On Friday, a group of artists known as the Silver Sprocket Artists Collective released a public statement via Cartoonists United regarding concerns with Silver Sprocket’s business practices, alleging systemic accounting problems, financial miscommunications, poor treatment of staff, and lack of professionalism. The statement also claims royalty payments have either been late or have not been made at all, despite artists selling through multiple printings of their Silver Sprocket books.
The statement comes a year after The Comics Journal reported that Silver Sprocket owner Avi Erlich had taken on over $100,000 in personal debt to keep the publisher and its San Francisco retail location afloat, following multiple staff departures and layoffs earlier in 2025. Silver Sprocket closed its storefront, which opened in 2020, on March 23, 2026.
In its statement, the Silver Sprocket Artists Collective acknowledges that the publisher has “played an important role in many of our careers. It has uplifted countless talented creators who have trusted the publisher to champion its unique and diverse catalogue. We want to see Silver Sprocket continue and thrive as a publisher, and we want Silver Sprocket books to be successful. But we also want its artists and workers to be treated fairly and with respect.”
The group goes on to explain that, for the past year, its artists have shared information and collectively attempted to establish direct communication with Erlich, but “the collective and our concerns have been consistently dismissed, either as the voices of outliers or as a qualm over simple royalty percentages. As we have reached an impasse in negotiation with Silver Sprocket, we are now releasing this statement for the public.
“Our goal in discussions was to be heard,” the group’s statement continues, “And for relationships with Silver Sprocket to improve for everyone involved–current and future creators, as well as staff. However, if Silver Sprocket will not come forward to address systemic issues affecting its sustainability, and re-establish trust with its creators, we believe the public has a right to know what has been happening behind the scenes.”
The group states that artists began noticing “inconsistencies in the accounting and payment of royalties” from Silver Sprocket in 2025, but individual attempts to resolve their concerns with Erlich “were met with avoidance and defensiveness.” This resulted in the formation of an artist group chat and “a series of ‘town hall’ style meetings where artists raised concerns and discussed potential solutions.”
From there, the statement outlines the group’s attempts to communicate with Silver Sprocket, then breaks down its individual concerns into subheadings: royalty payments; royalty statements; expenses; bookkeeping and accounting; communication; and treatment of Sprocket staff.
Concurrently with TCJ‘s reporting on the issues at Silver Sprocket in July 2025, the Silver Sprocket Artists Collective wrote a letter to the publisher’s management detailing its concerns about the state of the company and to list demands that it believed the company would need to fulfill “to restore trust and operate in good faith.” These demands included “hiring a certified bookkeeper, increasing transparency in royalty reports, providing clear offboarding plans for artists, paying out royalties in a timely manner, and other items that we considered to be in line with the core responsibilities of any publisher.” The letter was signed by 44 artists who had been published by Silver Sprocket.
Erlich’s response asked the collective “to form a small working group of artists to meet with them regularly to discuss further changes and ‘co-create solutions,'” which the artists “appreciated,” but “also believed most of the changes we had asked for were baseline responsibilities of the publisher, and shouldn’t require additional labour from its artists to implement.” The statement notes that at the time, several members of the collective were owed overdue royalty statements and did not wish to put in further effort to organize regular meetings with Erlich until “some basic steps were taken by the publisher.”
The collective responded accordingly in August, then did not hear from Erlich again about the letter or its listed demands until February 2026. An update about royalty statements allegedly failed to clarify concerns about the company’s purported 50/50 net revenue split with artists, instead providing less information than before, presented in a format that was more difficult for artists to review and verify.
In April, the collective met with Erlich and newly-hired employees at Silver Sprocket via Zoom “to discuss the year-long silence and reiterate our demands. Over the several hour-long meeting, our grievances were met with more excuses and apologies, and another promise to meet our demands. However, as of the end of June, we have seen no progress besides a draft of a written public statement we found insufficient as an apology and does not address our major issues with Avi and Silver Sprocket. We believe Avi does not take enough accountability for the major role they play in our grievances as the Owner/Founder of the company. Because of this lack of progress, continued errors in accounting, and poor communication, we have decided to release this statement to hold Avi accountable.”
