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Robert White
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4560
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| Posted: 12 January 2013 at 9:46am | IP Logged | 1
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QUOTE:
| They signed the contracts, didn't they? |
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So, nobody should have worked in the comics field then? That's what it boils down to. I highly doubt that any creator of the time liked their deals if they took the time to think about it. "Yeah, our business model is unethical, unfair, and borderline criminal, but nobody is FORCING you to work for us, right?"
From my perspective that's missing the larger point...
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Robert White
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4560
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| Posted: 12 January 2013 at 9:50am | IP Logged | 2
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Here's my basic view in a nutshell. Marvel and DC, TODAY, would admit and have admitted that the business model that they had just a few decades ago was unfair to creators and their families. Yet...they're still benefiting financially from this unfair model by not having to pay royalties to creators that certainly deserve it. This is wrong. The creators today, for what ever reason, don't create iconic characters anymore, so they seem to "win" in that regard, too.
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Robert White
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4560
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| Posted: 12 January 2013 at 9:56am | IP Logged | 3
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QUOTE:
| Guys like Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Stan Goldberg, Wally Wood and Steve Ditko were all a major part of the process, but the company saw them as replaceable talent. And when you get down to it, that's what determines how well compensated you are. They felt that they could bring in experienced people like John Romita, John Buscema, Gene Colan, John Severin, Gil Kane, Marie Severin and Werner Roth and still get out a quality product. And they more or less did - it wasn't as innovative as the early 1960's work Marvel did, but it they were still doing good work. |
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You lump a lot of people in here that are hardly of equal status when it comes to generating new ideas. If Marvel was really so ignorant that they actually thought that Stan Lee simply told Kirby what to draw, then you can see that the thought process of these people, not to mention the awareness of how their own product was being produced, was beyond pathetic.
I like all of those creators, and you're right that once Kirby and Ditko created everything, if you have solid creators, it's hard to mess things up, but we get back to the root problem of these pinheads having no conception or appreciation for the creative capacities of these guys. Without Kirby and Ditko, "Timely" would have tanked. So nowhere along the line, there wasn't ONE corporate stuffed suit that could grasp this? I guess the world really is run by "C students."
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Robert Bradley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4883
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| Posted: 12 January 2013 at 10:06am | IP Logged | 4
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Robert, it depends on what you mean by "deserve". If you mean they were contractually obligated to pay them more money later on, then no, the people who created those characters don't deserve more money. If you mean the publishing companies have a moral obligation to compensate them after their creations became so successful, well, that's up to debate.
Sure, it would have been fantastic to see Dave Cockrum taken care of financially when he struggled at the end of his life (and Marvel did step up and give him some financial considerations), but companies are not in the business of looking for ways to give former employees additional money unless they have to (either contractually or by being pressured by public opinion).
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David Plunkert
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 July 2012
Posts: 536
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| Posted: 12 January 2013 at 11:10am | IP Logged | 5
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You lump a lot of people in here that are hardly of equal status when it comes to generating new ideas. If Marvel was really so ignorant that they actually thought that Stan Lee simply told Kirby what to draw, then you can see that the thought process of these people, not to mention the awareness of how their own product was being produced, was beyond pathetic.
iiii
I doubt publishers concerned themselves with how the ideas were generated precisely but they knew that artists would supply ideas for a page rate, that artists were more or less replaceable, and that the ideas were not a guarantee for success.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133330
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| Posted: 12 January 2013 at 1:18pm | IP Logged | 6
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Here's my basic view in a nutshell. Marvel and DC, TODAY, would admit and have admitted that the business model that they had just a few decades ago was unfair to creators and their families. Yet...they're still benefiting financially from this unfair model by not having to pay royalties to creators that certainly deserve it. This is wrong.•• Unfortunate, yes. Wrong, no. Even setting aside the fact that the corporations that presently own Marvel and DC had no part in the "bad old days", the fact remains that the writers and artists who worked in those "bad old days" knew what they were doing. There's an old English saying I often invoke when this discussion comes up: You take the King's shilling, you do the King's bidding. If you don't WANT to do the King's bidding, you don't take that shilling.
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 12 January 2013 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | 7
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Marvel and DC are both part of publicly traded companies, right? IIRC, public companies have a legal obligation to their shareholders to maximize stock value. Retroactively "doing the right thing" could be legally perilous unless they could demonstrate some sort of business reason for doing so.
This sort of goes back to comments JB has made about "voting with your wallet." Fans will eagerly post on message boards about how Kirby, Ditko, Cockrum and others were not given their proper share but they still flocked to see THE AVENGERS, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and X-MEN and, more directly, buy the current books. There's no evidence that Marvel and DC's financial treatment of past creators has hurt their bottom line and certainly no evidence that changing things would improve it.
