# CBR Community  > Comics Should Be Good >  Charcter Ownership - Creators versus the Fans

## mrbrklyn

I hope this doesn't upset anyone, but I thought that Eve Ewing really had nothing to do with the point I was trying to make or the ideas I was trying to flush out, so maybe I will try this again and it will not meltdown into a broad discussion on race and politics in America.

It has been said and generally understood in Sports Radio that the fans take the sport more seriously that the players or the teams.  The players have their own concerns.  They want to get paid.  They are training.  Team owners trade players to pursue profits. But for fans, it is quite simple.  They attend games and root for their favorite players, and can get more upset over the strike out on a 3-2 curveball than a player can afford to.

Now, over generations, we have dozens of characters which seemingly have taken a life of their own.  They are cultural icons, such as Superman, Batman, Spider-man, and Wolverine, etc.  

It can be argued that fans are better keepers of their characters place in literature than even the creators of these works.  Clearly we have had cases which editors and writers have seemingly done damage to characters which in the end alienate fans, even destroying the market value os these characters.  These writers enter into agreement to work on titles, and they often have little background on the characters, and a mandate to pump out new material every month.  This is direct conflict with fandom which cherishes titles, and characters and expect a constant standard in the product and character.  

Who then is the better steward of the comic characters that are being created?  The writers and artists?  The editors and corporate?  Or the fans?

----------


## Carabas

> It has been said and generally understood in Sports Radio that the fans take the sport more seriously that the players or the teams. The players have their own concerns. They want to get paid. They are training. Team owners trade players to pursue profits. But for fans, it is quite simple. They attend games and root for their favorite players, and can get more upset over the strike out on a 3-2 curveball than a player can afford to.


Welp, let's replace the line-up and coaches of a major sports team with a bunch of fans, and see how well they do.




> Now, over generations, we have dozens of characters which seemingly have taken a life of their own. They are cultural icons, such as Superman, Batman, Spider-man, and Wolverine, etc.


But they haven't taken on a life of their own at all. Creators have given them life. Never has there been a fandom without a creator first having created the subject of the fandom.




> It can be argued that fans are better keepers of their characters place in literature than even the creators of these works.


It can't be argued very well. 




> Clearly we have had cases which editors and writers have seemingly done damage to characters which in the end alienate fans, even destroying the market value os these characters.


The issue here is corporate interests. When there has to be a new issue of Stupendous Man every month, every year, every decade, some stinkers are going to be made, regardless of whether it's creators or fans who are shepherding the property.

Of course, the properties you mention have not been shepherded by creators in decades. They're shepherded by corporations.

----------


## kjn

I'd start out by questioning the entire divide here. Historically, mythologies, legends, and tales have been created in a constant rotation where listeners/readers retell the stories, embellish them, and let them live on to in turn be retold and recrafted. Good or resonant stories live on, poor stories are forgotten.

The divide into canonical stories, or as the author as something distinct from the reader, is a rather modern innovation. (The year is 2018 AD. All storytelling is entirely controlled by the forces of copyright. Well, not entirely… One small indomitable fan group still holds out against the copyright forces. And life is not easy for the lawyers who garrison the fortified camps of Disney, Warner Brothers, Sony, and Fox…)

And even lone authors in full control of their legacy have often managed to hurt the way their stories and characters are percevied, without any help from corporations. Robert Jordan arguably lost control of his plot and writing, focusing far more on the minutiae of worldbuilding and crafting puzzles in the latter stages of _Wheel of Time_ (though here it might be fan contacts that helped put him on the wrong path). Heinlein and Asimov both made ill-advised returns to their old books and settings.

The problem here is that this is all a set of immense grey zones that now is made absolute due to the way publishing works in our times. But what might be the issue is probably the idea that fanon and canon are two different things. Rather, a canon is a fanon that has been set aside and made special by forces extrinsic to the creative endeavour.

