Well now, if they couldn’t even sign their name, would you really wanna hire them to write/draw stories for you? ;)

OK, I’ll shut up now. ;)

Though, I hear Jim Rugg dropped his “Dick Troutman” moniker a few years back for professional reasons.

Ironically, my real name slipped in to one lone Disney comic a few years ago, and now EVERYTHING Disney I’ve done since then has been credited to that name on INDUCKS. Funny, considering it’s always been published as “Kneon Transitt” save for that *one* instance.

http://coa.inducks.org/creator.php?c=Thom+Pratt&c1=qmaker

Ah, whatchoo gonna do?

“Kneon” is not my real name, but I’m fairly easy to get in touch with if you know who to ask. Though, I might very well be considered a “dabbler” myself, so maybe I don’t count. ;)

“Silicon Needle” though… that’s kind of a stretch. At least he didn’t go with “Empty Syringe” or “Bloody Gauze”…

Also, people who worry about stalkers probably shouldn’t be publicly posting their work on the Internet to begin with.

My original comments were directed at those who are seeking a PROFESSIONAL CAREER in comics, not dabblers and hobbyists.

I agree 110%.

And let’s not forget good Dr. Suess… died penniless, he did.

;)

And, really, if you are a writer or artist, do you really want to limit yourself by not having your real name and let everyone out there know who you are? I mean, autobiographical material alone would make you have to honestly, ‘come out’ of the name-closet.

I don’t get the whole, sham thing, unless you feel you are being racially/gender profiled unfairly for your work.

And “Rivkah”s close enough to my real name; just slightly altered because it’s the name I took when I started converting to Judaism to get a deeper sense of who I am. Heck, everybody I’m friends with knows me as Rivkah except my family who still persist in old names. ;)

I also think (in deeper response to Heidi’s post) that a large portion of the people who choose to use pseudonyms in the comics industry are also chicas like myself and chicos who’ve gotten used to the one-name and odd sounding monikers from Japan, and have picked that up as something unique and appealing. And it isn’t that unacceptable is it, when graphic novels tend to be categorized by series rather than author/artist in stores? Couple that with the growing popularity of the internet, ubiquity of name handles, and the incredibly high accessibility of personal information that isn’t guarded, then it’s something I can only see becoming far more common.

And for the record, I have a group of real-life friends that are all known to each other solely by handle names like “Cow” and “Snacks” and “Decibel”, and honestly respond to them. Really. Kids these days. ;)

I accidentally published my last name at the bottom of my website for a while as part of the disclaimer and it got picked up in a nanosecond. It was also published in the Mangaka America book even though I sent back edits to have it removed. I was pissed. Call me paranoid, but personally I don’t like the idea of any jane or joe being able to look up my name (or my family) and seeing where I live. And when my books are published, it’s under “Rivkah” not “Rivkah ********”.