Accident Man 2

[CalHab]

This just reminds me of everyone's favourite Tharg, Alan McKenzie, and his claim to have single-handedly designed and created Luke Kirby. John Ridgway was justifiably miffed about that.

I'm sure Pat Mills would be delighted with that comparison.

[pauljholden]

Great. Will Martin Emond be getting his rightful credit on this one, or will Accident Man again uniquely be a comic character created by two writers without the involvement of a comic artist?

But what precisely was Emond's contribution (as a creator)?  If it was purely the visual appearance then it must be noted that the characters in the movie look significantly different to those in Toxic!, which would certainly explain the apparent snub.

Well, quite apart from the point that that's irrelevant; as a co-creator you should get a credit, broadly speaking very few writers don't take on board the strength of their artists [exceptions being when the writers don't know who those artists are], and Mills- in the past -has very vocally made a point about always writing to the artists strength, in other words, without Edmond's contribution on the visuals, Accident Man would be entirely different (how could it not be, look at Edmond's visual, they're so distinct you can't just slot another artist in there an expect if to be the same).

[sheridan]

Well, quite apart from the point that that's irrelevant; as a co-creator you should get a credit, broadly speaking very few writers don't take on board the strength of their artists [exceptions being when the writers don't know who those artists are], and Mills- in the past -has very vocally made a point about always writing to the artists strength, in other words, without Edmond's contribution on the visuals, Accident Man would be entirely different (how could it not be, look at Edmond's visual, they're so distinct you can't just slot another artist in there an expect if to be the same).

As we saw in the following stories in Toxic! - Edmond's cross-hatched ninja was replaced by a suit-wearing yuppie.

[sheridan]

This just reminds me of everyone's favourite Tharg, Alan McKenzie, and his claim to have single-handedly designed and created Luke Kirby. John Ridgway was justifiably miffed about that.

I'm sure Pat Mills would be delighted with that comparison.

Alan McKenzie who claimed to own copyright on Luke Kirby - which, if true, would suggest that as Tharg he was offering himself more favourable terms than all other creators for 2000AD?  I'd love to know if he paid himself the same rate as others, while (claiming to) retain the rights...

Compare and contrast with the treatment of Hilary Robinson.

[GordonR]

The whole Luke Kirby thing -claiming he avoided signing the contract that, as an editor, he made his freelancers sign; trying to completely deny the artist any rights as co-creator - tells you everything you need to know about Alan McKenzie.

[Jim_Campbell]

The whole Luke Kirby thing -claiming he avoided signing the contract that, as an editor, he made his freelancers sign; trying to completely deny the artist any rights as co-creator - tells you everything you need to know about Alan McKenzie.

I have genuinely never heard a single UK freelancer speak with affection or respect about their dealings with McKenzie. I mean… even 'controversial' figures within the industry have their defenders, which makes that a pretty singular comment about his time in comics.

[A.Cow]

But what precisely was Emond's contribution (as a creator)?  If it was purely the visual appearance then it must be noted that the characters in the movie look significantly different to those in Toxic!, which would certainly explain the apparent snub.

You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, do you?

That's totally true -- I make no claim whatsoever to know anything about the practicalities or politics of the comics industry.  Just seemed a logical suggestion.

Apologies if offence was caused; it's just that as a layperson I find creator rights a little perplexing at times (e.g. can someone please explain why Dave Gibbons gets the credit for Harlem Heroes instead of Carlos Trigo?)

[Jim_Campbell]

Apologies if offence was caused; it's just that as a layperson I find creator rights a little perplexing at times (e.g. can someone please explain why Dave Gibbons gets the credit for Harlem Heroes instead of Carlos Trigo?)

Unless some special arrangement is made, it's usually as simple as whoever's name is on the first episode published — you don't get a creator credit for having been involved in an unused/abandoned pre-publication version. Technically, Robo-Hunter should be credited to Ferrer/Gibson as joint artistic creators, since both artists' work feature in the early episodes… I don't have a reprint volume to hand to check whether that's the case.

If those initial Ferrer episodes had been scrapped entirely, he would't get a credit. McMahon gets the artist creator credit for VCs, Angie Kincaid for Slaine, despite only having drawn one episode of each, because it was the first.*

The only big exception I can think of is Ezquerra's creator credit on Dredd, but that's an unusual one since his episode was the first drawn, and then handed off to McMahon, Gibson, et al, to work from his designs, but ended up not being the first published.

In some respects, I think Trigo got a bit of a rough deal on Harlem Heroes, though, since a fair chunk of his design work for the Prog 0 dummy seems to have survived into the published Gibbons version in Prog 1… although I'm not sure we have any way of knowing whether he was given a design brief by someone else (Doug Church, maybe?).

*As I've mentioned before, it's hard to argue that any modern incarnation of Wolverine owes more to the original Wein/Trimpe guest star in Incredible Hulk 181 than it does to the Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne version from Uncanny X-Men, but Wein and Trimpe get the credit because they created the character. Re-defining the character, no matter how well, or how definitively, doesn't get you squat.

The only exception to that I'm aware of is Jamie Delano's co-creator credit with Alan Moore for John Constantine, but that only happened because Moore asked for it to be that way.

[sheridan]

On the re-imagining note, could anybody with a copy of Rogue Trooper: War Machine confirm whether it says 'created by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons' or 'created by Dave Gibbons and Will Simpson'?

[broodblik]

On the re-imagining note, could anybody with a copy of Rogue Trooper: War Machine confirm whether it says 'created by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons' or 'created by Dave Gibbons and Will Simpson'?

It states the following: Rogue Trooper created by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons

[rogue69]

trailer for Accident man Hitman's Holiday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwJ8AFMUrPo

[nxylas]

'Uncle' Pat's championing of creators' rights has never extended to artists.

On reflection, and to be fair, I don't think Mills has ever really claimed to be championing all creators' rights… I suspect his position is much more along the lines of "nothing's stopping other creators making the same kind of ruckus as me", but I still find myself wondering about an alternate timeline where Kev O'Neill did exactly that, vetoing Nemesis BkII and then getting to the end of BkIII and saying "Right, that's your lot. No one draws Nemesis but me, so it's over."

He does seem to make an exception for O'Neill, saying that Nemesis and Marshal Law are as much Kev's creation as his own.

[Jim_Campbell]

He does seem to make an exception for O'Neill, saying that Nemesis and Marshal Law are as much Kev's creation as his own.

Except that he was perfectly happy for Redondo to fill in on Book 2 and then to replace Kev with Bryan Talbot on Book 4. Maybe O’Neill was happy with those arrangements, but I have to ask: if Kev had taken Mills’ stance of “I’m the creator and no one else works on this if I’m not involved”, would Pat have respected that? I’d suggest from his track record of cheerfully replacing artists on all his 2000AD series that he probably wouldn’t have.

(Marshall Law is a very different question, since it was formally creator-owned by contract, meaning that Kev probably couldn’t have been replaced unless he explicitly signed some kind of waiver.)