,
11 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
Jim Starlin, creator of Thanos, Gamora and Drax, stated he gets more royalties from one movie based on his DC work than all the films featuring his Marvel work.
In fact, just to show you how much a debt the MCU owes to Jim Starlin, he created the Infinity Stones. He also spearheaded the Infinity Gauntlet event (one of the most renowned crossovers in the history of comics) which is the basis for the movie's Infinity Saga.
The comics industry and its Work-For-Hire model was in almost a precursor to the modern hell of the gig economy.
Creators lost any and all rights to anything they created while under contract, and with that potentially millions in royalties from Marvel's billion dollar empire.
Creators lost any and all rights to anything they created while under contract, and with that potentially millions in royalties from Marvel's billion dollar empire.
It's taken fan outcry and backlash just to get Marvel to open their wallet for the estate of Jack Kirby, without whom almost none of the characters we love would exist.
Smaller creators have fallen through the cracks.
Smaller creators have fallen through the cracks.
If every single person who watched even one of the films featuring Rocket Raccoon sent his creator a dollar, it would be more money than Marvel ever paid him for creating it.
To some extend this was (and in some cases still is) an industry-wide problem, but mostly concentrated on Marvel and DC.
Image Comics spawned from this practice; it was to make a publisher for creator-owned works so they kept all their rights.
Image Comics spawned from this practice; it was to make a publisher for creator-owned works so they kept all their rights.
An addendum on this thread: Jim Starlin has a small, single-line cameo in #Endgame, That was a choice made by Marvel Studios, and it's one that will see him compensated for his work to some degree.
Marvel Entertainment (comics) is for all intents a separate company.
Marvel Entertainment (comics) is for all intents a separate company.
So while the people who made the comics were content to screw over Starlin and every other creator on their roster for decades, Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios aren't them and seem to be doing a *little* to play fair.
(PS the reason they're two companies is that longtime Marvel Entertainment owner Ike Perlmutter is so much of a fuckweasel that Disney split the company, gave Marvel Studios to Feige and left Perlmutter to stew in his own feculence.)
Also this.
As for Bill Mantlo, creator of Rocket Raccoon ... hey @jamesgunn?
Maybe try to do him a solid come Guardians 3, eh?
Maybe try to do him a solid come Guardians 3, eh?
