The Hiveworks Guild Statement on Hiveworks Comics

The Hiveworks Guild Statement on Hiveworks Comics

• What is Hiveworks?
• Why the Guild took Action
  • Unprofessionalism
  • Lack of Transparency & Communication
  • Incompetence
  • General Lack of Respect
• Our History as a Guild
• Current Developments
• Our Hopes

In light of Hiveworks’ shift to downsizing as a company and shuttering its publishing service, and in solidarity with the members of the guild at Slipshine, we, the Hiveworks Artist Guild, are stepping forward to publicly introduce ourselves and outline the work and time we have invested in this company’s betterment.

The Hiveworks Artist Guild consists of around 100 past and present Hiveworks webcomic creators. We first came together to share information, and upon learning “it wasn’t just me,” we began to request better treatment from Hiveworks. We did not want to involve the public in the beginning, as well-meaning onlookers might stop supporting the artists who still relied on Hiveworks’ services.

Unfortunately, our attempt at handling matters privately over the past three years was unsuccessful. Hiveworks has failed to provide its advertised services, has bled talent and downsized dramatically, and has revealed a massive $340,000 worth of debt that the Guild became aware of in early 2025.

We now feel it is imperative to put on record our history with Hiveworks – both to stand as proof of what we have tried to accomplish, and also serve as a warning to those who may consider associating professionally with Xellette Velamist or Isabelle Melançon.

What is Hiveworks?

Hiveworks Comics was founded in 2011 by Xellette “Xel” Velamist, who remains the sole owner. She is also the owner of the adult comic publisher Slipshine that she acquired in 2015. Hiveworks is a curated collective of webcomics that provides web hosting and website design, as well as ad services and an interlinked webcomic catalog to increase exposure. In the time since its founding, Hiveworks expanded into physical publication, crowdfunding management, and a centralized online store for comic books and merchandise, known as the Hivemill. Hiveworks creators received ad revenue, with some creators being specially contracted for page rates or creative stipends in exchange for exclusivity.

The staff at Hiveworks consisted of webcomic artists and comics-adjacent professionals who have experience in website coding and/or server administration. Staff members were responsible for onboarding and supporting artists who were accepted as Hiveworks members (or clients, as Hiveworks has come to refer to them). We do not intend to name most of these staff members outright; our problems stem largely from the individuals named above, who bear most of the responsibility for Hiveworks’ many issues.

Hiveworks secured and paid for hosting for all of their clients, giving creators an easy way to get their comics online without needing to know how to create a website. A Hiveworks staff member developed ComicControl, a content management system designed specifically for webcomics, to act as the backend for the Hiveworks websites. It was the intent that each creator brought on board would work with staff to design their own unique website. In the mid-2010s, as free-to-use webcomic sites like Smackjeeves went under, this service attracted quite a few comic creators, especially since creators retained full rights to their creative work even under contract.

Over its fourteen years of existence, staff members have come and gone. The roles they filled often bled into each other: one person might handle social media posts as well as prepress, another might handle maintaining ComicControl, as well as website design and moderating ads. In any small company, this kind of role creep is not unusual, but it causes the usual pitfalls: uncertainty about who to go to for any one issue, too much on any one person’s plate, and inefficiency in production.

The staff member that we will name – who in the end all parts of the Hiveworks pipeline had to pass through – was Isabelle “Isa” Melançon. She held the official titles of Chief Operating Officer and Head Editor, but handled almost all administrative roles, payroll, merch design, social media, the “queue” for which projects would get Kickstarter support (and when), book design, editorial work that would be self-appointed, and translation deals with outside publishers. Isa managed all of these roles, often at the same time, and often unsuccessfully, with varying levels of competence and honesty.

Other staff performed a variety of roles, but it was rare that their work did not require Isa’s approval in some way. Many of these “departments” were heavily siloed, with Isa as their main (and sometimes only) point of communication when it came to webcomic management. This led to a hierarchy entirely reliant on the presence of a single key employee. Isa would express feeling overworked while simultaneously taking on new projects, and despite dealing with health issues, would continue to pile things onto her own plate. Her refusal to delegate would become increasingly disruptive as time went on and this behavior compounded.

Isa was responsible for many of the day-to-day troubles at Hiveworks, but she was also responsible for “wrangling” Xel’s behavior a lot of the time. The CEO ‘s words and actions often jeopardized the image of Hiveworks as a whole, and Isa would do her best to put out these fires. With no formal HR at Hiveworks, Isa filled that role as well – and with so much else on her plate, this arrangement hurt many people.

