My new Facebook page regarding MarvelDisney and reprints

[John Pannozzi]

Last week, I started a Facebook page entitled DisneyMarvel, always pay royalties on reprinted material. The catalyst was the Jack Kirby Estate's loss against Marvel in the courts, but it should should be noted that both Marvel and Disney have a history of treating comic creators poorly in terms of royalties (especially when compared to their chief rival: DC/Warners), as illustrated in this thread:

I've heard this directly from quite a few number of pros.

For one, it's a well-known fact that Marvel doesn't pay any royalties to creator estates. All those classic Kirby reprints (like the recent Kirby CA Omnibus) -- not a dime goes to the Kirby estate. DC, on the other hand, pays royalties in perpetuity. Even when their contract predated royalty agreements, I know that DC will often provide a royalty (even a token sum) to creator estates.

For living creators, Marvel's not consistent. Some have said that Marvel's royalties only extend for a few years. But you can find plenty of pros who were never paid for reprints. A small sampling:

Royalties. Yes, they are the name of the game for any freelancer. I’m still receiving (on a quarterly basis) payments for work I did for DC (Sandman, Books of Magic, etc.) as far back as 20 years ago. On the Marvel side of the coin they stopped paying any royalties on my Spider-Man graphic novel (Spirits of the Earth) about 3/4s of the way through the print run. Earlier, when I confronted them on their selling publishing rights to LOTS of my creator owned & © pages of my art overseas (from Epic Illustrated), with actual copies in hand, they said, and I quote, “We gave it away.” I wonder which company I might want to work for if I were to do another GN?

Essential Punisher #3 just came out and it reprints all five of the Punisher stories that I drew. Yeah, yeah--I didn't receive a dime for it and I wasn't even sent a single copy of the book but it's out there if you feel like supporting a huge, soulless, money-grubbing machine which is out to crush all competition, steal ideas and end life as we know it. Feed the machine. See if I care.

Marvel Comics is soliciting a Captain America: Red, White and Blue trade paperback for this September. I guess they're putting out whatever Cap stuff they can while some people give a crap about him being dead or whatever the hell's going on, because this is a book they practically pretended didn't exist when it came out in hardcover. Anyway, the two-page Milk and Cheese-style Red Skull and Baron Zemo strip I did is in this book, along with work by Bruce Timm, Mark Waid, Paul Dini, Paul Pope, Peter Kuper, and others. It also reprints Kirby, Frank Miller and Steranko stories. $20, iirc. Your call, Marvel doesn't pay royalties on this sort of stuff from what I understand, so no skin off my grape either way.

One of the reasons why DC has been so slow to reprint anything beyond the 70s (and before reprints became more prevalent) versus Marvel is that their prior royalty agreements would make many of the projects financially unfeasible unless new contracts were drawn up.

Digital-wise, Marvel doesn't fare much better. Remember when DC announced that they were the first company to offer digital royalties? Marvel threw a fit and said they paid royalties. . . until people started digging and realized 1) Marvel's letter only announced a plan was in place and 2) they hadn't paid any creators yet (even though the DCU program had been running for several years).

“Marvel has reproduced works in various electronic formats for years, and I can assure you that my husband hasn’t seen a *******ed dime for any such use of Giant-sized X-men #1 or anything else he ever created for Marvel. Meanwhile, royalties from DC for a relatively minor character got us through the worst of our past 15 months of hell. Until Marvel takes the steps that DC has to compensate the creators who made the company great, all it is doing is blowing smoke. Anyone who thinks Marvel is the better place to work is just deluding themselves.”

A big difference between the digital plans (and perhaps with print as well although I'm not certain) is that Marvel only pays incentives (when a certain sales threshold is reached) whereas DC pays royalties (for any sales, no matter how small).

Neither company's perfect. Perhaps things have changed recently (I'm sure Jeph would know more than me). If so, I hope I'm wrong and all creators are getting paid.

Except it's really nothing new. This is a topic that gets revisited every so often. Most recently, people were wondering if Marvel was going to offer royalty reprints for the former Boom! Pixar titles.