----------


## mrbrklyn

> I'd start out by questioning the entire divide here. Historically, mythologies, legends, and tales have been created in a constant rotation where listeners/readers retell the stories, embellish them, and let them live on to in turn be retold and recrafted. Good or resonant stories live on, poor stories are forgotten.
> 
> The divide into canonical stories, or as the author as something distinct from the reader, is a rather modern innovation. (The year is 2018 AD. All storytelling is entirely controlled by the forces of copyright. Well, not entirelyÂ One small indomitable fan group still holds out against the copyright forces. And life is not easy for the lawyers who garrison the fortified camps of Disney, Warner Brothers, Sony, and FoxÂ)


I think you uncover a large aspect of this issue (and the idea of copyright altogether).  Once you release something to the public, you have agreed to share the mindshare of that creation with the audience.  This gets to the heart of the human condition.  We have a shared mind with aspects that are private.  All of our creations are dependent on a broader sociological context, and nobody is truly independent.  We are conduits for our social existence.  In the modern context, we roughly have three constituencies within the context of any fictional contrivance.  We have the editor who has to usher a work into a context that succeeds at the specific goals of the publishing organization, which includes economic assets and goals.  Then you have the storytellers themselves, who might also be the creators of the character, or just a steward.  The final group is obviously the fans or the audience. 

The interaction among these  groups was much easier, obviously, in ancient history or in hunting and gathering societies.  Any individual would come upon a work of mythology, and fix it according to there understanding of the story.  Stories themselves take a life of their own over generations, being told orally, one generation to the next.  The audience and the creator overlaps, and all own a product after it is created.  We don't really have that luxury in a modern society.  We have all but either standardized a piece to be immutable, or assigned the retelling and extension to a professional class.

This breaks down though. Editors can not care about the integrity of a work.  Owner/Creators are often their own worst enemy, because editors most often intervene on the behalf of the audience.  Unchecked, works just go off the rail.  Audiences, are hard to measure, and understanding the audience is a broad discussion of its own.  But clearly a work like Star Trek would just not exist today if ownership of the program hadn't been al but taken over by the fans.




> And even lone authors in full control of their legacy have often managed to hurt the way their stories and characters are percevied, without any help from corporations. Robert Jordan arguably lost control of his plot and writing, focusing far more on the minutiae of worldbuilding and crafting puzzles in the latter stages of _Wheel of Time_ (though here it might be fan contacts that helped put him on the wrong path). Heinlein and Asimov both made ill-advised returns to their old books and settings.
> 
> The problem here is that this is all a set of immense grey zones that now is made absolute due to the way publishing works in our times. But what might be the issue is probably the idea that fanon and canon are two different things. Rather, a canon is a fanon that has been set aside and made special by forces extrinsic to the creative endeavour.


Yes - and for my money, cannon has become a noose to storytelling.

----------


## kjn

There are two other factors that are huge here, and arguably more important than copyright.

The first is mass production and distribution. Ever since the printing press was invented, our methods for spreading stories have become more effective and cheaper. This means that great, effective, or popular storytellers can reach larger and larger audiences. For a long time, this was tied with greater and greater infrastructure needs to achieve that distribution. This was arguably the commercial basis for our modern copyright.

The second factor, and relatively modern, is the democratisation of distribution. That puts on back towards the pre-printing-press situation, where everyone could be a storyteller for a hundred people, but nowadays a person with a phone can reach millions over the entire world to with their stories.

I'd argue that this second factor pushes back the control that big commercial conglomerations can keep over "their" characters and worlds. It might not impact film and tv that much (due to the resources and effort to make even a single film), but the rise of fanfic and webcomics both challenge other areas of the entertainment industry from different directions.

----------


## the illustrious mr. kenway

I usually see the creator of the character/story as the actual owner unless they sold the rights etc. I don't buy the whole fans as owners concept because they tend to play a more passive/reactive role in the creative process than a real contributor.

----------


## mrbrklyn

> I usually see the creator of the character/story as the actual owner unless they sold the rights etc. I don't buy the whole fans as owners concept because they tend to play a more passive/reactive role in the creative process than a real contributor.