At its best, Hiveworks worked as it was meant to – the process made publishing webcomics fantastically easy, taking the brunt of the trickier parts of web publishing off artists by managing the process in bulk. A connected hub of high-quality, individually vetted stories, all with their own personally designed website – on paper, it was a dream come true.

But at its worst, Hiveworks’ process became a checklist of tasks that had to be done in a very particular way, leading them to be done very slowly, or not done at all. Staff members often had day jobs and other non-Hiveworks related obligations, leading them to communicate poorly with artists and with each other. This led to long and obscurely defined “queues,” favoritism in doled-out services due to popularity/earning power/personal friendships, uncomfortable power imbalances between staff and clients, delayed payouts (especially when ad revenue as a whole tanked after the pandemic), and at its absolute worst, the misappropriated funneling of funds from recent projects into older, incomplete projects.

Why the Guild took Action

When we began sharing stories and realized we had similar grievances, the Hiveworks Artist Guild set forth to outline our concerns in a series of letters shared with staff. Since then, more devastating pieces of information have come to light, but our primary complaints with their behavior as a company are outlined below.

1. Unprofessionalism

Professional behavior needs to exist in any setting where income is on the line. Overfamiliarity, oversharing, and being ‘let in on’ potential sensitive business dealings were common practice at Hiveworks.

Isa and Xel would often go into artists’ direct messages on Discord regarding professional matters which carried great weight for the artist – book deals, crowdfunding campaigns, comic editing, etc. They sometimes gave conflicting accounts of the state of these matters, or even contradicted themselves. Xel in particular was notorious for suddenly appearing in artists’ direct messages to share information about the company in a nonsensical fashion that was often inappropriate for her position. In Isa’s case, openness about her health struggles often felt tailored to excuse the lack of support creators received and induce guilt to anyone wanting answers.

Hiveworks team members would also gossip and complain about each other, and even give private details about Hiveworks as a company to outsiders. They frequently complained to artists about the stress, fatigue, or frustration they felt working for Hiveworks. Complaints from team members, notably from Isa, about not feeling appreciated by artists or even threatening to quit Hiveworks were common. Artists felt like these complaints were designed to make them feel guilty and compliant.

Professional friendships can exist healthily. It was not healthy here. There was a significant power imbalance present in these interactions, even when they were well-meaning. Artists saw staff members as wielding more professional power in the relationship, whether Hiveworks staff considered the artist their employee or not.

2. Lack of Transparency & Communication

There were many issues with general communication between staff and artists, leading to widespread frustration.

The Hiveworks team often referred to a “work queue,” both in relation to website design/redesign and to crowdfunding. This queue was never shared with the artists. Some people waited for years for help with campaigns or other projects, all while seeing newer creators (or even creators from outside Hiveworks) accommodated before them. In some instances, creators were left to wait indefinitely, leading artists to give up on their projects entirely or fulfill them independently. This created an impression that the queue was a convenient fiction, and that the Hive team would triage based on personal preference or perceived popularity. Staff had later revealed that it was Isa who would pick which project would be greenlit, and that she had personally believed certain works in the queue were simply not ‘money makers’ and left to the wayside without telling the artists they would not be considered.

Artists’ minimum ad revenues varied wildly with no discernible explanation, and their contracts often had different clauses. Some artists were told about the options they had while signing with Hiveworks, and some were not.

The way Hiveworks presented itself publicly made it unclear how involved staff editors were in the comics they published, potentially making it seem as though they had more creative control over them than they did in reality. For example, the title of “editors” as well as their role description on the site imply editorial input is the standard for all comics at Hiveworks, while in reality it is optional. Many Hiveworks comics had no input from editors at all, yet an editor was still assigned and credited.

Hiveworks routinely kept artists in the dark regarding third party communications (especially concerning many of their outside publishing deals with the company Seven Seas), and never CC’d artists into conversations with them. Some artists reported seeing Hiveworks team members admitting to keeping information from artists regarding publishing offers in order to “protect” them, then deleting the statement soon after. It was common for Xel and Isa to act as the middleman or as an “agent” between artists and potential publishers, regardless of whether they had the qualifications or merit in doing so. Without clear communication of what was being said to the other party and a lack of anything in writing, these tactics often led to dropped deals and disinterest from either party involved. Hiveworks has never been nor has it ever been allowed to act as an agency, yet they frequently assumed the position, especially Isa. The artists publishing with Hiveworks were not theirs to protect, and artists had a right to know when their work was discussed with third parties.

3. Incompetence

Hiveworks was plagued by an environment of hasty decisions with poor followthrough, as well as general disorganization of information and resources. New ideas for events and projects were constantly floated by the Hive team, and these ideas rarely went past the initial first draft of excitement. The team was extremely distractible, and Isa in particular was severely overworked (by her own design) yet refused to delegate any task.

