Not sure what to think of this. I’m a big fan of the current continuity and think Brian Ruckley doing some pretty interesting stuff with the IP.
But…..I’d also be incredibly excited to see what a fresh perspective would bring to these characters and this world.

 

I know this bump is out of nowhere, but I saw a news article that is more than tangentially related to skybound getting these licenses.

‘Invincible’ Animated Series Sparks Profits Suit Against Robert Kirkman – The Hollywood Reporter

As the article mentions, this is not the first time Kirkman has been sued over the same kind of shit, either.

Why is this important, beyond a general ethical standpoint? Because we all know the history of how IDW came to be in the first place, and thus why artists with a history of working on transformers comics in the last two decades would likely be very wary of working with someone like Kirkman:

 

Oh Primus, give us strength.

I mean, I thought if Skybound netted Transformers and G.I. Joe comics, Kirkman wouldn’t be working on them personally, but this still sucks to read.

FFS man, why is it so hard for some people to just follow up on deals like this?  

Pay the man, Kirkman! It’s literally not rocket science.  

 

Unfortunately, stuff like this is likely going to be true no matter where it ends up. Unfair treatment of creators and workers is a plague throughout the comic industry.

 

How the hell would 'single creator' increase the commercial viability? Half the people watching Invincible already know exactly what it is, and the other half don't give a shit who created it.

 

He probably should have had his lawyers review the "certificate of authorship" prior to signing it

 

Agreed. This is exactly what lawyers are for. Most of us couldn't review a contract in the same way that a lawyer can. now this still doesn't make what Kirkman may have done right but unfortunately legally they might be past that now. And as others have said this is just too familiar a story of the Comics industry.

 

Comics colorists, a profession that is well known for having lawyers on retainer.

Obviously, you guys aren't wrong. One of the reasons that comics as an industry has a history and reputation for exploitation is that it's such a small industry with small working groups, and in many cases independent of major corporate structures, so people are trusting that their working partners share their interests. In many cases, they just don't.

I don't remember if it's a quote from Neil Gaiman, who challenged McFarlane in court over decades, but the line went something like, "the only 'creator rights' that Image executives care about is their own individually," and Kirkman would certainly seem to fit that bill based on his history with partners on Walking Dead, Invincible, and other projects.

As for what this means for Skybound's Transformers, assuming they win the license, probably nothing. Expect them to operate under a traditional work-for-hire model where the talent will explicitly get no ownership rights and limited financial entitlement outside the initial rate. There won't be disputes like these because the creators are exploited from the outset.

 

Right, which is the case with every company that makes Transformers comics. When artists and writers come up with new characters it’s Hasbro who owns them.

 

Some people want TF going back to Marvel, but the big two are some of the worst about this stuff.

 

Like Kirkman? Or McFarlane? It’s not just the Big Two.

 

Even putting aside creator rights, TF would be an insanely low priority for either of the big two. I don't see why anyone would want the license going there.

 

I didn't say either of them were good, but if not for Marvel and DC perpetuating this stuff it wouldn't be remotely as accepted or common.

I think it's purely for nostalgia's sake, I can't really think of any other reason since the creative team is way more important than the company.

 

You're certainly right from an historical perspective, but the modern reality is a little more complex when you factor in financial participation in media rights. DC in particular has long offered payments to creators when their new characters get adapted into other media. It's a pittance, and the calculations have fluctuated over the years, but it is actual money. Marvel does this too, but generally pays less. I don't know how good other WFH companies are, and in licensed works like those from Boom and IDW that aren't owned by the publisher, I assume the creators receive no compensation at all. I don't imagine Roberts got a check when Siege Rung was released, for example, or when Tarn appeared in Cyberverse.

This THR piece from last year is a good overview of the history and recent events.
Marvel, DC Offer ‘Shut Up Money’ As Comic Creators Go Public – The Hollywood Reporter

As that feature and creators themselves have explained, one of the ways that talent can convert WFH work into continued success is by breaking out on someone else's IP, building a dedicated fanbase, and then creating their own books for Image or other publishers where they own the IP. Then if they make media deals, they can get a huge payday. So even if WFH is exploitative, it may still be a sensible play for talent, especially writers, who can convert that into better gigs down the line.

 

You guys keep bumping it getting my hopes that actual news has happened.  

 

Isn't this how any job works though? If you're an accountant, a welder, a mechanic, whatever, you start by working for somebody else, and once you make a name for yourself or build a client base, you might be able to start your own company where you take all the profits.

Same goes for other creative fields outside of comics. You start by being hired by others, if you can make a name for yourself, maybe you can start producing your own stuff.

I guess I've never understood why there's an expectation of a different employee/employer relationship in comics. If I have a great idea at work that leads to the company making more money, I don't get a share of those profits, at best maybe a small bonus. That's how most jobs work.

 

Hope the new license holders continue the SG story, and Hasbro includes the comics with the next wave of SG toys

 

I mean, kind of? I don't want to go into a whole critique of capitalism, but yes, to an extent all labor is sold to those in power who reap the rewards. But there are two major considerations here, where in some ways the entertainment industry isn't like other industries, and in some ways the comics industry isn't like other entertainment industries. In book publishing, for example, the author retains the rights to the work. When they create a story and characters, they generally just grant the publisher the right to publish what they've written. They don't give away anything else. When J.K. Rowling sold her Harry Potter books to Scholastic, they just got to make the books. When studios wanted to make movies, they came to her and bought those rights, which were worth a fortune. In a WFH model, those rights would have belonged to the publisher from the get-go.

Because comics and the big two in particular have been continually expanding their franchises for close to a century right now, it's easy to think of those worlds and characters as their property. But at every step of the way, individuals have been creating the characters and narratives that have fueled that expansion, including into other more lucrative media. If comics publishing worked like book publishing, these creators would be much better compensated, as you see in the case of runaway success for major film franchises based on books.

Of course, the shared universes offer opportunities that creators outside of those companies don't have, and in the modern era those WFH standards are more broadly consistent and understood by creators than in the past. But that's far from making the model fair.

 

I agree that there can be some arguments around fairness, but I guess the thing about existing franchises with built in world-building contributes to what I'm trying to say.

If a writer does something new and interesting with an existing character with 40 years of history, it's easy to say that the idea was built on that history, and without that the writer may not have had the same opportunity.

Likewise, a brand new character introduced within an existing shared world might find success in large part due to being part of that shared world. Often they are born out of existing narratives and legacy that does not exist outside those boundaries, and the new character may not bear the weight and significance if created as an original character.

I don't know, some of the things I see argued as deserving more writer credit feel like they are successful because of the weight of the franchise rather than the specific contribution of the writer. If you take something like Civil War or Winter Soldier, those things are largely successful stories that bear significance due to the legacy of the characters. Without that, the writers wouldn't have written those stories to begin with, or they would be relatively meaningless stories without the same significance.

 

It's absolutely true that the Winter Soldier was so effective in part because he's an update of Bucky. But he also wasn't just Bucky, and Brubaker's story allowed Marvel Studios to build that character's arc into the Captain America film trilogy and other movies that have made literally billions of dollars. If Brubaker had broken that concept in discussions for the film, he could have received a story credit and compensation. Because he did it in a comic book published earlier, he got nothing from the movies. It's certainly debatable how much credit and reward comic creators should receive in this way, but even just using basic practices common in other entertainment media, it should definitely be more.