Come si fa a evitare di segnalare un’intervista interessante, a un fumettista che, parafrasando un’attribuzione tradizionalmente affibbiata a The Phantom, l’Uomo Mascherato, potrebbe appunto definirsi come nel titolo?

Sono le confessioni e rivelazioni (nessuno scoop, per carità) di Rich Buckler, che racconta le sue peripezie nella realizzazione di fumetti per i quotidiani, o per i supplementi degli stessi.

Ne parla a questa pagina, alla quale la nostra cortese platea è rimandata.
Cartoonist Globale si limita a riprendere le tavole di Lee Falk e Sy Barry (stando ai credits della testata) pubblicate in questo servizio, My Adventures Drawing Newspaper Strips.

Okay, riprendo questo passaggio, importante:

A practice called “ghosting”–which is when another artist “pinch hits” for the artist, usually on a totally anonymous basis. That happens when a creator artist wants to take a vacation, or gets sick and needs a leave of absence, or if in rare instances he is working perilously close to deadline and needs to catch up or get ahead.

This is not an ususual practice, but it can be risky for the creators.

Sometimes the transition from one artist to another is a smooth one and goes more or less unnoticed. Other times the differences in style can’t be avoided and are very noticeable.

The trick is to get away with it without the syndicate becoming alarmed, because this is a business practice not sanctioned by them.

The syndicate as the licensor might overlook this practice if they do find out–then again, they might not. And I’m fairly certain that there are penalties for breach of contract (for example, an artist can be penalized as much as hundreds of dollars per day for every day he is late).

So when the artist hires a “ghost” this is a private undertaking, and always done with the utmost discretion of the involved parties.