The Curious Case Of The Pearl Jam Posters

Merkin Baller · January 2024

Meh... there's probably no shortage of artists who would jump at the chance, this artist wasn't one of them. One could argue Tsurt was rude, but OTOH he clearly didn't want to wait around for an answer.

I see no problem here.

F Me In The Brain · January 2024

Also implying that they draw vs a real job is kinda weak as well.
Does one have to pump gas, wear a tie, or work an 8 hour shift to have a real job?
Pretty sure the band would disagree with that take.

Agree that she should have included the whole email if she wanted to share....without context you cannot tell if tsurt is indeed being rude or if she had more to say, if more was explained, etc.

It does seem odd, though, given that this is the way things seem to run and it hasn't been a secret. I don't know anything about her, though.

Loujoe · January 2024

igotid88 said:

demetrios said:

Weston1283 said:

You would think that 100 posters at $100 a pop would be a much bigger payout than a normal pay for piece price, no? Unless contract art is going for those prices now, I guess I wouldn't know

I know right? Some past artists have sold their AP editions for over $100 US a pop and all of their 100 prints sold out in seconds. Too bad this artist doesn't understand how this process works. She could of made $10,000 in a few seconds. And that doesn't include shipping costs where few artists charge a little more. Plus if the fans love the work you will probably get another chance to create another Pearl Jam poster. Who would turn down that kind of offer? The coverage & advertising the band & fans do, it's incredible!

Other then Jess Johnson, which other artist(s) out there have turned down an offer to create a Pearl Jam gig poster?

..

https://instagram.com/p/C1aHq8dSkv_/embed/

Bella Grace has responded

What did she say? Just curious. She seemed thrilled to do ev poster.

Merkin Baller · January 2024

Jess Johnson has a pretty decent online store set up too, so it's not like she's completely in the dark about online sales or how to move her product.

I get it... if I was in NZ and had to deal w/ shipping most (all?) of the posters overseas it might give me pause too... I can see both sides but I also don't think anyone was really wronged here either... to paint this as some shadiness on the part of PJ or Tsurt is a stretch.

drfox · January 2024

Loujoe said:

igotid88 said:

demetrios said:

Weston1283 said:

You would think that 100 posters at $100 a pop would be a much bigger payout than a normal pay for piece price, no? Unless contract art is going for those prices now, I guess I wouldn't know

I know right? Some past artists have sold their AP editions for over $100 US a pop and all of their 100 prints sold out in seconds. Too bad this artist doesn't understand how this process works. She could of made $10,000 in a few seconds. And that doesn't include shipping costs where few artists charge a little more. Plus if the fans love the work you will probably get another chance to create another Pearl Jam poster. Who would turn down that kind of offer? The coverage & advertising the band & fans do, it's incredible!

Other then Jess Johnson, which other artist(s) out there have turned down an offer to create a Pearl Jam gig poster?

..

https://instagram.com/p/C1aHq8dSkv_/embed/

Bella Grace has responded

What did she say? Just curious. She seemed thrilled to do ev poster.

Just read Jess Johnson’s (flesh_dozer) Instagram post. Bella Grace commented on it saying PJ / Tsurt is one of the best clients she has worked with and that Johnson was acting unprofessional and should have done her homework. Grace said selling PJ posters is fantastic opportunity.

mpedone · January 2024

Brad Klausen has talked about this here in the past. It sounded like artists got some money upfront, but the real "pay" was the APs. I don't *love* this business model, but it is what it is (I'm also no businessman/accountant, and have no insight on the finances on either side). There is some evidence that it does lead to a decent payday. On top of that, I would suspect that more than a few of us have discovered some artists that we've become patrons of outside of PJ prints (hello, Messirs Klausen, Mumford, and Martin).

On the flipside, wasn't there an artist in 2022 who had major issues with their AP sale?If you're not used to that kind of sale/demand, or don't have the structure/overhead to handle it, that kind of offer might be a non-starter. We all understand that this is how it works, but to an outsider? This definitely feels like "paying with exposure". Also, the responses were a little terse, if not rude. "I'd like to think it over." "Fine. Offer rescended [sic]."

All of that said, would it have killed the author to include a link to Jess's site? I guess while arguing against paying with exposure, he felt it would be gauche to give her some exposure? Having found a link to her site (https://www.jessjohnson.org/), I think her comment about there not being much crossover was inaccurate. She might not have many PJ fans buying her stuff now, but I think if she did a poster, she probably would. It's not exactly *my* style, but I could see people liking it (and equally as many posts here saying it's the worst ever, etc).

I do hope she creates a "No Harm No Foal" poster, though.

pjl44 · January 2024

Merkin Baller said:

Meh... there's probably no shortage of artists who would jump at the chance, this artist wasn't one of them. One could argue Tsurt was rude, but OTOH he clearly didn't want to wait around for an answer.

I see no problem here.

Yeah, I'm sure there are deadlines for all this stuff. If she's not doing it, they need to find someone else. He may not have time for her to mull it over, gather feedback, crunch numbers. Maybe he could have been a little less short but whatever.

pjl44 · January 2024

Also let's be clear that this is not an "exposure" situation unless other bands are paying like 50k. The artist is absolutely being compensated and I've seen nothing so far that suggests it shakes out to a rate below the market even.

Merkin Baller · January 2024

mpedone said:
I do hope she creates a "No Harm No Foal" poster, though.

Sure, if she wants to ratchet up the pettiness. It was a typo, and her emphasis on it was particularly snarky.

Bella Grace was right about Johnson's unprofessionalism here.

