Writer and artist Bill Willingham shocked the industry earlier this month when he announced that he had placed his celebrated series Fables into the public domain rather than continue doing business with DC Comics. It’s a bold move indeed, but it should come as little surprise from a company with a long history of alienating some of its biggest names.
We recently took a look back at how Marvel has screwed over its artists in the past, so now it’s time to take a look at their competition. As detailed in a series of posts on his personal blog, Fables creator Bill Willingham claims to have been left with little recourse when it came to his business dealings with DC. While he maintained ownership of the series and its characters, DC held publishing rights. And this was an arrangement Willingham could no longer stand by.
“At one time, the Fables properties were in good hands, and now, by virtue of attrition and employee replacement, the Fables properties have fallen into bad hands. Since I can’t afford to sue DC, to force them to live up to the letter and the spirit of our longtime agreements … I’ve decided to take a different approach, and fight them in a different arena, inspired by the principles of asymmetric warfare,” Willingham writes. “The one thing in our contract the DC lawyers can’t contest, or reinterpret to their own benefit, is that I am the sole owner of the intellectual property. I can sell it or give it away to whomever I want. I chose to give it away to everyone.”
DC Comics, of course, contested Willingham’s statement that Fables now belongs to everyone, telling CBR:
“The Fables comic books and graphic novels published by DC, and the storylines, characters, and elements therein, are owned by DC and protected under the copyright laws of the United States and throughout the world in accordance with applicable law and are not in the public domain. DC reserves all rights and will take such action as DC deems necessary or appropriate to protect its intellectual property rights.”
So basically the first person who attempts to cash in on their own Fables product will face legal challenge from the publisher. But what led to Willingham’s drastic step?
Among a laundry list of allegations, Willingham claims that DC Comics repeatedly failed to acquire his approval in decisions related to the publication of various Fables products. He also claims that DC failed to provide him with his royalties on numerous occasions, such as the Fables video game adaptation from Telltale Games.
Willingham’s announcement came just days after Watchmen creator Alan Moore spoke with the Telegraph about his healthy business relationship with Bloomsbury, saying the publisher “respect my decisions and opinions. And I own my own work. It doesn’t sound like a lot if you’re used to traditional grown-up publishing, but it means an awful lot if you’re used to the comic books industry.”
Moore has long been outspoken about his disdain for former publisher DC Comics and their endless adaptations of his works. When Moore inked his deal with DC over the Watchmen character he co-created with artist Dave Gibbons, the arrangement included the clause that if DC didn’t touch those characters for one year, full rights would revert right back to the creators. No one could have expected the breakthrough success of Watchmen and the seismic shift in the comic book industry that relies on reprinted collections of popular runs.
Because of this perceived sleight, Moore vowed to never work with DC again. He requested his name be removed from all film adaptations. And as he recently revealed to the Telegraph, he no longer even wants the royalties. Instead Moore claims that he asked DC to “send all of the money from any future TV series or films to Black Lives Matter.”
But that just covers a handful of DC properties. What about DC’s most iconic characters that are recognized the world over? Yeah, things don’t really improve.
While creator credit for Batman has been such a topic of investigation that it resulted in a rather compelling documentary, that was less of an issue of corporate strong-arming and more about Batman co-creator Bob Kane being a total asshole. Let’s instead look at DC’s quintessential superhero.
Superman co-creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster sued the publisher in 1947 over the rights of both Superman and Superboy. While the ownership of Superman was a bit more secure, the co-creators were able to successfully contest custody of Superboy.
As part of their contract with Siegel and Shuster, DC (known under various legal names throughout its history) had the right to first refusal to any of their creations. The publisher first passed on Superboy when the character was first pitched. Siegel was stationed in a military base during World War II when he learned that DC Comics had introduced Superboy in the comics.
Since DC had not provided prior notice that they’d begin publishing Superboy stories, a judge ruled that Siegel and Shuster owned sole rights to the characters and were owed full royalties. The creators and DC ultimately settled out of court. But these battles were long from over.
After learning that Superman was set for a big-screen adaptation, Siegel penned a press release in 1975, publicly stating that he and Shuster had been “stabbed in the back” by the folks at Warner. Siegel wrote, “Joe is partially blind. My health is not good. We are both 61 years old. Most of our lives, during Superman’s great success, has been spent in want.”
Siegel also claimed that he and Shuster had received nothing from the multimillion-dollar deal to adapt their work to the big screen. Ultimately, DC and Warner Bros. would agree to provide an annual stipend to the creators and their heirs — largely based on the grounds that they no longer contest the rights to Supes.
Shuster died in 1992. Siegel died in 1996. But their heirs would continue the legal war over royalties and copyright stakes for years. With all this in mind, it’s easy to see why a comic creator, such as Willingham and Moore, would choose to simply give it all away.