Comics were not labelled correctly on the Hiveworks site for many years; abandoned and finished comics were listed under the same category, with no distinction between them. Inactive comics were consistently promoted in ads and through Hiveworks’s own ad spots.

Crowdfunding campaigns would be left incomplete, or would be completed very late, and Hiveworks would start new ones to fund the older ones, creating an incredibly disorganized queue. Late fulfillment often resulted in backlash towards the artist, which Hiveworks did nothing to mitigate or take responsibility for. Isa was in charge of handling most, if not all, Kickstarters through the Hiveworks account, and would order massive quantities of books without the artist’s consent, cutting into the originally outlined budget of the campaign. Artists would be left with the burden to move thousands of books with little assistance from the company after campaigns were concluded, and would occasionally be billed for staffs’ labor that hadn’t been previously negotiated.

Misappropriation of funds was common, with little transparency of what was owed to the artist or to Hiveworks for their “service.” One incident even saw Xel make a large personal purchase with the earnings from a Kickstarter, originally meant to go toward the printing of books.

Much of Hiveworks’ financial history and strategy was kept vague by Xel, who would constantly “infuse” money into the company from her work abroad, while also complaining that the Hiveworks business model wasn’t designed to make money. We never had a clear idea of what she was doing to earn this money, but we were always reassured that the money was consistent and legitimate. She would also take it upon herself to complain frequently in the official Hiveworks Discord server about how overworked she was in attempts to inspire gratitude and/or guilt from the creators present. After more communication with our colleagues at Slipshine, we have learned that funds have been mismanaged between Hiveworks and Slipshine for years, with Slipshine being particularly harmed by this financial disarray.

The pandemic was often blamed for management issues, but many members of the guild joined Hiveworks years before it started, and they confirm that these issues have existed for far longer than the pandemic. In general, the Hiveworks team had no grasp on their own abilities and time limits, and artists’ hopes and requests were often left to wither.

4. General Lack of Respect

Isa and Xel spoke from a point of view of complete authority and experience, and consistently presented themselves as experts with invaluable industry experience. In reality, their experience was mostly limited to Hiveworks, a company which had been struggling for a majority of its lifetime. There was a consistent “trust us, we know best” attitude from both of them, and artists often felt condescended to and left questioning their own experience and viability of their work.

Over the years, many creators were given particularly damaging “advice” – usually by Isa – to help improve their work. The advice given was often tonally dissonant from the general artist’s intent, and often lacked relevance due to Isa or other editors not being fully aware of the scope of each comic. Many times, the editor had simply not put in the time to read the stories they were providing feedback for. It was a common suggestion from Isa specifically in later years to create an additional gag comic on the side to promote the artist’s main line of work, but this side comic would not be signed into the company’s catalogue or gain their support. The general tone was always, “We have accepted your comic, but we don’t like it, nor do we believe in it. You should have done it my way.” Many artists were spoken to in this way when they were first signed, and many saw it as an attempt to humble them or make them feel “grateful” to Hiveworks. Several of us thought we were the only ones to be belittled like this, only to be horrified (and comforted) to learn of how widespread this mistreatment was.

Artists reported many cases of micromanagement and steamrolling in both their storytelling choices and artistic decisions in the presentation of their work, such as in the book cover design process. Isa would often have the final say in what went on the cover, regardless of the artist’s wishes. When it comes to design decisions for artist-owned projects, the final word should always belong to the artist, and that artist should be included in design for the duration of the project.

There was also a tendency by the team to shut down ideas by artists in the Hiveworks Discord before having time to meaningfully consider them. Even if the ideas were not viable, this fed the notion that the Hive team was not interested in listening to their artists. Often, questions and suggestions made in the Discord were treated as though they were a concern that must be responded to immediately, rather than being taken as an attempt to open an ongoing conversation between multiple people. Staff reacted defensively or aggressively when any matter was brought to light by their “clients,” making most conversations tense and unyielding.

In a surprising moment of clarity in Spring of 2024, Hiveworks sent out a survey asking for feedback on the company and its services. While the survey was oddly personal in some questions and uncomfortable in others, many artists took that as an opportunity to share honestly about how they felt about their time with the company and what they had been providing until that point. Although we were hopeful for staff to take this feedback in good faith, it was largely ignored. Some staff refused to read the responses altogether.

