In today’s day in age, creator owned comics are just as big as the heroes that have been around for decades. The creators behind these books are brilliant women and men who deserve all the credit in the world, and thankfully they are getting it.
In the past, hot shot writers or artists would take credit for other people’s work. The publishers wouldn’t give two cents to the creators when it came to merchandise or other versions of their characters. It wasn’t until 1976 that the creators of Superman actually got credit on anything.
Recently Bill Finger received credit for creating Batman. For the longest time Bob Kane was given credit for the most important parts of Batman, when actually Bill Finger is the reason the caped crusader is the hero we all love today.
Most comic fans know the faces, names, and life stories of all of their favorite creators. These true icons are finally in the spotlight. With podcasts, books, YouTube, and many other media outlets, the fans can get to know these people. They learn that the people behind the beloved characters are just huge fans themselves, which is inspiring. More than ever, credit is being given to the people who really deserve it. however, it’s still not enough.
Others are still getting left in the dust.
Recently Chip Zdarsky won a Harvey Award for Humor on Sex Criminals, but he declined the award because he was just the artist and he believed that the real winner was Matt Fraction, the writer. The big thing about this news is that he mentioned how everyone on the book really deserved this award and that these awards should be more inclusive of the teams working on the books, not just one individual.
These instances are occurring more often. Eventually I believe everyone will be known for what they do in each comic book, but for right now, let’s keep fighting for the credit to go where credit belongs.
