Here’s Warren Ellis on recent rumors around the Big Two publishers’ editorial practices:
I’m hearing a lot lately about writers being put into foot races on gigs. And not only do they not know who else is running for the job – but many of them seem not to be told they’re in a foot race at all. Writers who assumed they were writing the gig are being told that they never had the gig at all, that other writers have been run parallel to them. Even though they were put through multiple drafts. They didn’t know they were in competition.
He went on:
Commercial comics can be enough of a snakepit even in relatively benign times. But bringing back a process both demeaning and creatively inferior, and just fucking lying to people about it? I don’t like what that says about the next cycle in the field.
Over at the Millarworld message board, Mark Millar adds his take:
Never underestimate how much Joe Quesada saved the industry back in 99-2000. Comics are at their best when creators are put first and allowed to write and draw the stories they’re passionate about. Marvel was famous for publishing comics that were in some cases completely rewritten and within 12 months Joe created a climate of trust that’s produced a decade of great comics. I think the noughties ranks up there as one of Marvel’s best periods ever. My concern is that the DC reboot really does spike sales in the short term and the events become more important than the people again.
Part of me wonders if Millar’s responding to something other than what Ellis was initially talking about – After all, haven’t events been more important that the people for a lot of fans for awhile? Compare the sales of, say, Avengers to Powers or Takio, for example, and there’s definitely an argument to be made for that attitude (Similarly, Tom Brevoort’s “Bendis is writing the Death of Spider-Man, but if he didn’t want to, someone else would have” from a few weeks back) – but I’ll admit that Nu Marvel, as it was called in those earlier, more innocent, days, changed a lot of attitudes about the way to make superhero books appealing to fans again.
Outside of that, though, is what Ellis is talking about, which is… well, disrespectful to creators, to be extremely polite about it, and something that’s much more worrying than whether or not events are seen as more important than creators; it’s the idea that editors are considering creators as the least important part of the process, and entirely interchangeable, which seems so toxic, and so worrying – If creators are given no value or respect by their employers (“bringing back a process both demeaning and creatively inferior, and just fucking lying to people about it,” remember – The lying part is as important as the competitive process, here), then what does that say about the quality of work that those creators will be willing to offer to those editors? What about creators who’ll realize that they can get better treatment in other media, and abandon publishers as a result?
Disturbing times ahead, perhaps.
July 27th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
great article. maybe comics will get a wake up call and be more like the more creatively rich media of television and motion pictures, where the writers are the most important element and paid more than another employee working on a show or movie.
July 27th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
So a process that was prevalent at Marvel while Harras was there has now shown up as a process at DC? Shocker.
I understand asking for different pitches from different teams, but to not tell them you’re doing so is just wrong.
July 27th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
@KentL read Ellis’ column again. It was prevalent at DC at the same time, too, which means Harras had nothing to do with it (at least at DC).
July 27th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
None of this is surprising. They’re corporately own characters. Why would anyone think the creators are most important? As much as fans might claim to read books by their favorite creators, their favorite characters will always trump that.
And this is a direct result of this ridiculous market share battle the Big Two are having. Hey, congrats, you’ve managed to claim the largest portion of a shrinking pond.
I buy more Image books than any other company these days, because stuff like this doesn’t happen with them. And they also put out great titles in a wide variety of genres.
July 27th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Kendy: writers generally aren’t the highest paid talent in movies. That’s generally either the actors or a director (especially if he/she has percentage points on ticket sales or merchandise).
Kyle: Creators are super important to corporate owned characters. I’m actually sorta amazed that DC and Marvel don’t get that. They can make a lot more money having an awesome run on Daredevil by Frank Miller or Brian Bendis, which will sell forever as TPBs vs a shit run on Daredevil by like, Frank Tieri, that no one will read as issues and no bookstore will want copies of in TPB.
July 27th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Zach: Kendy was being sarcastic.
July 27th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
The way Millar gushed about Quesada, you’d think they had something going on between them on the DL….
July 27th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
@Zach I’m not saying creators shouldn’t be important to the Big Two, but the bottom line is that these characters will be around long after the creators are gone, so it’s the characters which matter most to them.
July 27th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Funny I thought Millar believed that HE saved the comics industry.