Our History as a Guild

The Guild began from a few Hiveworks creators speaking in DMs about the above grievances, leading to the formation of a quickly-expanding group. We first decided to attempt offering help to Hiveworks, not as a guild, but as individual members wanting the company to improve. We focused on the lack of marketing as a problem we could help fix – awareness of Hiveworks has dwindled over the years, so some of us tried to push for a community effort, making our own ads and trying to present marketing ideas for the company as a whole. Hiveworks demanded that we cease collaborative advertisement among fellow artists; only Hiveworks could be responsible for its own marketing, and “clients” might misrepresent it.

Realizing that more needed to be done, we sent our first letter as the Hiveworks Guild in the spring of 2023, listing several grievances and presenting the argument that Hiveworks cannot provide the services it claims to offer. Pushing back on the idea that we misunderstood Hiveworks, we sought clarity for what the company actually was. Hiveworks responded by saying they simply do not have the budget to offer all of their advertised publishing services. This led to a back-and-forth where Hiveworks eventually decided they were not a publisher, but rather a “service provider,” and we were not its creators, we were its “clients.” This was meant to take pressure off of Hiveworks, but it only led to a muddying of its mission statement.

Isa left Hiveworks in early 2024, and Xel left the Hiveworks Discord in early 2025. Thanks to their departures, communications between the Guild and existing staff finally became more productive and open. With this new transparency came clarity on financial issues. Many of our members discussed how much they were owed from previous Kickstarters, but we were continually told that Hiveworks as a whole was in no financial danger.

Current Developments

In the time since Isa’s departure from Hiveworks and Xel’s departure from the Discord, the Guild was excited to work with remaining Hiveworks staff to salvage things. At first, there was a renewed hope for better communication, but a number of events soured the experience. We are now left with a situation that has gone from bad to far, far worse.

In early 2025, the Guild learned that Hiveworks was substantially more financially troubled than previously reported. They had a combined $340,000 debt from years of mismanagement of Kickstarters, failure to pay the company that hosts the Hivemill shop, and other smaller financial failings on behalf of Xel and Isa. One staff had also admitted in one of the company meetings between staff and artists, that around $15,000 was stolen from the company’s PayPal account in 2023, adding to the financial stress staff had only become aware of after Isa’s departure in 2024. We also learned that remaining staff were also owed $17,000 from the company, but had kindly decided to defer their own paychecks to help fund our departures from Hiveworks.

In light of such an enormous announcement, staff put forth their best solution for the debt: a Kickstarter to save Hiveworks. Guild members disagreed with this idea on both scope and principle. To “fix” Kickstarter debt with another Kickstarter seemed unwise, and there were no concrete plans on what items could be sold – much less why anyone would buy them. We held that the $340,000 debt was unlikely to be remedied by a fundraiser in any significant way. With the rejection of this plan, whatever hope of working together with staff quickly crumbled yet again.

Since the Kickstarter proposal, many Hiveworks members have judged the situation to be too massive to solve, and have cut ties with the company before any likely implosion or potential legal battle. Some of those who remain have unpaid debts, unresolved contract issues, and merchandise that will sit in the warehouse until it is either shipped out (which is currently not an option, financially) or destroyed. Hiveworks is now run by a skeleton crew, and remaining members receive little to no communication about their outstanding troubles.

Members of the Guild also began to form our own webring in late 2024, when it began to become clear to some that even if Hiveworks did not outright collapse, it would also not provide many of the services it promised. The Chimera Comics Collective, as the new webring has been named, is not mutually exclusive with Hiveworks’ catalog; it exists to help cross-promote member comics via social media (something Hiveworks was failing to do) and the embedded jump bar (an aspect of Hiveworks that Guild members agreed would be missed if they were to leave the network.)

Our Hopes

We, the members of the Hiveworks Artist Guild, wished to share our story publicly in order to clarify recent events and to explain recent actions taken by several of our members. We also hope to prevent future disasters like this, and to provide a warning to anyone hoping to work professionally with Isabelle Melançon or Xellette Velamist. We also hope to further the discussion of creator abuse in our industry, which is becoming unfortunately all-too-common.

We also wish to give our gratitude to the Cartoonist Co-op, the Slipshine Guild, and the remaining staff that helped artists leave Hiveworks. The offboarding process has been long and difficult, but was made far easier by those who supported us. The Co-op in particular has taken action to assist artists in moving their websites off of Hiveworks servers and onto independent hosts, as well as volunteering space in Co-op members’ homes for merch/book storage until a more permanent solution could be arranged.

Comic artists are innately passionate about our work, and that passion can easily be preyed upon by entities seeking financial gain, or some other form of clout. Our guild only exists because we were all brave enough to reach out to each other, advocate for ourselves, and eventually speak as one. Hiveworks is one story in a sea of stories like this. We hope whoever reads this can prevent other stories like ours from being written.

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