EDIT - *the* emphasis on the typo was particularly snarky - I realize it wasn't Johnson who wrote that newsletter.

elvistheking44 · January 2024

Ask Nicole Rifkin how her experience went. If you do decide to work for the big boys, be prepared to bring your A game in all aspects of your business. Maybe Jess wouldn’t have been up to par to begin with.

pjl44 · January 2024

The one thing I will say is that these APa sell well until they don't. It's hard for us to imagine 100 APs lasting more than a day if not minutes, but you don't notice a softening until it happens - "huh, there's still APs up on a couple sites."

Pearl Jam posters still fly but I see lots of LE prints hanging around sites. Were that to happen, I would hope Pearl Jam, Inc. would try to help somehow.

SHZA · January 2024

No guarantee they'll fly off the shelf.

https://www.serigraphicsystems.com/store/p/pearljamtomo77

https://www.conflux-co.com/products/pearl-jam-05-16-22-fresno-poster

https://www.conflux-co.com/products/eddie-vedder-10-23-23-seattle-poster

But even assuming they do, that's still a long time to wait to get paid. What if your boss said that instead of your usual paycheck, the company is going to give you a bunch of office equipment to sell at the end of the year that should come out to more money than your typical salary. That's not gonna pay the bills today.

This article may have created more exposure for Jess than actually doing a poster. Brilliant.

droptheleash9 · January 2024

Just checked out her site...I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I don't see much there that would pass as "hangable" in many homes. Reminds me of Tomo77 with less red and black so probably a blessing that she's not making a poster.

As for the article, I get artists wanting upfront payment (which is fair) but I don't think she realized the opportunity that she was passing up here. Some of the ugliest PJ posters I've ever seen have had their APs sell out in minutes. She definitely missed a layup payday.

F Me In The Brain · January 2024

Yeah there have been some horrid ones that sold out right away.

Merkin Baller · January 2024

SHZA said:

No guarantee they'll fly off the shelf.

https://www.serigraphicsystems.com/store/p/pearljamtomo77

https://www.conflux-co.com/products/pearl-jam-05-16-22-fresno-poster

https://www.conflux-co.com/products/eddie-vedder-10-23-23-seattle-poster

But even assuming they do, that's still a long time to wait to get paid. What if your boss said that instead of your usual paycheck, the company is going to give you a bunch of office equipment to sell at the end of the year that should come out to more money than your typical salary. That's not gonna pay the bills today.

This article may have created more exposure for Jess than actually doing a poster. Brilliant.

Apples / oranges. -She was told up front what the compensation would be and missed the opportunity as she wanted more time to consider it. That's more than a little different than say for my employer to turn around and change the structure of my compensation after X # of years working for them.

As far as additional exposure, yeah... it may play out like that. Or, the unprofessionalism could come back to haunt her too, who knows?

100 Pacer · January 2024

It works both ways. The percentage of PJ fans who had heard of Faile prior to the Chicago poster was easily in the low single digits. You can’t give that PJ poster away today but Faile’s general clientele pay handsomely for original art.

brewdog123 · January 2024

pjl44 said:

I would need to know what other big bands pay for one-off show posters. The lack of that context makes me skeptical of the author. The only other anonymous feedback from an artist quotes their shipping costs which doesn't make sense - I always get charged shipping.

I need a lot more info to determine whether or not this is a fair arrangement.

i know phish and tool follow this same poster/artist process as pearl jam.

i would assume artists such as klausen and ames have a grandfathered deal of sorts.

pjl44 · January 2024

SHZA said:

No guarantee they'll fly off the shelf.

https://www.serigraphicsystems.com/store/p/pearljamtomo77

https://www.conflux-co.com/products/pearl-jam-05-16-22-fresno-poster

https://www.conflux-co.com/products/eddie-vedder-10-23-23-seattle-poster

But even assuming they do, that's still a long time to wait to get paid. What if your boss said that instead of your usual paycheck, the company is going to give you a bunch of office equipment to sell at the end of the year that should come out to more money than your typical salary. That's not gonna pay the bills today.

This article may have created more exposure for Jess than actually doing a poster. Brilliant.

That is interesting. I will say that the Tomo is priced pretty high and it's notable that there are *200* of the Williams. But you could argue that's the beginning of things shifting some.

UseUrIllusions · January 2024

Has the market cooled on PJ Posters? I really haven’t seen lots of demand on the various FB groups. I remember before the pandemic it was crazy hot!

Merkin Baller · January 2024

brewdog123 said:

pjl44 said:

I would need to know what other big bands pay for one-off show posters. The lack of that context makes me skeptical of the author. The only other anonymous feedback from an artist quotes their shipping costs which doesn't make sense - I always get charged shipping.

I need a lot more info to determine whether or not this is a fair arrangement.

i know phish and tool follow this same poster/artist process as pearl jam.

i would assume artists such as klausen and ames have a grandfathered deal of sorts.

One of the tool artists said he only got 10 or so prints for a poster he did for the Fall '23 tour, but OTOH those are often signed by the band, so there's bigger money to be made, especially when they add a remarque... some of those go for 4 figures. (or at least they did 20 months ago... see below)

UseUrIllusions said:

Has the market cooled on PJ Posters? I really haven’t seen lots of demand on the various FB groups. I remember before the pandemic it was crazy hot!

It has, and it has for other bands as well. Spring of '22 Tool posters were flipping for an absurd markup, but that bubble burst a few months after the tour ended.

The Curious Case Of The Pearl Jam Posters

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