As we suggest in the strip, bad contracts and professional myopia are phenomena we know something about. Let me start with the first part, which is to say that you straight up, flat-out don’t know how to read contracts. This is just what I was thinking about when it comes to something like the Tfue stuff, but he’s already a multimillionaire and this was all pretext anyway. Social media enables a kind of mystical, extrajudicial space and there’s no guarantee that’s going to be extended to you in any way you’re gonna like. Better to make sure your wards are in place ahead of time.

You can be a fucking lawyer and miss shit, based on differences between state law or because you’re stupid, so don’t think that you’re gonna be the one who cracks this code. Because they’re seizing the fruits of something inherent to you, something you do with your own mind and hands, you can have business deals that feel like injuries. Not paying a lawyer to look at something is not “saving money.” The kind of money you can lose on a bad contract is… hm. The kind of “money” you can lose on a bad contract is the best, most productive years of your life.

It’s not like you and whoever wants to wring you out exist on some infinite abstract plain as pure equals, each turning a mystic key and launching your career. That is why this strip is named what it is. As media has become ever more atomized, the sole Creator has never been more powerful - but there’s going to be times where working with someone else, maybe early on, still makes sense. Such deals should be very short. And you aren’t being “hard to work with” when you ask to be co-equal in your own business dealings, however they might try to make you feel. You need to be okay walking away from a bad deal. You will learn a lot about your “partner,” very quickly, the moment you are anything other than a mark.

(CW)TB out.