I don't believe so and historically this is not supported.  First of all, everything that was created is dirivitive of something else that was created.

The fans and the public are the owner of any creative endeavor unless there is a limited right that is given under copyright.  Creators never get anything out of it anyway.  You see that over and over that creators have no ability to comericalize anything and when they gain control, projects all but bomb.  Publishers always own the rights, as a practical matter, usually it is better that way because the creators, left to their own devises, destroy most works.  The number of truly successful owner published works is near zero.  If you want to run a title into the ground, let the artist and writier take over the books without editors or supervision.

Mostly though, fans, IMO, are the most important and most informed as to how to make a work function, and the history and creative substance of any work.  Without active fans, a title will just wither.

----------


## mrbrklyn

> There are two other factors that are huge here, and arguably more important than copyright.
> 
> The first is mass production and distribution. Ever since the printing press was invented, our methods for spreading stories have become more effective and cheaper. This means that great, effective, or popular storytellers can reach larger and larger audiences. For a long time, this was tied with greater and greater infrastructure needs to achieve that distribution. This was arguably the commercial basis for our modern copyright.


Copyright starts with the Queen Anne grants.  It was designed to control the flow of information and to protect the interest of those connected to the throne, or who paid the throne, by granting exclussive printing rights for the purpose of sale to specific parties.  Even by the late 17th century, printing was so cheap that flooding the market and reducing costs to material threatened the exclussive controls of protected printing houses.  To support the printing houses, the Queen gave exclussive printing rights.




> The second factor, and relatively modern, is the democratisation of distribution. That puts on back towards the pre-printing-press situation, where everyone could be a storyteller for a hundred people, but nowadays a person with a phone can reach millions over the entire world to with their stories.


It was like that before facebook and wikipedea.  The phone is designed to control access and the search engines today are all product placement.
The day of the free wheeling internet is all but dead.




> I'd argue that this second factor pushes back the control that big commercial conglomerations can keep over "their" characters and worlds. It might not impact film and tv that much (due to the resources and effort to make even a single film), but the rise of fanfic and webcomics both challenge other areas of the entertainment industry from different directions.


This is not the issue I was originally making in this thread, but fan created works were popular for decades.  Tijuana Bibles and the independent comics, Crumb et al... 

It is better now?  Not that I see.

~~reuvain

----------


## chongjasmine

I think character ownership belongs to the writers.
Character enjoyment, though, belong to the fans.

----------


## seaturkey

> The number of truly successful owner published works is near zero.  If you want to run a title into the ground, let the artist and writier take over the books without editors or supervision.


Oh, really? What about the Walking Dead and Invincible? I'm pretty sure Mr. Kirkman has 100% control and ownership of his creations and they're virtually house-hold names these days. So, it seems you're mistaken, my friend.

Creator owned properties are just better, because they aren't tied down by some editor, but only by the creator/writer's vision. I'd much rather see something made as intended over what some exec thinks.

----------


## TheRay

The real problem is that fans do not recognize the reason why certain things were made or written in the first place. Hence why the answer to this question is always going to be anybody but the fans.

----------


## MyriVerse

Eh. Fans? Never. I tend to favour corporate over creator.

----------


## Edjwald

This is what I don't quite get.  DC and Marvel both have a bajillion minor characters - I'm not talking about Superman and Iron Man- I mean generally lame pop up characters who come and go.  Anybody remember DC's Bloodline characters?  Do they trademark every single one of these characters?  Say you want to make a character called Whatever Man.  How do you know if it's been used or not?  Is there a list of trademarked names somewhere?  Is googling it sufficient?  Does anyone care?  Etc.

----------


## dancj

> This is what I don't quite get.  DC and Marvel both have a bajillion minor characters - I'm not talking about Superman and Iron Man- I mean generally lame pop up characters who come and go.  Anybody remember DC's Bloodline characters?  Do they trademark every single one of these characters?  Say you want to make a character called Whatever Man.  How do you know if it's been used or not?  Is there a list of trademarked names somewhere?  Is googling it sufficient?  Does anyone care?  Etc.


