Though comics are a medium i enjoy I do know that it is a shitty shitty business. From having friends in the industry to getting into a British-off with Paul Jenkins at a pool table to seeing just how backstabbing and backbiting it can be. DC has always been the numero uno as the publisher who most likes dicking over those that created some of the most loved characters we have today. From Siegel & Shusters battle over the "Super" family to Alan Moores well documented battles with publishers. Now enters Gerry Conway with his experiences with characters he created (Felicity Smoak from Arrow fame and a "derrivative" character Caitlin Snow from The Flash)

http://gerryconway.tumblr.com/post/1...lash-according

This shit has got to stop.

That article was insane. DC sucks.

Well, derivative until she full on becomes Killer Frost.

Playing devil's advocate here - No one wanted Superman. No one. They sent variations of the character to publishers for YEARS and no one was willing to invest in him. It got to the point that even Shuster gave up on Supes forcing Siegel to find another possible artist (Russell Keaton). After Keaton backed out, it was back to hawking the IP around town again. DC (then National Periodical) took a chance on the character after finding it in the slush pile and made the standard deal with the creators. It was only after the character became a major success (and laid the foundation for the comic book industry) that Siegel and Shuster wanted more. If Superman wasn't a success, they would have felt lucky selling him for $130.

It wasn't like DC went out of their way to screw them.... well, not at first. DC wasn't even sure about the character either. They just needed the strip to fill space. No one saw what was coming down the road.

As for Moore and Watchmen - The contract was written in favor of Moore and Gibbons. DC had every intention of letting the rights revert to them once the trade paperback editions went out of print. No one at the time ever expected the story to become so popular that it would never go out of print. DC's just taking advantage of the situation at this point.

Moore made a ton of money off Watchmen. More than Siegel and Shuster did (before their 1978 deal). And DC did offer to give the characters back to Moore as long as any stories he did would go through them (I believe). He said no.

The worse thing to happen to DC creators was Paul Levitz stepping down. He was a company man but he was fair with creators, making sure they got the royalties coming to them (as laid out in their contracts). Even Bill Finger's heir gets money for Batman thanks to Levitz. The new regime only listens to their corporate master (Time-Warner).

The agreement that Conway appears to have with DC is very different than the one the Seigel and Shuster had when they sold the rights to Superman. S&S sold their rights to the character outright. I would also argue that Superboy is the same character as Superman. At least the golden and silver age versions were. The post Crisis Superboy was clearly not the same character.

If the agreement that Conway states he had with DC is correct, then yes they are ripping him off. Well Warner Brothers is ripping him off, not really DC.

In Conways article, he mentioned that DC considered Power Girl to be derivitive of Superman because it was his cousin. But in the post Crisis version she wan't his cousin or related to Superman, so shouldn't that reverse DC's logic?

Legally Superboy and Superman aren't the same character, which is why Time-Warner took him out of DC continuity. Reading that piece it looks like the legal team took a new look at all possible DC characters that may get used in non-comic outlets and decided to limit their exposure from outside creators.

I presume this was motivated by the coming wave of DC movies. It was fine giving creators like Conway $2000 checks or whatever when one of his characters appeared in cartoons, but billion-dollar movies are a whole other ballgame. The movie division is almost certainly limiting their potential pay-outs to outsiders in case the Justice League movie uses Aquaman's comic book cousin or the like. It is no coincidence that studios practically employ more lawyers and accountants than actual actors. Say Powergirl shows up in a Justice League Europe movie (we can all dream) and makes billions, lawyers would be calling Conway up fishing for a big lawsuit against DC and Time-Warner.

They re-reverted her as Earth-2's Supergirl right before Infinite Crisis. The same holds true in the New 52.

Regarding Superboy - The heart of the issue was Siegel pitched Superboy to DC before 1945 as a prankster who used his super powers to play jokes on bullies. DC nixed the idea. While Siegel was away for WWII, DC published their own version of Superboy who was pretty much Superman as a boy. Siegel even wrote that first story. He didn't complain about it until he and Shuster decided to sue DC in 1946.

Meanwhile, no one complains about Marvel who has done worse to creators. Ask Jack Kirby who helped build that house.

The Moore, watchmen, keeping it in print thing is still a bit dubious to me. Why even wrote that particular line into the contract unless it was either standard practice or because DC was angling for something.

On the one hand, I understand the plight of these creators, but on the other hand I'm surprised that the work for hire contracts don't give sole rights over to DC for these characters, especially the ancillary ones like minor superheroes or bad guys. Otherwise DC would just never use the characters again. Why use killer frost when you can just make another character up and not pay massive royalties?

Wonder if DC can argue that the Watchmen characters are just derivatives of the Charlton characters they own.

DC was definitely underhanded with Alan Moore about Watchmen. I think they wrote the contract fully intending to return the rights if it hadn't become known as the genre's masterpiece and one of its most lasting series. It became a massive hit and then corporate types decided they weren't giving Watchmen back.

I think these type of situations have limited creativity at Marvel and DC since the 1990s. The best comic book creators know they are going to get taken to the cleaners when writing new characters, so they keep their best stuff for their own creator-owned releases. It's why all the best stories now at Marvel and DC are simply deconstructions of existing superheroes, no one wants to invent a single thing for soulless corporations that will rob you blind without blinking.

I really hope this doesn't impose limits on how shows like Arrow and The Flash can use existing comic book characters.