The Silver Sprocket Artist Collective’s concerns about royalty payments
In its statement, the Sprocket Artist Collective links to a 2025 webcomic published on the Silver Sprocket website that explains its royalties model. This webcomic was published after the TCJ article, which had prompted a wave of social media discussion about whether Silver Sprocket was paying its artists appropriately and on time.
The collective states that the model explained in the webcomic, which purports a 50/50 split between artist and publisher after Silver Sprocket makes back production, fulfillment, shipping, and returns costs and fees, generally matches the terms stated in several artists’ contracts. However, the statement alleges this is not the whole story:
What was not stated in some of the contracts—according to the language stated in several of the contracts signed or deals agreed to prior to 2024—was the 50/50 net revenue split (then in the pre-2024 contracts defined as ‘profit split’) was beholden to an additional 50% wholesale percentage against the retail price of the artist’s books, resulting in a more accurate 75/25 split benefitting the Publisher.
While wholesaling books to resellers and distributors at reduced percentages of retail price is the business model of the publishing industry, it was not disclosed that Silver Sprocket the Publisher was wholesaling our books at 50% to the Silver Sprocket the Storefront, meaning the storefront takes an additional percentage of profit from all direct sales before the 50/50 split is applied. And while the 2025 web-comic explainer outlines this model as how Sprocket affords to pay the overhead of maintaining a storefront, artists were misinformed by the “50/50 profit share” language of early contracts.
This 75/25 split allegedly extends to online sales of physical and digital books, as well as convention sales. The collective also reveals that according to public business records, Silver Sprocket Store LLC wasn’t formed until February 2025, despite the San Francisco storefront opening in 2020: “previous contracts signed or deals agreed to, and payments received, were with the publisher Silver Sprocket LLC. The lack of separation between storefront and publisher leads us to believe that our contracts entitled us to a more accurately equitable share of the profits from our books.”
According to the statement, eighteen artists surveyed did not know Silver Sprocket LLC and Silver Sprocket Store LLC were not distinct legal entities before they signed contracts to publish their books.
In addition to obfuscation of the royalty split, the collective’s statement declares that the quarterly assessment of owed royalties and 60-day payment delivery outlined in the Silver Sprocket explainer webcomic is misleading. Eleven artists surveyed reported receiving more than one late payment during their working relationship with Silver Sprocket. The collective alleges that the publisher would “frequently specify promised dates for statements and payments, only to miss those dates by days, at its best, and weeks, at its worst. The inconsistency and the lack of satisfactory communication and forewarning leaves artists in the dark about their own finances, creating instability and precarity in the artists financial planning and their lives. In reported cases for some of our artists, payment amounts have been promised and then corrected due to miscalculation, further adding financial stress to our artists.”
Concerns about expenses & accounting
According to the statement, the artists understand that they will not receive royalty payments until revenue from book sales make back the cost of printing and freight: “According to Avi, it takes at least 18 months for a book to break even.” The publisher also claims not to charge marketing fees or charge overhead for publicity and editorial. However, some artists’ contracts list marketing as a cost to be repaid before royalties will be calculated and sent.
Additionally, the collective alleges “unexpected expenses” added to individual artists’ ledgers, which delayed or reduced potential royalty payments:
In one instance, an artist was offered a $500 marketing bonus, only for the bonus to be charged as an expense against their royalties. Only until artist brought up their concern was the bonus no longer counted against royalties. There was no written acknowledgment from Sprocket regarding this correction.
Another artist, whose initial book run sold out rapidly, was not expecting their potential royalties to be delayed further, because a second printing of their book by Sprocket added continued expenses onto the artists ledger.
Another artist recounted how Sprocket had organized to fly the artist to an out-of-state event, initially offering to cover the airfare for free, then asking the artist if the airfare could instead be added as an expense. The artist fell ill and could not make the event, then was still billed the expense after Sprocket failed to refund the flight. The expense was later removed with some hesitance from the publisher.