If you're just talking about the names of the characters, then trademarking is just about branding.  To keep a trademark active you have to use it in branding - which means if a character doesn't appear on the covers of comics (or other products), I think the name is available for anyone to use - and trademark

----------


## Edjwald

> If you're just talking about the names of the characters, then trademarking is just about branding.  To keep a trademark active you have to use it in branding - which means if a character doesn't appear on the covers of comics (or other products), I think the name is available for anyone to use - and trademark


That makes a lot more sense than assuming that people should be cognizant of every single minor character that has ever occurred in a comic book.

----------


## placeholder2

Creators by a landslide. Fans get disappointed because they get passed on from creative team to different creative team and lose their impact because the corporations want to milk the creative property. When a good creative team comes in, it springs back to life. Which can turn characters like Spider-Man and Superman to cultural icons. The bad is that the stakes could never be as high because they have to keep stories going no matter what and not even death is taken seriously anymore. I think it's better now since more creative teams especially ones with new property can create a beginning middle and end, a more fieshed out complete story. Imagine if Y the Last Man was still going on? I wouldn't even care anymore. Imagine if Spidey ended in 1970 and never came back? The story might have been more impactful, but, he probably wouldve became a relic of his time.

----------


## Ulysses

The characters in superhero comics are owned by the same people who own the characters of greek myth.

----------


## A Small Talent For War

Creators should certainly have ownership of the fiction they create -- though, it is a bit questionable how far that should be extended. With Superman, rival comics heroes like Captain Marvel (SHAZAM!) and Wonder Man faced lawsuits because they used the basic idea of Superman. However, was the idea of a hero with super-strength something that the creators of Superman owned? What about Hercules? Or the novels GLADIATOR (Wylie) or THE NTH MAN (Flint) that predated Superman? Characters should be owned, but general ideas...? 

However, honestly, for the most popular pieces of fiction in our contemporary world, most of them are not entirely owned by the creators. Certainly, Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Star Wars and Star Trek no longer belong to their creators (most of whom are dead) nor to the creators producing the material today. Instead, to get into a little Marxist critique, they are primarily owned by those who also own the means of their production - the movie studios, media and publishing corporations. The copyright is an economic asset protected (and increasingly extended) for its value to people who do not contribute anything creatively to it.

Added on to this, though, is a deeper philosophical and cultural question of how intellectual property affects us socially. If you think about it, what is the intellectual property that these media giants own? It's kind of a piece of your imagination. In the imaginations of the fans or even casual viewers of this material are where these stories and characters exist. They aren't isolated to the media we consume - that's just the delivery method - nor do they only exist in the minds of the actual creative people writing the stories, drawing or filming them. They live in our imaginations - we bring them to life. They have value because we use them to entertain ourselves. They are prepackaged daydreams with increasingly complex, developed and interactive worlds to keep us distracted and virtually living inside them. So a large part of ourselves, what we think, dream, talk about and obsess over is actually a product owned by and making money for someone who likely has added little if any creativity to it.

So, we're basically paying to have our own minds colonized by these products and culturally that started at a very young age.

----------


## TheRay

> Welp, let's replace the line-up and coaches of a major sports team with a bunch of fans, and see how well they do.


I think this analogy fits the theme of more than one answer in this thread. While many fans are very knowledgeable they often can be blinded by emotion in situations that require great foresight. Coaches and the line-up have practice the rigid discipline and many other factors that go into the final product or the performance.

----------


## mburns

If someone created a character than the character belongs to the creator as far as I'm concerned.  I don't care if the character created may be derivative of another.  When it comes to most comic creators who just work on a pre-existing character that is created by someone else it's a toss up between them and the fans depending on how good or bad the creator is.

----------


## A Small Talent For War

> I think this analogy fits the theme of more than one answer in this thread. While many fans are very knowledgeable they often can be blinded by emotion in situations that require great foresight. Coaches and the line-up have practice the rigid discipline and many other factors that go into the final product or the performance.