July 27th, 2011 at 8:55 pm
The so-called writer “creators” (I prefer to self-identify as “talent”) have no one to blame but themselves for the kind of treatment Ellis decries. For a long time now they have moved between television / film — where they are members of the WGA, whose working rules and Minimum Basic Agreement have for many decades prohibited producers from engaging in this very behavior of pitting writer against writer with parallel “audition” assignments — and comics, where they have no collective bargaining protection of any kind. Yet they have remained blithely indifferent to the possibility that they were being co-opted by corporations that could and would turn on them, on a whim born of an executive shuffling, at any moment. Surely they’re not naive idiots…?
Are they blind to the similarities between comics and the media under the WGA’s jurisdiction? Do they actually not understand that they don’t work for DC and Marvel, but rather Warner Bros. and Disney? How many more media mash-ups have to be rolled out at SDCC before the writers, at least, recognize that they need to be doing what animation writers are doing: working with the WGA to prepare an NRLB petition to bring them under the Guild’s auspices?
It shouldn’t too difficult for the WGA to pull off because so many of its members already work for DC and Marvel, whose parent companies are signatories to the WGA. That way, the two major publishers (who are functioning more and more each day like producers) will be contractually bound to follow certain business practices,; disputes would be arbitrated; credits controlled and administered in concert with the Guild; and minima (not “top of the show,” so to speak, but minimum reprint and royalty payments) would be standardized.
Ellis can whine all he likes, but unless he’s willing to do as men like Marv Wolfman and Craig Miller have done, and go out into the streets to fight for what is rightfully theirs as creative talent, he might as well be pissing into the wind.
As for the artists, they’ll have to get their own guild. That’s not being mean-spirited or dismissive; that’s simply acknowledging the realities of how the NLRB views labor classifications.
July 27th, 2011 at 11:03 pm
@Martin
You make good points, but I would suggest that the writers go between writing comics and the WGA precisely for the reasons you mention. In fact, it’s not surprising that well known writers like Brian K Vaughn disappear from comics into other media.
Also, I wouldn’t describe anything that Ellis wrote as whining. Why would he? He doesn’t have to go through anything like that anymore. He’s simply raising an issue for discussion.
July 27th, 2011 at 11:05 pm
FYI, Martin, I’ve enjoyed your work!
July 28th, 2011 at 8:17 am
I know the title says “Big 2,” but I think nowadays this is much more a DC problem than a Marvel problem. Most of the stories I hear about one writer being set up to write a title only to be sideswiped by another writer getting the gig seem to recently come from DC. Nick Spencer’s Supergirl was one example, but there were several writers slated to writer titles for the DC Reboot who were suddenly switched for other writers, like Brian Clevinger’s Firestorm among others.
I’m not saying it still doesn’t happen at Marvel, just that I don’t see any recent stories of it happening at Marvel, and neither Ellis nor Millar indicted current Marvel in their posts,while Millar at least definitely indicted the new DC, so I don’t know if we can honestly say they were bashing the “big 2″ without more proof.
July 28th, 2011 at 11:01 am
They’re both corporately owned. You don’t really need any more proof than that.
July 28th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
The DC relaunch certainly seems to suggest that Didio and company don’t value the talent much. Marvel seems to value them more, but still put out a shitload of books that don’t support that belief (adjective-less X-Men, all those Thor minis that came out prior ot the movie, etc).
July 28th, 2011 at 6:25 pm
“The way Millar gushed about Quesada, you’d think they had something going on between them on the DL….”
Ha. Well, talking seriously for a minute, Millar does owe Joe a lot. After Millar fell out with DC over censorship in The Authority, Quesada [and Jemas] welcomed him with open arms and gave him the chance to reinvent one of Marvel’s flagship superteams for the 21st century (The Ultimates). Millar’s success at Marvel basically made his career.
Also, comics were in a bad place before Quesada became EiC. Marvel had filed for bankruptcy and certain titles (particularly the X-Men) were heavily editorially-mandated. The effects of the speculator bust were still hurting everybody. So Joe’s more creator-driven approach, which he had already been using for the Marvel Knights line, did a lot of good.
July 28th, 2011 at 10:46 pm
He’s just telling the truth. Weird would have been if he raved about DC comics. They’ve sucked since Jennette Kahn left.