss of the money almost insignificant next to the way Roberts has conducted this affair.
In addition, I have canceled my membership to Roberts-Comics.com and Darkstar-Prod.com. I have also purged all of Roberts artwork from my hard-drives. I couldn´t look at any of his work without feeling a pang of anger at this point, although I have chilled out somewhat.

Still, as five more months have passed, I came to the decision to break my promise to Nuria and start a little shit-attack. If that makes me an asshole, so be it. It´s time to get this off my chest. And even if this message gets erased from the board really, really fast, it still feels good.

Thanks for listening.

[comicglutton]

Arrakur, I think you have been a model of patience. No one should be treated this way. I think the least Roberts can do is give you a full refund. $600 is a lot of dough! Good luck.

[DarkPlayer]

It's a shame that Roberts has dealt with you but it really does not surprise me.

From year to year, I've increasingly felt that this site and the associated massive loss of quality. Where once there was diversity, they serve us today more and more of the same matter without any fantasy or sparkling eroticism.

The eternal produce of very similar comics with the one and only aim of draw the money out of our pocket.

One or two years before I myself was once a client of prodstar.com or roberts-comics.com. Access to the page I had never received. My emails to the contact addresses listed at site were never answered. Only with the help of Nuria, I get my money back. For me ROBERTS is simply irresponsible.

And - this is just my opinion - he is the worst artist employs by bdsmartwork. There is always the same style, ever the same type of woman and the told story is boring.

I very much hope that bdsmartwork will stay for along time but I think it needs some new ideas and not only the 10th part of one and the same story. I think there are thousnads of hot ideas in the brain of each customers. Only ask and only hear.

Greetings
DarkPlayer

[arrakur]

I don´t entirely agree on your harsh jugdement on the content of dofantasy as a whole.
As I understand it, the lack of diversity is mainly caused by more rigid guidelines and rules that dofantasy have to submit to in order to stay in business. That has been discussed at length on this board.

Also, when it comes to BDSM-scenarios, a certain redundancy can not be avoided. How many different ways are there to r@pe a girl, anyway?

If you check out Feather´s work, however, you may find some fresh ideas and more "wicked" scenes than common nowadays in dofantasy-comics.

Thank you, however, for siding with me on the subject of my ill-fated commission.

And you too, comicglutton.

[DarkPlayer]

@ arrakur:

I think there are countless ways to hum@litate a girl.

It's not only bound, whip and f@ck....

There are several ways in blackmailing, mind r@ping, forced to prostitute, enslavement, bodymodification, forced surgery etc...