Bendis VS Kirkman

The Bendis VS Kirkman panel occurred at the Baltimore Comic Con yesterday and CBR has a full write up of the event. I think both make good points. The Big Two have the economic stability to offer living wages for creators, but own your work. I mean, I heard an interview with Neal Adams that he was presented with a check for 100,000 dollars since Batman Begins was influenced by a lot of his work, but look at how much money those films have made. The Dark Knight is the second largest grossing film in American history. That's money that the many artists and writers who have made Batman what it is today may never see. The flip side is that with creator owned content, you can get a piece of the pie, not only on the individual sales from comics, but the related material as well. The merchandising aspect of comics, as I understand it, makes up more money than the actual comic sales for Marvel and DC. The problem being you have to have something that can be marketed, and many artists and writers just aren't able to make it in the creator owned world.

I think of an artist like Prince, who again as I understand it, began to sell his records on the internet and through show sales himself, and was making more money than by going through a record company, even with the record company selling more individual records. But would Prince have been able to if not for his fame in the music industry prior to doing this. If I ever got into actually writing comics, I would think that the creator owned route would be the best for me. The thing that has always concerned me with The Big Two is the ideas from the bosses upstairs that you have to incorporate into your writing. I wonder how many writers and artists now cringe when they hear of the next big crossover event and know that their stories will have to change to meet that mandate. But when you work for the man, you got to play by his rules. I just picture that as being a very frustrating wrinkle in writing solid stories. One hopes that what comes from this is better comics for all of us, whether from The Big Two or from creator owned comics.