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Joel Furtado And His Trouble With Nerd Block

Published Fri, 11 Aug 2017 15:00:12 -0500

Joel Furtado is an artist commissioned to create work for one of Nerd Block's June subscription boxes, before the severe problems at the Fan Blocks company began to become quite so public. This is his story, which gives us an inside look at both working with Nerd Block before – and after – things began to go so wrong. He was to have created a sketchbook based on an animated fan series he made called X-Men: Danger Room Protocols – which you can view on his website here.

– Reel – X-men: Danger Room Protocols (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89qh6rwtX_g)

He tells Bleeding Cool,

So I was contacted by Nerd Block about 6 months ago. They were interested in putting one of my sketchbooks in their comic block. I was sold on having my book exposed to 10k subscribers, and also thousands in licensing fees for a 28 page book.

My work was meant to appear in the June block and I billed them back in May for my work. I received a purchase order and invoiced them accordingly. I spoke with their accounts payable staff who said I would be paid shortly. I wrote emails to them every few weeks inquiring why I hadn't been paid.

I wrote emails to them every few weeks inquiring why I hadn't been paid yet , with no response. Eventually I saw the man who approached me initially was laid off along with the rest of the staff and came to the obvious conclusion.

After seeing the reddit posts though, I'm shocked they were still commissioning work from artists for the June boxes when they were clearly in financial trouble as far back as January. I'm fortunate I'm not in a position where I've spent money manufacturing product. I'm pretty sure the print house I dealt with through NerdBlock who printed my books were never paid. It would seem the owners have been taking in money from subscribers the past 6 months and not paying for any product they were selling.