When you consider current pricing for many books, it's not a surprise that royalties/incentives aren't paid out. Consider Secret Wars 2 Omnibus with a MSRP of $100. But Marvel's discount to retailers is around 40-50% depending on account. So $50's left. Subtract Diamond's cut and printing costs. Now consider ALL the writers and artists that were involved in that huge Omnibus. Perhaps the royalty (if Marvel does in fact pay royalties versus incentives) was so small that it was basically nothing to many of the people involved. Now apply the same situation to Marvel's Essentials!

As for foreign reprints, Marvel basically screwed themselves (and the pro community) during the entire Heroes World/bankruptcy debacle when they gave Panini the European/Latin American license. That said, they renewed the agreement in 2006 but nothing changed so it doesn't sound like they really fought for creator royalties then either. I'm not sure if the same agreement applies to licensees in other regions of the world. I know Jim Steranko still refuses to sign certain English-language (but still considered foreign) editions of Strange Tales (reprinting his Nick Fury stories) because of this.

The Pixar situation is interesting because it brings up the topic of licensed comics. Disney owns Pixar and Marvel. But from Marvel's viewpoint, the comic is a license. So like most licensed comics, they're not necessarily responsible for paying the original creators (although it's still unclear what they're planning on doing). The same thing happened with DC's reprinting of Marvel's Doc Savage stories; they didn't pay any of the original writers/artists still alive. What about all the other licensed reprints by IDW, Dark Horse, Fantagraphics and other companies? Unless the contracts are negotiated directly with the creators and/or their estates, are any of the original writers/artists getting royalties? It makes you wonder: the reprint boom is great for us readers but are the creators -- many of whom are still alive and might be in financial straits (how many times have we heard about some former creator needing $ for living/health care costs?) -- reaping any benefits?

Are we partially to blame? After all, when Marvel gradually increased their trade prices (and shrunk page count in some instances), many complained. When a $125 book is solicited, grumbles about overpricing is heard. But how many would be willing to pay higher prices for books if it meant fair & equitable royalties to creators? Not being in the publishing field, I don't know what the profit margins are. Is DC/Marvel (or any of the other publishers) raking in the bucks with reprints? Or are they barely recouping their costs (especially given some of the low order #s)?

I posted this earlier in a DC thread, but it's pertinent here as well:

http://www.bleedingcool.c...12-follow-the-wolverine/

"all the Marvel and DC icons are published worldwide – there’s a lucrative reprint market where mainstream US comics are translated, which in many countries makes the USA’s own industry look paltry. Syndicated publishers sell more Spanish language Batman comics than DC sells English language ones! Marvel and DC comics sell in most countries that have comics industries and worldwide sales/royalties probably amount to a substantial percentage of their operating costs."

Marvel's likely making plenty of money off their foreign reprints, probably more than ever, given the reach of the Marvel films.
Disney's policy regarding its comics has always been that once they're printed, they can be reprinted anywhere without having to pay the creators any royalties. It wouldn't surprise me if Marvel is doing something similar.

As problematic as the foreign royalties issue is, at least that's something that current Marvel creators know up front, anyway.

What's worse is that creators are reporting receiving no royalties or comp copies, which is a total slap in the face.
Given the number of creators that have worked for Marvel, keeping the accounting straight must be maddening. Regardless, that's no excuse to treat those who built the House of Ideas like they're worthless. If Marvel thinks it can bury its head in the sand and hope it goes away, it's never going to happen. Unless Marvel addresses this head-on and publicly, this could create an absolute ton of bad publicity. Look at how DC will be forever remembered for its treatment of Siegel & Shuster.

I wonder if that's why Marvel has waited so long to reprint its '40s & '50s material: a lot of it could be in the public domain at this point (although the copyright notice would never say this), so Marvel can theoretically reprint this stuff without paying anyone a penny...

(And if any mods are reading, should all this be spun off into a separate thread?)

