Depends apon the scenario. In some cases the artist is a trained poodle jumping through hoops at the writers direction. Sometimes they're partners and who came up with what is difficult to tell. Then there are stories where the writer has no clue until the artist is through drawing the story the writer's never seen or heard of.

There are as many ways to do it as there are people involved. Which scenario are we talking about? One size does not fit all.

Actually in general "author" can mean the creator or originator of any work and you are indeed the "author" of an illustration when copyrighting it and as such the term has a certain status to it that would place "author" primary and all others secondary.

Comics is commonly regarded as a narrative form where the picture making is as much a form as writing as the prose you would find in a novel. So if you truly regard comics as anything more than a story with accompanying illustrations it is only fair to consider the artist as a co-author. This is what Mr. Simpson seems to be getting at, that terminology we commonly use in other mediums may be misleading or innacurate in attributing credit in this medium. As he points out, the credits page can specifically break down script and art. And it is my growing feeling that copyright already attributes authorship of a work because odds are the original creators are not going to be tracked down to sort out the intricacies of their creative arrangement.

I agree. I should make it clear that I'm not entirelly sure the artist should always be given an authorship credit but I reject the assumption that he or she be excluded. I think the original problem here is how to attribute credit correctly and fairly when listing the book in catalogs.

From dictionary.com:

Author

1.a person who writes a novel, poem, essay, etc.; the composer of a literary work, as distinguished from a compiler, translator, editor, or copyist.
2.the literary production or productions of a writer: to find a passage in an author.
3.the maker of anything; creator; originator: the author of a new tax plan.
4.Computers. the writer of a software program, esp. a hypertext or multimedia application.
–verb (used with object)
5.to write; be the author of: He authored a history of the Civil War.
6.to originate; create a design for: She authored a new system for teaching chemistry.

Under point 3 you could say it was possible to 'author' a painting or work of art, but that is far from being a common use of the word, and it is obviously overwhelmingly used to describe a writer.

Certainly, in common parlance, 'author' and 'writer' are synonymous terms. Were you to ask most people for their definition of an author, few if any would stretch that description beyond 'writer'.

Within the context of what we are talking about here, which is to say the conventional classification system used by the Library of Congress, the identification of 'author' with 'writer' is certainly intended, IMO, as it gives a clear distinction that is readily apparent to all readers.

To use an obscure or virtually unused meaning of a word can only make things less clear than they should be, which is never a good idea, IMO.

This I do agree with. Where the artist does have some hand in creating the script/plot etc, he should obviously be credited as co-author.

The best example I can think of here would be a lot of Rob Liefield's work. Whether you love or hate what the guy does, his credit often reads 'everything except dialogue' - in which case he has a clear and rightful claim to co-authorship.

Did you read my or Simpson's post? I realize it is probably quite a chore to wade through my crappy posts .. First of all, author as I reference it is not unused or obscure. It is a legal term in regards to copyright to denote the creator of a work. And in film auteur is an example of authorhsip being adapted to a medium and attributed in a way that has nothing to do with the written word. And I notice that "scriptwriter" or comics writer do not appear in your definition. The point that both of us are making is in the context of comics, the visual narrative is also considered a form of the "writing." Will Eisner referred to himself as someone who writes with pictures. Relying on the conventional terms of prose is misleading in regards to the nature of an entirelly different medium and its mechanics. So you either expand "author" to accurately reflect the creative function of the artist or you find a new term. Your appeal to the avergae joe demonstrates the exact problem: To most people comics have long been thought of as stories with accompanying illustrations rather than a unique medium. To continue to list credits as author and illustrator under the terms of a different medium hurts clarity. Sometimes it is difficult to accurately discuss something when you have no vocabulary that is unique to your subject and must borrow terms. JUst like the term "comic book" itself is one that has evolved to include material that is not funny at all and many people have had problems understanding this.

It is absurd to think that because someone supplies the dialogue alone as in the Liefeld example he is a co-author but an artist serving the function of exposition using his visual art does not deserve such credit.

I think we may have to agree to disagree. As I see it (and correct me if this is unfair) you are viewing comics solely from the perspective of a writer and the conventions of the written word. Your Harry Potter example indicates a belief that these worlds are interchangeable . Whereas I believe that the language one uses in sequential art is not equivalent to prose and therefore terms as we understand them in prose must be adapted to comics properly. And get this: if I hold by the popular belief that comics is a narrative language and the art is a form of writing then the artist is a co-writer! Therefore by your own assertion that author=writer the artist automatically deserves a co-author credit. Haha! This is why I think the role of originator or the overall controling interest the individual has in the final work is worth considering instead.

Not to derail this interesting debate about authorship, but as far as library catalogs are concerned, I don't see a real problem here. Library records regularly list multiple authors, co-authors, illustrators, etc. For instance, see this link to the catalog record for "V for Vendetta" in my local library consortium:

http://catalog.noblenet.org/search/tv+for+vendetta/tv+for+vendetta/1%2C3%2C9%2CB/frameset&FF=tv+for+vendetta&2%2C%2C7

Alan Moore's name goes at the top of the record because he's listed first in the book's title page, but everyone else gets "Alt Author" credit farther down. Simple enough?

I did read your posts, Teddy, I just disagree with your conclusions. The Harry Potter example was not mine, BTW

To most people, a legal definition is obscure. The living language has little to do with the law, and everything to do with how the language is used in everyday speech.

It's the common use of the language that informs my POV, though I must admit to being very 'word focused' as a person. I can stand bad art a lot more easily than a poorly written story for this reason.

If you were to say that 'Illustrator' should be discarded as a description in favour of 'Artist' I would completely agree with you The two terms are not really synonymous, and 'Artist' is a far better description of the drawer of a comic than 'Illustrator' would be.

That said, I'm more than happy to agree to disagree if you like All opinions are equally valid at the end of the day

Whoops. Sorry to both you and grasshopper.

Hee. Much ado about nothing, after all perhaps.

I don't really have a problem with that. As I pointed out earlier, Amazon seems to list "by: [writer's name and artist's name]" too.