Prepare To Be Adapted: Raiders Of The Creators Rights

ACT I

Creator ownership can be a tricky beast. In some media, the ownership of the intellectual property is pretty clear.

Books? The standard is for the author to own the characters. Film and television? There are exceptions from time to time, but usually those who fund it own it. That is why it can be so hard to continue a canceled show. J. Michael Straczynski has been noted saying that he would love to have "Crusade" continue in some fashion, but the rights have been tied up.

But there is a four-color creative medium that isn't so clear: comic books.

In the past, writers had to be creative mercenaries with the only choice as writing work for hire. In the '70s that standard started to change as the creator-owned comic books trend started up. Now creator-owned comics is pretty much a given for any book that isn't from the Big Two (Marvel and DC) or a licensed property ("Star Wars," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," etc). Even the Big Two have dabbled in the creator-owned rights waters.

Last month there was promising comic book sales news announced at New York Comic-Con. Graphic novel sales in the United States and Canada made $375 million in 2007, which is an increase of 12 percent over the previous year. Even better, single-issue sales hit $330 million last year, which is nearly a 10 percent jump from 2006. These numbers are great news.

No, this isn't the "golden age" of comics, but it is an improvement over previous years. Not bad considering competition like DVDs and video games.

Combine the increase in sales with the increase in movies/TV properties based on comic books, and this is a great time to be a comic book creator. Too bad for those older creators who rarely see a cut in the profits, much less be credited as the creator of the character. But these creators aren't going to give up without a fight.

There have been a number of legal battles in the last couple of decades. In 2002, McFarlane had a highly publicized legal battle with Neil Gaiman. Back in 1993, Gaiman was contracted to write "Spawn" No. 9 and introduced a number of characters in the book: Cogliostro, Angela, and Medieval Spawn. Originally McFarlane agreed that Gaiman was a co-creator and paid him royalties, but later changed his mind revoking those rights. Things came to head in a lawsuit not just over Gaiman's rights over those characters, but also another character that McFarlane believed he owned after buying out Eclipse Comics. In the end Gaiman was granted 50 percent ownership of those Spawn characters with the rights on the other character – Miracleman – still in legal limbo.

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