Question:
I was discussing the pros and cons of creator owned characters with a friend
and fellow comic book reader. We both agreed that comic book creators have in
the past been shafted by the companies they worked for. The comic book company
makes a ton of cash off these characters while the writers and artists who
created them get very little more than recognizion. Creator owned comics could
fix that mistake. However this creates a new problem. Comic book "universes"
are made up of many different characters created by many different people. A
character can be created by one person while a later writer or artist can add
to that character's concept or history. If a creator left a company with his
creations; that company would have a hard time explaining why certain
characters no longer exist within that company's "universe". My friend and I
then came up with a comprimise; the comic book company owns the characters but
the creator can get a "royalty" similar to a rock star and a record company.
The amount of money the creator recieves would depend on the character's
popularity as well as how many copies of the comic are sold. Does anyone agree
or disagree with me?
Answer:
-Comic book universes serve little purpose other than a marketing one.
They had their day, but they mostly contribute to stale writing. If
you take a look at the best mainstream writers in comics, they tend to
not worry much about continuity and focus on producing good art
- A simple simple would be not to include creator-owned into a
company's shared universe, but to let these series stand on their own
- which is what happens with most creator-owned series, anyway.
Which means that, for instance, Darkseid or Power Girl wouldn't
have appeared in Claremont's _Sovereign Seven_. It wouldn't have been
a big loss for the DCU...
