It always seems like the Comic Book Geek-o-sphere is roiled about something or other. Last week it was Iceman coming out as gay and Lois Lane outing Superman's secret identity; a while back it was Spider-Woman being objectified and smitten with bad posture. It's always something.
I don't know if this new thing will cause nearly the ripples in the Fan Community as the others, because it mostly involves writers and money and boring legal stuff. Still, I found it interesting.
This past week, writer Gerry Conway wrote a blog post about the curious state of Creator's Rights at DC Comics. Conway was a prolific comic book writer in the '70s; he wrote the classic "Death of Gwen Stacy" story for THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and many of the early Marvel/DC crossovers of the '70s as well as creating the Punisher, FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MAN and scads of other characters.
According to Company Policy, DC is supposed to give the creators a share of the revenue every time one of their characters is used in other media. But as Conway explains in his blog, it's all a matter of definition: Who created Caitlin Snow on #TheFlash? According to @DCComics, nobody
This is hardly news to comics veteran Tony Isabella, who was the first to get such a deal when he created BLACK LIGHTNING back in the '70s. When Hanna-Barbera wanted to add ethnically-diverse characters to its Saturday Morning "Super Friends" cartoon, Black Lightning was an obvious candidate; but DC refused to let them use him and so H-B created a different black guy with electricity powers named "Black Vulcan" to use instead. The same thing happened years later when the makers of the animated "Static Shock" (based on a character published by DC) wanted to have Black Lightning appear in an episode: the company refused, and so the cartoon had to go with an original character with the serial numbers rubbed off. On those occasions where Black Lightning does appear on a t-shirt or a poster or as an action figure, Isabella says he has to harass DC's lawyers to get anything at all.
Although DC has been ignoring Tony for decades, Gerry Conway's latest accusation seems to have DC Corporate scrambling to deal with the issue. A writer for Bleeding Cool News notes that the whole situation is only one lawsuit away from blowing up.: DC Comics in Ructions over Gerry Conway's allegations.
I understand that as a direct result on Gerry Conway’s version of events that people at DC are having meeting. Long and complex meetings, Phone calls and discussions. And an attempt to, as we call it in the UK, do a reverse ferret.
And now another comics veteran has weighed in on the issue. Neal Adams was The Definitive Batman artist of the early '70s, as well as the artist on the legendary GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW comic, and his style influenced a generation of artists. More significantly, in this case, he spearheaded a campaign for creator's rights on behalf of Superman's creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster. This was about the time the Christopher Reeve movie was about to come out; and the story of how Jerry and Joe received only a pittance for what became the most lucrative money-maker in comic book history; how when they tried to re-negotiate their contracts, they were effectively blacklisted and wound up living in poverty; well, let's just say it was not terribly good public relations. Under the pressure of Neal Adams' campaign, DC agreed to credit Jerry and Joe and give them a yearly stipend as compensation.
In his response to Gerry Conway's blog, Adams writes that the situation isn't as bad as Conway says, it's even worse; and explains why the situation is what it is and why it cannot be sustainable: Neal Adams Talks Gerry Conway, DC Comics And Who Owns What