A few years ago, in his column, Peter David used "Venom" as a good example of the complexities of "ownership" of characters--different writers at different times with their own vision of a character. The original ST team created Constantine,but Jaime Delano expanded a supporting character into THE antihero of the genre.

Nat, I see your point, but I think crediting me as a creator of Constantine, just because I did that first appearance, is kind of absurd too, considering how much work Steve did developing the character over the next year's worth of Swamp Thing.

And Heyhey has a point too. Jaimie's HELLBLAZER Constantine was a very DIFFERENT sort of Constantine from Alan's.

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Rick, I'm not arguing that you folks should be created where you clearly don't want to be.... just that other important developers should not be credited as character creators. The X-Men wouldn't be who the X-Men are today without the work of Chris Claremont... but if you start to claim that anyone besides Jack&Stan *created* "the X-Men", you open up a huge ugly kettle of worms (one which could prove very useful to Corporate Comics Corp when they decide to claim that Jane Hotartist created Old Poweredguy just because he did a new number 1 for them.) So the lack of character creation credits in the book is very legitimate in this case.

Dennis Potter wrote the original television play of Brimstone & Treacle; I don't know if the film version with Sting was reworked by anyone else.

Not that it's at all vital to the matter at hand, but: Potter is the only one credited as writer on the film.

Hey, this is a fun thread, in't it?

Stuart: "...it sounds like you guys set some good precedents for a lot of freelancers by negotiating aggressively."

Thanks for the observation. Sadly, companies bear personal grudges over such "good precedents," which has excluded many of us who fought in the trenches then from reaping any of the benefits extended to subsequent talents as "business as usual." It's not particular to DC: Sadly, that's human nature, but it was a vital component in my decision to abandon the field after twenty-plus years.

Best of luck with your new venture, whatever it may be.

As for the back and forth on who did what: Yes, Sting, Michael Moorcock, and all (though not so much BRIMSTONE AND TREACLE, as a fan of that Potter gem who was in on the creation of Constantine can testify) were sources, though the Sting origin will forever be a sore spot for DC (hell, John and I wrote a note on the original art page in which the character first appeared in ST #25, telling the colorist how to color his hair because "It's STING!"). Nevertheless, Alan made J.C. into a recognizable character who added a great deal to ST and opened the door for the Vertigo line.

Like all characters, he has his evident roots -- hey, rodents were what they are for millions of years before Mickey Mouse, and Oswald the Rabbit and Felix the Cat were immediate precursors, but Mickey is the contender left standing. I daresay this discussion wouldn't be taking place at all if Constantine weren't more than a derivative crazy-quilt of components lifted from a rock star's visage and Jerry Cornelius' demeanor and confounding abilities. Constantine owes a debt to them all, but he was and is a distinctive character in and of himself who has enjoyed a certain brief longevity (now there's an oxymoron!) already.

[This message has been edited by Stephen R Bissette (edited 01-02-2000).]

Some of this reminds me of the credits on the Flash TV show. Gardner Fox was credited as having created the character, despite the fact that none of the characters in the show appeared in the "Flash" series he created. They explained that Schwartz, Kanigher, et al. had merely revamped an existing character. On the other hand, they gave the costume design credit to some Hollywood guy, instead of Infantino.

Quack, Don

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