Skip to main content

The History of Comics: The Loss of Ownership (3 Points)

 One trend that I felt was interesting, albeit upsetting, was that with the incentive of making money by creating comics, the lines of ownership of the artist's creation seem to blur. Of course, other factors lead to the uncertainty of giving credit where credit is due, such as having multiple people working towards one comic. However, I feel that when comics became more mainstream, companies valued the income that comics made over the treatment of the artist that created them. In particular, on pages 109 and 110 of The Comic Book History of Comics that Marvel allowed for the continuation of Stan Lee as the sole credit of their comics for quite some time, leaving artists like Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby unhappy with their lack of recognition. Marvel (and Stan Lee) made profit off of Stan Lee's rise to fame, practically letting people believe he was a genius for creating such works by himself. In actuality, talented artists were drawing and plotting the comics while Stan sometimes would only work on the dialogue. For the sake of profit, Marvel turned a blind eye on the artists so that Stan could become a strong identity for the company. 

Later in Jack Kirby's life, we see him struggling again to regain ownership of his comics that he drew during his time at Marvel. Once again, Marvel had decided to abuse their power as a company by deciding how to best use old original copies of comics for gain rather than giving them back to the original artists. Whether they were giving them away as benefits to people that Marvel worked with or gave the comics back to the artists under conditions that exploited the artist, Marvel was always looking to make some sort of profit for themselves. Jack Kirby, however, broke this streak by standing by his beliefs that his art was his own, and he was able to retrieve many (but not all) of his comics under negotiated conditions. As an artist going into a world where my art will be owned by companies that I work for, this stood out to me. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

American Born Chinese (3 Points)

 I read American Born Chinese about two years ago for the Asian and Asian American Diaspora LMST Class, but I did not quite remember everything that happened, so I decided to read it again. While there are seemingly three story lines, they all merge into one at the end, which caught me off guard again the second time reading it. I definitely think this fits into the category of literary comics. Not only does it have great writing, it tells a compelling story that really makes the reader stop to think. While I cannot say that I relate to this story in the same way, I can see how this story could be relatable. I feel like this is an important novel that everyone should take a second and read. I also really enjoyed the pacing of this novel, both in the sense of the three stories coming together as one and in the panel by panel framing of the scenes. The writer understands well how to use blank panels and pages. 
Post a Comment
Read more

The Killing Joke (2 Points)

  1. What is your reaction to the text you just read? Well, there were definitely parts that I did not vibe with, but there were also parts I enjoyed. As a whole, I think it does a really good job of story-telling and creating complex characters, as well as the timing for the story was very spot on. However, I had a problem with the major 'lesson'. I'm not sure that lesson is the right choice of word, but I did not like that despite all that the Joker had done just in that night alone, Batman was still willing to help him in a peaceful manner. He traumatized two people who may not be able to walk the world in the same way that they had before this night, yet Batman wants Joker to have a better life. It almost seems like this is for a selfish reason too, since his driving force in his decision is that he could die if he does not help him. 2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss what elements of the story with which you were able to connect? I'm not sure ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Octopus Pie Issue 1 (5 Points)

 This comic grew on me. At first, it felt very edgy for edgy's sake. Crude jokes and nasty language was used left and right, and it felt like it was just trying to appeal to a younger audience's shock factor appeal. However, as I learned more about the characters and read more of the comic, the story felt like it was evening out. The jokes felt less crude because it became more about the story rather than about trying to appeal to some certain audience from the get-go. I also was not sure how to feel about the art style at first, but that grew on me as well as I kept reading. The shaped are very simple and really reflect the characters, and the designs of the characters are simple but appealing. The diversity in cast and body types is refreshing after having spent the semester reading comics where there is not much of that. I would say the biggest off-putting this about this comic is how it feels like it does not try to take a stance. It shows the ridiculous in things like vega...
Post a Comment
Read more