Humanoids to creators: Oops, guess we should have mentioned that chapter 7 thing

This week we’ve been taking a look at what’s been happening at Les Humanoïdes Associés and Humanoids, which are respectively, the French publisher that invented Heavy Metal Magazine and the US-based branch of the company. And every time I run a story, more comes out, so consider this the end of the trilogy….unless there is even MORE to uncover, which is always a possibility. 

Les Humanoïdes Associés has a storied history: founded in 1974 by creators Mœbius, Jean-Pierre Dionnet and Philippe Druillet, and business man Bernard Farkas, it published the original Métal Hurlant magazine. The trippy mind expanding mix of science fiction and gorgeous art is one of the most influential comics anthologies ever, and was later spun off into the US version, Heavy Metal, which in turn inspired generations of cartoonists.  Their catalog included creators like Moebius, Alexandro Jodorowsky, Enki Bilal, Milo Manara, and Juan Gimenez turning out legit masterpieces. 

Creator run publishing houses don’t always have the best business plans, alas, and the original Humanoïdes ran into financial troubles before being acquired in 1988 by Swiss publisher/producer Fabrice Giger. Giger kept the French version going, and in 1998 founded Humanoids, the US branch, which published English language editions of the French classics and over the next 25 years would also publish new works in English from major creators. Both publishers were very much engaged in trying to get media adaptations of their key works made, and if Humanoids was never a prominent US comics publisher, it stayed in business in a steady manner. 

All that changed earlier this year when both Les Humanoïdes Associés and Humanoids filed for bankruptcy in their respective countries. The US Humanoids even filed a Chapter 7, the bankruptcy of no return and total liquidation, which sounds very dire indeed. This week, French journalist Antoine Oury published a two-part investigation (Part One, Part Two) on what led to these setbacks in ActuaLitté. I’ve been summarizing these stories and adding some of my own reporting this week.

Now here’s the thing. Every time I write a story, my email fills up with people giving me MORE of the story. In my first report I summarized Oury’s reporting and looked at what Humanoids US’s Chapter 7 filing meant. On paper it looked bleak: $17 million in debt and $0 in assets. 

BUT in my SECOND piece, I reported that Humanoids was actually….still doing business as usual, just having reorganized as Humanoids Studios, a new company under a new parent that appears to own all the publishing assets while not being saddled with the debt. 

And NOW, here’s the new part. A couple of creators reached out to me and I was sent the letter that Humanoids Studios sent out to them at the end of October, after the Chapter 7 filing had been reported everywhere. 

To say that this is one of the most audacious communications I have ever read is putting it mildly. It is so audacious that I am reprinting the whole thing, with the formatting, because that is part of the wonder. The letter was sent October 30th; the Chapter 7 bankruptcy was filed on October 16th. 

Dearest Humanoid Creators, 

We hope this finds you all thriving (both artistically and humanly). 

We are reaching out to let you know that we, Humanoids—who’ve been on the cutting (and steep) edge of publishing since 1975—have undergone another physical transformation to adapt to the constantly evolving (and occasionally hostile) comics landscape:

As such, all of our Publishing Operations will now be handled by a new entity: HUMANOIDS STUDIOS— new body, SAME neurons. 

We are excited to confirm and reassure you all that, despite what you may have heard over the past couple weeks, we are here to stay. And so are your projects. 

Apart from a company shift (the brand, Humanoids, remains unchanged) and the Chapter 7 filing of the old entity (which was still heartbreaking for the team), this has had limited impact beyond our internal logistics.

We didn’t consider this newsworthy enough to become a public topic, let alone be twisted in the way it has been. Still, there’s a good chance you encountered this information without proper context, and for that, we sincerely apologize. We should have anticipated the situation better and taken greater care to reach out to each of you beforehand.

That said, here we are now: eager to reassure you with a positive, factual update about our status as a publisher and creative force.

We thank you, all, for your patience, understanding, support, and faith!

Publishing independent, cutting edge, sequential art (in analog form, no less), in this current sociopolitical climate is no easy feat. But we are still here because we take risks and are not afraid of change. We do what we do because we are passionate: about storytelling, about art, and about each of your creations and visions. 

We look forward to seeing what the future holds for us all.

—The Humanoids Team

Some FAQs: 

• All existing contracts will remain in place and unchanged.
• If you have an active project with us, it will continue as planned, based on correspondences with our production and editorial teams. All payments will be made by Humanoids Studios. 
• If your project has already been published, royalties will be paid by Humanoids Studios, and your available inventory will continue to be distributed through our standard channels.
• You may continue to order copies of your books through our standard process with your 50% creator discount + shipping. 
• Along with many other publishers, we continue to navigate the unfortunate Diamond situation, which has frozen a very significant portion of our inventory. 
• We DO have Direct Market distribution through Simon & Schuster (where Book & DM retailers can place orders), but are currently evaluating alternative distributors, as well as actively working on a direct channel where we can further develop our Humanoids x Retailer relations. Please advise any Retailer friends/inquiring minds to contact us at store@humanoids.comfor more detailed solutions and information.
  

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In a final section, the letter goes on to tout the upcoming issues of the Métal Hurlant relaunch and offer creators a digital subscription. 

The entire tone of this missive is hilarious: “Oh yeah I guess we should have mentioned that Chapter 7 thing. Crazy how people took it as a negative. Here’s a digital subscription for your trouble.”

Also, how can contracts remain in place when they were made with one company but are being administered by a new company? I haven’t seen any of the contracts, and given the intensity of this shell company game, they probably had some clauses that allowed such a transfer. But in theory, contracts would have to be assigned via an acquisition of some kind, and this is just like, “Oh yeah we moved.”

While I find this whole sequence of events as laid out downright hilarious, it’s also kind of par for the course for the kind of smaller comics publishers who base their business plans on media adaptations. And to be brutally honest, in recent years I’ve never talked to a creator who thought their career hinged on their Humanoids project. It seems to have been a place that paid on time, and put things out in a professional manner, but was kind of a “stop along the way” for creators. I’m not downplaying the honest work that people did there, or even that the editorial team had for their projects, but if more people had been alarmed by their treatment by whichever version of Humanoids they were dealing with, all of this would have come out sooner. 

To wrap this up, it looks like the Humanoids catalog – both the French classics and the English language originals – will continue on their merry way under the Humanoids du jour. Is it a happy ending? Not really because it’s not even an ending. Bon chance to all involved.