Silver Sprocket recently shipped all of its stock from a closed distributor warehouse in California to a new one in Chicago, which the collective believes should have been covered by the publisher’s cut of its books. However, “the expense was passed down to the artists, some shipments costing from $200 to even $1200 against their royalties. Sprocket has noted on these expenses that they are ‘tentatively planning’ to cover half the expense as internal overhead.”
Following multiple concerns from artists about inconsistent accounting and presentation of sales data, Erlich emailed the collective in April 2025 to state that a new system would be implemented on May 1, but the updated reports were allegedly more confusing and came with a statement that resulted in inaccurate information.
In its initial letter to the publisher, the collective demanded more transparency in accounting of book sales, detailed expenses accounting, and current and remaining inventory numbers. It also demanded that Silver Sprocket hire a certified bookkeeper “to handle the documentation of revenues, expenses, and reporting of our books. It is our belief that during the period of time Sprocket has delayed hiring a certified bookkeeper, the tasks of bookkeeping, accounting, and reporting has been handled by Avi, and Sprocket employees who are not certified bookkeepers.”
On July 23, 2025, Erlich write in a Sprocket Artist Newsletter that the publisher was looking for a part-time bookkeeper. In October, Erlich wrote that multiple candidates had been interviewed and “tried out,” but none had made the cut. At the meeting in April 2026, Erlich requested more time; 12 days later, the publisher sent the collective an email claiming it was “onboarding a new bookkeeper.” According to the collective’s statement, in June, an artist was told by a someone on the Silver Sprocket staff that said bookkeeper was on a trial period, “leading us to have little faith in the progress on hiring a dedicated bookkeeper.”
The artist collective claims that delayed hiring has led to more mistakes in accounting, which has resulted in a lack of detail in available reports and major retractions made to reported book sales and revenue.
Avi Erlich allegedly trash talks Silver Sprocket artists
In the penultimate section of the Silver Sprocket Artist Collective’s outlined grievances, it expands on previously-described difficulties in communication. This includes allegations that Erlich “has lied or spoken poorly and condescendingly of other artists.” In March 2026, the group received an anonymous email claiming:
Avi has been speaking badly of artists in your group to other small publisher owners that they know under the guise of ‘just venting’. It seems to boil down to them saying that you’re ‘mean’, whatever that means. I know this as I work with one of the publishers they’ve been chatting with and talk about it has made it into our regular meetings. Said publisher owner is generally looking for confirmation on Avi’s claims. I hope you can push them to a resolution soon, as you don’t deserve to be treated this way behind your backs.
Additionally, even after offering artists the ability to terminate their contracts in 2025, Silver Sprocket has allegedly ignored requests from those wishing to leave. Erlich has also claimed difficulty with written communication, which the collective finds concerning due to both the fact that Erlich has majority communicated through writing through their career, and keeping sensitive business communication limited to phone and video calls “makes it more difficult for the artists to keep track of what is said and promised—further resulting in inconsistent communication from Avi.”
Sprocket Staff treatment & request for solidarity
In the final grievance section of its statement, the collective states that it “stands in solidarity with the past Sprocket Staff that we believe were unfairly let go and the staff that may have easily left due to the same frustration we shared in this statement.”
The Silver Sprocket Artist Collective is not asking for a boycott of the publisher or for anyone to “commit any other action that could do further harm to the finances and careers of their artists.” It asks for those with relationships to the publisher to express solidarity with the collective and to directly support affected artists by purchasing their work from them directly.
Additionally, the collective asks that no online harassment be directed at Silver Sprocket, especially as its social media is being handled by a newer employee with no involvement in its stated issues with the publisher.
In conclusion, the collective writes,
Again, it is our hope that Silver Sprocket listens, learns from this, takes accountability for their actions, and makes concrete changes to re-establish trust with its artists and staff. To conclude, we ask that Silver Sprocket respond to this with a public statement of accountability and commitment to change, and then to follow that up with action that is communicated clearly to its artists.
At time of writing, Silver Sprocket has not responded. Cartoonists United has offered tips for supporting affected artists in the “How You Can Help” tab on the collective’s statement.