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David Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 3093
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| Posted: 12 January 2013 at 3:06pm | IP Logged | 8
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I don't believe for a minute that Warner or Disney shareholders would sue if either company decided to make retroactive payments to past creators.
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Robert White
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4560
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| Posted: 12 January 2013 at 5:26pm | IP Logged | 9
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I understand that the companies are in the business of making money. I think we all know that. I also realize that none of the current regime had anything to do with the mistreatment of Kirby or others. I keep hearing the definitions for why companies are greedy which starts to read much like the beaten down musings of serfs lamenting the treatment of the landlord, yet at the same time not being able to imagine an alternative, the more I read it.
I believe that creative types, like Kirby, should be held to a higher standard by corporations. Why would you want to piss someone like this off, or alienate them, if they can generate cash cows for you? Where are the corporate people that discredited Kirby at Marvel today? If you combined them all, would they be "worth" a fraction of what Kirby's output is now? Of course not. They're infinitely more replaceable and disposable than the talent, the ultimate irony.
I love the story Harlan Ellison tells about the time he punched a suit in the throat when he told him that writers were "a dime a dozen." I believe this was the one where he went backward and a model of the Seaview broke his pelvis. Am I evil for loving this story? ;)
I hope that we one day see the day that the corporate middle-man is completely eliminated with art. We already see some of this with music with artists simply releasing their albums in digital format.
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Robert Bradley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4883
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| Posted: 12 January 2013 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | 10
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You're missing the point - the person who considered the talent replaceable was Martin Goodman, head of Marvel's parent company at the time, where comics were an afterthought.
To him comics weren't some art form, they were a product his company churned out every month. And the subsequent owners really didn't have any personal connection with Kirby, why would they care about an unhappy artist if there were others that they could replace him with at the drop of a hat? They weren't interested in Marvel because Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko worked there, they wanted to get their hands on the established properties.
And now, if you think The Walt Disney Corporation is going to begin the precedent of paying the past creators anything addition to the original terms agreed upon for work on their properties, you're kidding yourself. It's certainly a road Disney isn't looking to head down.
Edited by Robert Bradley on 12 January 2013 at 7:24pm
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Ronald Joseph
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 18 April 2011
Location: United States
Posts: 1784
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| Posted: 12 January 2013 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | 11
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I've had this song running through my head these last few pages. Couldn't help sharing the lyrics.
ART NAZI Twist the truth - then twist your arm,
It's the Emperor Caligula School of Charm,
Don't take his word 'cause it's not worth having it
(he's an Art-Nazi)
He's a tinpot Hitler gone berserk,
A self-made man from another man's work,
More tonque in cheek than a french kiss from Judas Iscariot.
I've been to a prison - one of my own making,
I sent myself there when I signed on the line.
A pact with the Devil so legally binding -
Now he owns my soul 'til the end of time.
He owns all we eat - all we breathe,
All we take and all we leave,
All we are and all we ever will be.
Think of all the time and the energy we've wasted.
Learning how the sole of a Jack-boot tasted,
Anyone would think that he was doing us a favour -
(he's an Art-Nazi)
His name goes hand in hand with notoriety -
Bigot of the highly illegitimate variety.
I'm sick of eating shit - can I try another flavour.
What you give with one hand you take with the other,
We are your puppets and you pull the strings.
Don't make the fatal mistake of forgetting -
It's never really over 'til the fat lady sings.
He knows all we think - all we do,
Head he wins - and tails we lose.
He's our Fuhrer - he's our Lord and Master.
I'm sick of eating shit - can I try another flavour.
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David Plunkert
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 July 2012
Posts: 536
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| Posted: 12 January 2013 at 8:09pm | IP Logged | 12
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I believe that creative types, like Kirby, should be held to a higher standard by corporations.
iiii
I think people in general should be valued more by corporations.
In Kirby's case... if we look at the ledger of what he created/generated to what he was paid.... he definitely was undervalued but only by benefit of hindsight.
Based on Kirby's own stint as a publisher there must have been more that went into longterm success in comics than being a slambang artist or creative. Kirby had a "Midas touch" as a creator only under certain business conditions within the limited and shrinking field he chose to operate in. I don't mean that to diminish his work and output but mean that he was working in what was considered a dying field for a sizable chunk of his career in an industry that was filled with guys who could produce great pages.
I've been a pretty successful editorial illustrator for 20+ years. Despite whatever I and others value my work at.... the going rate is the going rate. There are more talented illustrators than me and less talented illustrators than me and the New York Times and the like pays the same regardless.
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