by Art Chantry:
this is an odd story. this is OK Soda (a ‘hacker’ soda by the coca cola company). i call it a ‘hacker soda’ because it’s full of sugar and caffiene and crap and is so sweet and nasty that it gives you a massive buzz when you slop it down (sorta like the later ‘red bull’ swill). it was test marketed up here in seattle back in the early ‘grungy’ 1990’s. seattle was (back then) one of the primo centers of the merging internet /software world. i figgered they targeted the burgeoning new emo-hipster microyuppie socio-economic class. also, seattle has always been ‘test market central.’ weird products always get test marketed up here. i think it’s because it’s such a white bread middle class twit of a city that sits isolated like an island. the other city that gets all the test marekting is phoenix – for the same reasons.
—a year or so later, because i felt so guilty about dan clowes being ripped off so bad (and my having even a teenie part in it), i made a plastic bottle of “cancel” soda on a gigposter for a show that was being held in his hometown of chicago. i created my own stupid label look-alike and then crushed the bottle and positioned it on the floor next to a cigarette butt, a used condom and a suspicious spilled yellow liquid. then, next to the crushed satined plastic bottle i wrote “my apologies to daniel clowes from art chantry”. i sent him a half dozen copies. i guess he liked it, i guess. a couple years later, there was an article written about him in Print magazine and the photo of him was credited to me (did i ever take a photo of him? really?). i think it was his little joke/recognition back at me.—AC
to appeal to the emo-hipster computer hacks, the marketing design firm decided they wanted to talk to their new market demographic in their own language. so, they used the “OK” logo/button from early pc screens as the logo (the ‘cancel’ button was the other button for ‘stop’ – OK & CANCEL, both in those red label/bracket borders.) remember those? what would be more appropriate for hacker soda, eh? and to show how cool they were, they started to check around for the ‘hippest coolest’ (their words) cartoonists around – “speak in their own language.”
at that point i had never met dan clowes of even charles burns (whom i had actually worked with for years through the rocket). an old friend of mine was working as the marketing director at fantagraphics books (the publisher of both burns and clowes comic books) in seattle. he called me up one day out of the blue to ask me some business questions.
the basic jist was that an ad agency had contacted dan clowes through his publisher (they had contacted the other cartoonists like burns through their artist reps) and my friend was trying to figure out how to negotiate a fair deal to use a dan clowes images on the soda pop can. he couldn’t tell me WHO the client was (everybody is always sworn to secrecy in these matters. that always puts the client in the catbird seat.) when i asked him who was the client, he said it was a ‘big secret’. then he said they had offered (i seem to remember) $1000 for the usage. he had said “ok”, and then wondered if he had done the right thing. that’s why he called me, i guess.
i sort of freaked out on him a little. no, that was not “ok”. it was way too cheap. this was a test marketing of a potentially big time soda pop. he assured me that it wouldn’t sell anyway and it was easy money for clowes. they just lifted the images out of one of his signature comic books. i thought he was being incredibly naive. then he finally told me it was a coke product. that’s when i went nova.
i remember getting sort of upset with my friend for agreeing to such a lame-ass freebie deal. having your personal style and name and brand imagery used as a soda pop identity was worth a bazillion bucks – and coke had the money to pay enormously for the rights. but, apparently, it was too late. they’d aready agreed to it. but, he still assured me it would be ok. to be honest, i would have started out asking for easy 6 figures. a mere thousand? make me laugh!
well, as we all know, he was actually more correct than he knew. the soda didn’t sell well and it failed in test market. it never became national. frankly, it was dreadful stuff. they did hire clowes at slighlty better rates to use his images on some later advertising (like posters). so, everybody felt better about the rip-off of the early label deal. it didn’t make it ok. it was still a really lousy deal. they were totally taken advantage of by a corporate monster.
the bottom line here is that when you are ever approached by a new client, you should definitley look around and ask questions – and you should do it BEFORE YOU AGREE TO ANTHING. clowes was literally ROBBED by coke, simply because his friends were not used to dealing in the major leagues. this sort of thing was new to everybody back then. but over time, they have all learned – trial by fire. this sort of mistake wouldn’t happen to them now. but, would such an offer ever come down the road ever again? i doubt it. he sold it to coke for nothing. who would use his stuff o
soda label ever again, ya know? use once and throw away…sorta like a soda can.
COMMENTS