Answers, and Questions: Clarifying Creator Rights with Chris ... http://www.popmatters.com/tools/print/160903/
Answers, and Questions: Clarifying Creator Rights with Chris Roberson
[11 July 2012]
By Julian Chambliss
In April of this year writer Chris Roberson announced, via Twitter, his decision to terminate his working relationship with DC Comics. Citing “ethnical
concerns” linked to publisher’s treatment of creators his actions sparked widespread commentary in the comic world. At some level, the decision
shouldn’t come as a surprise. Roberson’s career highlights the opportunities and obstacles facing the contemporary writer and foreshadowed this
decision. A writer with diverse credits such as Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love (DC), iZombie (DC), Starborn (BOOM!), and Elric: The Balance Lost
(BOOM!) among others, his first success came as short story and novel writer. He is the author of Here, There & Everywhere (2005), The Voyages of the
Night Shining White (2006) and The Dragon’s Nine Sons (2008) among other novels and his short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and
anthologies.
Alongside his wife, he is founder of MonkeyBrain Books, an independent imprint that has allowed Roberson to publish genre fiction and nonfiction genre
studies. The announcement of MonkeyBrain Comics then, falls neatly into an entrepreneurial pattern. Early in his career he, along with Bill Willingham
(creator of the DC/Vertigo series Fables), Matt Sturges (writer of Jack of Fables) and Mark Finn (author of Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E.
Howard) formed Clockwork Storybook, a writing group that evolved into a webzine and ended as an early attempt as Print on Demand enterprise. While
that effort did not succeed, MonkeyBrain Book allowed Roberson to take lessons learned and continue to innovate in the publishing world. His latest
action comes at a time when comics in particular and publishing in general face questions about the future. With a MonkeyBrain Comics panel at San
Diego Comic-Con this year, Roberson’s take on creators and their rights is once again front and center.
***
Can you define creator’s rights?
Well, part of the problem associated with discussions on “creator’s rights” is that it runs the risk of being a fairly nebulous concept, and different people
can have very different definitions. If we’re talking about someone creating something new, those rights are fairly well defined (in the United States, at
least) under existing copyright law. But then there’s often discussion about the rights of people who produce works under work-for-hire arrangements,
which can be far more subtle and nuanced. But even under work-for-hire situations, the people creating new work start with certain rights, and
surrender or abrogate those rights through contract and negotiation with the employer. They essentially sign away their rights in exchange for certain
concessions (usually a paycheck).
But there are also certain moral rights that aren’t necessarily delineated by existing US copyright law, which also fall within the umbrella topic of
“creator rights”.
To my way of thinking, a fairly concise overview of the rights of creators was drafted by Scott McCloud in 1988, with input from the attendees at a
creator’s summit organized by Dave Sim, Kevin Eastman, and Peter Laird, including Richard Pini, Larry Marder, Rick Vietch, and Steve Bisette.
How affected are you by the “Creator’s Bill of Rights” crafted in the 1990s?
I was just finishing high school and entering college in 1988 when the Creator’s Bill of Rights was drafted, and had already set my sights on building a
career as a writer of comics. Discovering the Creator’s Bill of Rights, in an issue of The Comics Journal if I’m not mistaken, I accepted it as gospel.
I think that one of the most useful applications of the Creator’s Bill of Rights is that it clearly indicates for creators what rights they have at the outset. If
they are entering into a publishing arrangement in which not all of those rights are granted to them by contract, then at the very least they can be
aware of what rights they are signing away.
It’s unfortunate, though, that the Bill of Rights has largely fallen by the wayside, and become a historical footnote that far too many young creators have
never encountered.
Why do you feel the general public seems largely unmotivated by the debates attached to creator’s rights in comics?
Not just the general public, but comics fans, and many comics creators themselves are uninterested in matters of creator’s rights, and in some cases
actively hostile to them. I think part of the reason is that, for many people, the idea of being paid to make up stories or create art is a kind of impossible
dream, and that simply by being employed to do creative work that creators have already won the lottery. I think many people resent the idea that
creator’s might expect more than they are already getting.
But there’s also, for many comic fans, the fact that they become deeply invested in these fictional characters and fictional worlds, and react with hostility
to any hint that someone might take action that would threaten the fans’ ability to enjoy more stories featuring those characters and worlds—even if the
person taking that action is the one who created those characters in the first place.
Is this connected to comics being “kids stuff?”
I don’t think so. In fact, I think you could find similar examples of public disinterest in issues of creator’s rights in other media that hasn’t traditionally
carried the “it’s just for kids” stigma. But typically it’s found in media that are collaborative to one degree or another—comics, film, television—and in
instances where a single person can be identified as the sole creator—novels, gallery art—there seems to be a clearer understanding on the part of the
public of what rights that sole creator should enjoy.
Is this a problem of definition? If you said intellectual property rights do you think people would be more engaged with the questions
related to comics?
Possibly? But then, so many people have a weak grasp on just what is meant by “intellectual property” (including many people who make their livings
producing creative works) that using a different term would just introduce another host of complications.
What needs to be done to create a discussion about creator’s standing in the broad society?
I wish I knew!
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