There's a bit of argy-bargy going on at the moment about British comics' venerable organ, 2000AD, offering to publish first-time contributors without paying them anything.
There are a whole bunch of reasons why this stinks, the main one being that if you're good enough to publish, you ought to be good enough to get paid. I do my fair share of work for free, but I keep the rights to the work when I do that so I can exploit the material at a later date if I want to -- in this instance, there's no sign that this will be the case. Rebellion, the owners of 2000AD, are really only in the comics business in order to develop intellectual properties for their computer games line. There are no shortage of young cartoonists who will willingly agree to these terms, unfortunately; the grizzly cynic inside me thinks this is just the thin end of a very long wedge.
Anyway, here's something I did for the
Judge Dredd Megazine in 1991, a pinup for a strip I drew called
The Straitjacket Fits, which I take a perverse pride in telling people was, according to reader votes, the least popular strip they ever ran.
Even so, I was paid for it.
(Update: About five minutes after writing this, I was informed that cartoonists will, indeed, retain their rights to the work. Very glad to hear it. My righteous indignation and I will be in the bar if you want us.)