- Mike Hansen

Here's a nugget from a year ago:

http://www.comicsbeat.com...al-fall-out-royalty-war/

"[Marvel's] existing royalty program runs for a few years, as opposed to DC’s which runs in perpetuity. Also, and more famously, Marvel pays NO royalties on foreign sales, despite the huge success of Marvel properties around the world.

DC does. And that’s a very significant amount of income for creators."

Only "a few years"? Why would Marvel screw creators out of long-term income and a better retirement? Why would anyone in 2011 work for Marvel at all?

- Mike Hansen

They do not have to legally pay any royalties for any of the stuff that is the foundation of the Marvek universe. There is no contract and they don't voluntarily do it

This keeps costs down i would guess and gives Marvel more money.

This is why DC couldn't do those DVD-roms Marvel did. They do pay royalties on that stuff but it would have been financially impossible to make the product

Personally, I don't care.

Now, if Marvel is supposed to pay royalties on newer stuff-80s, 90s, what not, and isn't, then they should be.

I know John Byrne has mentioned offhand many times getting a small check for this or that that was being reprinted from long ago.

But no, Lee, Kirby, Ditko, etc are not entitled to royalties from the MM program or anything else by law or contract from what i understand.

I can't speak for the others, but Dark Horse always paid its creators a fair rate when I worked there. I was paid well on the few books I wrote.

The idea that any reader feels entitled to get any Marvel product without some of their money going to the creators is ridiculous. The characters are empty and worthless without the creators.

- Mike Hansen

Plus, creators do much better now, but that really hurts the price point of the comics, choking the industry IMO. and the work seemed more creative when they were a little hungrier. Same with baseball players

Blaming the creators for the price of comics is a straight-out fallacy, one that Marvel's perpetuated to justify its $3.99 titles. (I know plenty of Image creators that are doing great with $2.99 titles.) If the publisher's business model can't treat the creators fairly, it's the publisher and its business model that's the problem, not the creators that do the hardest and most important work of anyone in the chain. Are you saying it should be harder to feed my family?

I think Chris Rock illustrated the point best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m37JkkGjAY
(apologies for NSFW language)

The artists might be more rich these days. But the company that signs their checks is wealthy.

- Mike Hansen

They do not have to legally pay any royalties for any of the stuff that is the foundation of the Marvek universe. There is no contract and they don't voluntarily do it

True, they're not legally bound to pay for royalties when it comes to the older work. Contracts back then didn't take into account the growth of reprints let alone digital reproduction. Marvel doesn't have to do it. But neither does DC and they still make an effort.

Even for floppies, Marvel was always cheap. Back in the early 2000s, DC used to offer a 2% royalty per creator if a title hit a certain sales threshold. Marvel offered 2% for the ENTIRE team.

When you think about it, though, Marvel's probably not even the worst culprit. Archie doesn't offer royalties at all for reprints, paper or digital. Neither does Disney. I'm not sure if Boom! is following this as a licensee (did Don Rosa get any royalties for his Life & Times HCs or the upcoming Archives?). Even worse, Disney doesn't return any original art. When Gemstone was publishing Disney comics under license, Disney still mandated that they keep everything. It's one of the reasons Don Rosa stopped working for them and went to Egmont. I'm not sure if this is still in effect.

Sad to say, the comic industry doesn't have a good track record when it comes to fair treatment.

I have a much better idea. Let all the creators leave comics and we can all read comics written and drawn by the CEOs of Marvel and DC. That way those people who are content with creators getting paid less than they're worth can be happy reading the real crap that would result.

Allen Smith

It's funny 'cause it's true!

I'm sure that even DC can make more collections financially feasible if they're willing to be flexible and transparent with the affected parties. Hell, Lorne Michaels managed to renegotiate with all of the rights-holders on Saturday Night Live seasons 1-5. People understand that a little of something is better than a lot of nothing.

Now, I wonder what remains to be done about MARVELMAN... At least we know on that book that the right people will get paid... eventually...

- Mike Hansen

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