DC and to a lesser extent Marvel havent always been kind to their creators. How long was it til Siegel and Shuster recieved a "created by" credit for Superman? Hell, Bill Finger is still ignored as far as credit goes (though to my understanding thats mostly due to Bob Kane).

I think it's a standard practice, and, from what I gather, not unusual in other publishing circles, either.

I have noticed that some other DC series have ended up at other publishers after going out of print. Outlaw Nation and Accelerate ended up at Image, and I think there were a couple of others, too. DC gets the right to publish creator-owned/participation things as long as the company sees it is financially viable to keep them in print. After they go out of print, the rights then revert to the creator(s) after a stated amount of time.

Siegel and Shuster had a "Created By" credit right out the gate. DC took it away from them after S&S sued for Superman and Superboy in 1948. During the Silver Age, and once Siegel was writing Superman again, part of DC's condition was that he not mention he was Superman's creator. Then he sued again in the 60s and was fired. It wasn't until the original Superman movie was close to release that Warner Bros/DC gave S&S their byline back (as well as a chunk of cash, an annual stipend and health insurance).

Bill Finger getting screwed (called "Getting Fingered" in the comic industry) was all on Bob Kane. He screwed everyone involved with Batman including Jerry Robinson who co-created the Joker. DC gives Finger's heirs an annual stipend but legally, they can't add his name to the created byline.

It's a standard clause in publishing contracts. In fact, it's become a big issue over the last few years due to ebooks throwing open the question of what "in print" means.

DC at the time was shamed into doing that for Siegel and Shuster when Superman's origins came under scrutiny with Donner's Superman. Neal Adams and other industry icons at the time thought Siegel and Shuster deserved to be treated better.

I'm not sure I agree with this. What's the biggest creator owned hit since the 90's? Kick-Ass? Tells me that their best stuff really doesn't make many of them any money.

I think they reason they're keeping their own stuff is freedom, not that they're afraid they'll right a hit and get screwed.

The Walking Dead is a juggernaut. More and more books that would have been Vertigo or Icon books have moved to Image, Dark Horse or other publishers.

Those comics probably wouldn't make Marvel or DC a ton of money, but creators can make a lot more off selling 30,000 books from Image than selling 50,000 through the big two. And when something like a Walking Dead show or Kick-Ass movie happens, the creators get a ton of money.

You got me the TWD but again there really isn't a place a Marvel or DC for that type of book. It would have always been an independent book even before the 90's.

A lot of independent comics from the past two decades would have made good money as movies with a giant corporation behind them. Marvel and DC have the right corporate structure behind them to properly exploit superhero films. Spawn was the biggie that got away when New Line decided to turn it into a children's movie. There is an alternate universe where Spawn is as big as Spider-Man or Batman.

It can't work that way. Otherwise DC could write a storyline tomorrow that says Harley Quinn is Bruce Wayne's long lost cousin, so she is now a derivative character. If the legal test is whether a character is derivative or not, that status cannot be changed by a plotline.

I assumed that present era DC/Marvel characters were expected to be indefinitely owned by the studio without need for credit or royalty to the author/creator. It seems generous for DC / Warner Brothers to offer an equity sharing program for creators and beyond what I expected would be the case. It is annoying that creators do not get enough credit/royalty for their work; but I imagine that was spelled out for them in advance (certainly for the modern era at least). Maybe DC is over-generalizing in applying new standards to characters from a more formative time which would make me wonder if this is a "creator" issue or something specific to Gerry Conway. If nothing else it's good to see people pointing out what doesn't feel "right."

I feel like if this was the case, Vertigo properties would have been taken advantage of a lot more. Y The Last Man has been in development hell for years, as was Preacher until the AMC series got moving. Sandman and Death have both been in "in the works" for about 20 years.

To add to this, the reason why no one gets any credit for Batman is because Bob Kane had it put in his contract that DC had sole ownership of Batman as long as Bob Kane was always to be listed as sole creator of Batman, and all the stories would have his byline stating he was sole creator. He also had it in his contract that he got a percentage of the money Batman made for the company.

Cracked had a good article about "creators who get too much credit" and they mentioned how Stan Lee still gets credit for X-Men. He still gets huge royalties for XM. And the person who really created XM and made it popular is Chris Claremont who doesn't get any of the recognition or money. Then we can't forget how Stan gets all credit for Spiderman, Hulk, and Fantastic Four.
Whereas the other people involved get almost no money or recognition.

Creator owned comics aren't really a good comparison. The three most popular creator owned comics in the last thirty years are Walking Dead, Ninja Turtles and Spawn. With the exception of Ninja Turtles, most of them won't reach the height of a Spiderman or Batman.

I almost always hear Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko mentioned in the same breath as Stan Lee when it comes to those creations.

Do Kirby and Ditko get no money from those?

The Kirby heirs are getting money AND credit now thanks to their just-concluded lawsuit. In fact, Stan Lee made out on the Kirby deal because titles like Fantastic Four have a "Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby" in every future issue.

Ditko is another story. He'll be the first to tell you that what he did was Work For Hire and he knew exactly what he was getting into. Jim Shooter posted a great story on his blog about a bunch of Marvel creators wanting to create a union and they looked to Ditko as someone who got screwed by the industry. Steve stood up and said something along the lines of "Don't make me your poster child. I knew what I was getting into." I'll see if I can find the actual quote and the link to Shooter's blog.

I don't know if Ditko gets any royalties on his comics but he has said that he gets nothing from the Spider-Man movies even tho he's credited as co-creator.


Stan use to take too much credit but now I think he's pulled it back a bit and almost always mentions his fellow creators.