Award-winning colorist Matt Hollingsworth took to Bluesky today with claims that he has not received royalties for his coloring work on the Dark Horse series Chrononauts.
Hollingsworth was responding to a post by Dark Horse urging fans to check out Mark Millar’s Chrononauts Library Edition next week, reading, “The Chrononauts are about to conquer time with the whole world watching on live television! By Millar, Sean Murphy, @matthollingsworth.com, @ChrisEliopoulos.com”
“No thanks. Don’t buy this. I receive no money,” Hollingsworth added in another post. “ I don’t want to be associated with this comic, and won’t receive money if you buy it so please boycott.”
A reply to a fan explains the call for a boycott by Hollingsworth, “[Mark Millar] refused to pay me royalties. Sean [Murphy] stepped up and paid me extra out of his money to make up for the lack of royalties, and being loyal to Sean, I colored it,” and then bluntly stated, “Mark Millar doesn’t consider colorists worth paying royalties to, or at least didn’t when I colored this.”
Hollingsworth is one of the most prolific colorists of the last 20 years. It’s a real shame to see this play out in public. “I literally get royalties on almost everything I work on, including from the big publishers” and ” I’ll never work with Millar again. Only did this out of a sense of loyalty to Sean [Murphy],” Hollinsworth concluded.
For fans who want to support Hollingsworth, he added, “I’m working on: Thor, Carnage, Gotham by Gaslight, and a few other comics that aren’t announced. Also, my writing, listed here: matthollingsworth.com/writing/ And my latest horror story: horrificscribblings.com/hush“.
Mark Millar is not on BlueSky, but he did have a profile on British newspaper The Times yesterday. The piece goes on to explain, “[Millar] sold his comic book empire Millarworld to Netflix for almost £25 million in 2017,” announces his new comic and film Psychic Sam, and concludes with “Millar has said the Netflix deal had been like a ‘lottery win’ and allowed him to help out family members and his hometown financially. He and his wife, Lucy, have set up a charitable foundation to use his fortune to help the Townhead area of Coatbridge, where he grew up.”
I hope we get some follow-up reporting on this, including whatever response Millar might deign to offer.