Yeah, you're right, wrong word. I am just curious as to what the contract, if any, says in black and white.

i'm a little new to all this, but as I am working at a company which is hoping to get into the business of acquiring comic book rights in order to adapt the properties to film and television i had a couple of questions.

So as per the above, the writer does not retain the rights to any of his material? (At least at Marvel or DC?)

Do most publishers run this way? Are there publishers who don't?

In your opinion, which publishing house is the most responsible and considerate towards talent?

How does ICON work, since I seem to have read that there, the writer does keep some distribution rights?

Any thoughts, comments or answers would be greatly appreciated.

Best,

Cowboy Kick

Depends on the contract. Byrne made millions on Alpha Flight. That's why everybody was coming up with new characters all the time in the late 80's.

Didn't Marvel just own Alpha Flight when they appeared in X-MEN? Byrne might've been paid a good chunk of change for doing the comic book ALPHA FLIGHT, but that was likely due to the demand for the book at the time. I doubt he was paid any more for it than, say, FANTASTIC FOUR.

I don't remember the details of it exactly. I only skimmed the issue of TCJ where they transcribed the Blade lawsuit where Byrne did the infamous eye-rolling (he also testified). He said something about owning a percentage of AF and made like ten million off the property. I'm sure our buddy Paul S can tell us more.

Contracts vary tremendously. Siegel and Shuster ended up penniless, though they created Superman. In contrast Bob Kane, the creator of Batman made enough money off royalties to have a good life. Apparently, Kane had an uncle who was very savvy in contract negotiations. The bottom line is that before signing with anyone, have a lawyer or agent negotiate for you.

Of course, the person that has been the most "screwed" in the history of comics is Jack Kirby. Among others, he co-created:

Fantastic Four
Silver Surfer
Iron Man
Captain America
Galactus
Darkseid
Doctor Doom
X-Men

Think how many movies, cartoons, action figures, and comics his work has spawned, yet at the end he was fighting to get his original artwork back so he could keep it for his kids.

Interesting. I have that issue of TCJ, so maybe I'll pull it out sometime.

Har! OK, OK. Are you saying that Jim Shooter was not a champion of creators' rights? Perhaps not. Whatever nice things I'll say about the quality of work produced while he was editor, no, I won't give him high marks on creators' rights, and yes, that's a glaring flaw. Fair 'nuff.

Wow! John Byrne made $10 million off a second-rate title like ALPHA FLIGHT?! (No offense to AF fans, I'm just sayin', it wasn't UNCANNY X-MEN or JUSTICE LEAGUE.) Well ... good for him! The title must have sold a lot better than I realized.