The only elements is that obviously there are more sports fans who become coaches and players in professional sports than in comics. There are plenty of fans in comics professions but it's actually not that often professionals had been fans of the comics they write and that is a good thing. Were Claremont and Byrne fans of the X-men when they took it over? Not really, but they made a book that in a lot of ways created comics fandom. A lot of time, no one really knows what comics are going to hit with readers, and most fans don't know what they really want until a book comes along that shows them "yeah, that's what I want." Who wanted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before it hit the shops?

However, fans certainly have more influence on the comics business than in any other medium. Even though there are a lot of young readers around the world still into comics, they aren't into Marvel or DC and have no real problem reading comics on screens instead of on the page. Also, it does seem like a lot of comics writers are not really fans of the characters or even fans of the medium itself. That this is a gig they can get instead of writing for Hollywood movies or television or writing a novel. 

Nevertheless, a lot of the best comics we've gotten and that have moved the industry forward were by teams who weren't necessarily fans of the characters or books they wrote and drew before they got on them. But I think the best creative teams are dedicated to the medium of comics, and there really shouldn't be any division or conflict between fans and the creators. No medium lasts long if it alienates anyone in its audience, but comics seems to depend on its audience pushing and talking about its books much more than any other form of entertainment.

----------


## captchuck

I put the creators first, meaning the original artist/writer teams. The corporation doesn't count. AT&T doesn't care about Superman or Batman (obviously).

----------


## Steel Inquisitor

> I put the creators first, meaning the original artist/writer teams. The corporation doesn't count. AT&T doesn't care about Superman or Batman (obviously).


It's not about caring, it's about ownership. Corporations have strong legal and official channels over characters when creators sell characters too.

----------


## mathew101281

> The characters in superhero comics are owned by the same people who own the characters of greek myth.


Actually, they have more in common with cereal mascots, and cartoon characters then mythic characters.

----------


## the illustrious mr. kenway

I don't think there is an objective choice to this question. All of the choices have their own biases and perspectives so each of them are valid to me. Even as a fan studying to being a writer, I don't think there is a real difference beyond a skillset. Doctor Who proves that even if the fans got to run the show, it would be divisive as anything else.

----------


## SteveGus

Fans literally are the ones who invest time and money in characters.  They have reasonable claims on their stories and their world.  Not to have every story be excellent - no, that isn't a reasonable reequest - but at least to have the stories respect their history, their lore, and their core canon.  If you think Captain America's patriotism is passé and want to turn him Nazi, you have no business mucking around with the character except something explicitly non-canon.  If you think invisible jets, kangas, and Paradise Island are camp or silly you should stay away from Wonder Woman.

----------


## scilover

it is actually based on everything, if they are creator but they do for others, they are not the owner to be exact. But if they do create for themselves, it is theirs. it doesn't matter whether some people care or not. 

the worst thing is some bunch of people claiming others as theirs. Arghh BAD:")

----------


## A Small Talent For War

> Actually, they have more in common with cereal mascots, and cartoon characters then mythic characters.


It would be funny to go back in time and discover that the Romans were eating Hercules Brand bread or buying Dionysus chardonnay.

----------


## phantom1592

> Oh, really? What about the Walking Dead and Invincible? I'm pretty sure Mr. Kirkman has 100% control and ownership of his creations and they're virtually house-hold names these days. So, it seems you're mistaken, my friend.
> 
> Creator owned properties are just better, because they aren't tied down by some editor, but only by the creator/writer's vision. I'd much rather see something made as intended over what some exec thinks.


Good example. Again, he said 'close to zero' and you named 2... so I'd say he's still right  :Wink:   But those properties are finished now. They were lucky to last about 15 years. Compared to the 80+ that Superman ran straight, that's a great argument AGAINST Creator owned properties. 






> Eh. Fans? Never. I tend to favour corporate over creator.


Actually me too. For the importance that creators naturally have in the product... They don't make it on their own. It wasn't Siegal and Schuster  or Bob Kane that made Superman and Batman household names. It was DC pushing the ever living HELL out of them. DC spends a LOT of money promoting, encouraging and advertising these character and make them household names. It's what separates say 'The Phantom' from 'Superman'.  I'm 43 now and i've never seen a Phantom comic in the stores even though they were supposed to be awesome and one of the first costumed heroes of all time... I've also never read more than 1 or 2 Siegal and Shuster Superman books. But I've read hundreds of Superman issues from silver age to now. Because the characters grew beyond the creator and have outlived most of them. The characters adapt and change far beyond the original creators visions into their own legends.  If the books had stopped when the creators left... I would have never seen any Superman, Batman, Spider-man... none of them. 

For example, Who gets credit for Deadpool? He's a household name and the idol of millions... but the fun loving fourth wall breaking psychopath has NOTHING to do with Liefields vision. That was Joe Kelly's vision. 

What about Blade? The whole Daywalker nonsense was created for the movie and NOTHING like marv Wolfman's character. Courts even dismissed his lawsuit because the characters were so differnet. However I think I may be the only person left alive who still preferred the goggle wearing human whose only power was 'immune to vampire bites'. If they stuck with that vision, Blade the half-vampire dhampire with all their powers would NOT have the following that he does now. he wouldn't exist. 

Who gets credit for that? It's easy to say that the writer should get all the moneys... but what about the 6 million characters that did NOT catch on? For every Green Goblin, there's a 'Big Wheel'. Comics are still a business and that business is the one with all the risks. 

Personally I think the entire industry of Comics has gone downhill since the wholel 'creator owned' concept of celebrity writers/artists took off in the 90's. Egos got bigger, quality has dropped. Prices have skyrocketed. readership has plummeted.

----------


## A Small Talent For War

That's not a bad argument. The essential benefit that conglomerated capitalist approach has is that it can attract talent and put more resources behind the production of the comics that an individual creator or independent creative team could not. Most of the elements of any profitable character that has maintained success over time from James Bond to Ghost Rider has been the combined contribution of many people and not the original creators. 

I do agree that too often the creator has been leveraged out of deserved compensation by the unfair advantages conglomerates have as far as getting published or getting access to the resources necessary to market the books.

----------


## phantom1592

> That's not a bad argument. The essential benefit that conglomerated capitalist approach has is that it can attract talent and put more resources behind the production of the comics that an individual creator or independent creative team could not. Most of the elements of any profitable character that has maintained success over time from James Bond to Ghost Rider has been the combined contribution of many people and not the original creators. 
> 
> I do agree that too often the creator has been leveraged out of deserved compensation by the unfair advantages conglomerates have as far as getting published or getting access to the resources necessary to market the books.


Ghost Rider is another great example. Friedriech was off the book at issue 4. By issue 20 there were three more writer changes. There were so many weird changes and directions that the Lore never REALLY got nailed down. Zarathos wasn't even given a name till #77. I especially like the years where 'his skin was translucent' and that's why you saw the skull. He also had big googly eyeballs at that time which is just weird to see... That was a character that was truly a product of many many talents. Frankly Howard Mackie should get most of the credit for Ghost Rider since everything about the Spirit of Vengenance, mystic Chains, and Penance stare were all his creation and SOMEHOW... Johnny Blaze usurped everything that made Danny Ketch's GR different and cool.   Basic Ghost Rider was all about shooting fire from his hands and burning people. So yeah, who made the modern GR so popular? Who gets the credit?

----------


## BoredEnthusiast

I think the content does and should belong to the creators, the ones who continue to tell the stories and put them out for the fans. The fans are well within their right to complain about bad stories (or good stories, if you just don't like it), and good business sense would be to listen to the fans' concerns, but the fans don't own it. They shouldn't own it, that's on the creators. 

And yes, I agree, creators can (and have) botched characters terribly. But, if they don't have the freedom to create these stories the way they do, they also can't implement character growth. We want to see our favorite characters grow and improve, and that only happens when you can get a couple of creators working on a project vs. the often conflicting opinions of the fans.

----------

