THE Q: A UNION - CAN/COULD/SHOULD IT HAPPEN HERE?

[MattBrady]

by Vaneta Rogers

As the strike by members of the Writer's Guild of America dominated discussions in the entertainment industry this week, Newsarama decided to utilize this month's question for "The Q" to allow creators to share their opinions on whether writers in the comic book industry should form a similar union.

Earlier this week, Newsarama shared comments on the WGA strike by Brian K. Vaughan, who supported the idea of a union for comic book writers. But as he and others have pointed out, starting a union for creators in this industry has been tried before by creators like Arnold Drake and others – but none of those attempts have been successful.

So it's time for creators to sound off on the issue as we asked the question:

- Should comic book writers unionize? Could they unionize?

Steve Niles (30 Days of Night: Beyond Barrow, Simon Dark, Criminal Macabre, City of Others, Dead She Said): Absolutely. I think it would be great for comics writers to enjoy the protection and benefits of a union. How? That I can't answer but I plan on talking to other comic writers and seeing if we can stir something up. The companies will not be happy, so we have to approach this as something that can help benefit everybody and help this struggling industry get up on its feet and stay there. I believe Neal Adams attempted to unionize comics in the early Seventies. I don't know the story, but I would be interested to hear what happened.

Robert Kirkman (Ultimate X-Men, Astounding Wolf-Man, Invincible, Walking Dead): Should? Probably. Could? Not likely.

A lot of people don't realize this but a comic book professional only has a few options for something like health insurance. They can obtain it on their own at a greater expense, or through exclusivity to a comic company (Marvel or DC) and a lot of times this is a deciding factor to exclusivity.

It would be nice, if there was a guild that could standardize rates and protect creators and all that good stuff -- but most importantly, it would be nice to have an organization there to provide creators with health and pension benefits without having to commit yourself to one company --and having your health care connected to that company.

I do want to add, though... that writers and artists are treated pretty well in this industry, at least from my point of view, and while a "writers guild" would be nice and probably lead to some good things... this industry is in desperate need of a "letterers and colorists guild" rates, for these two jobs are routinely slashed when the budget on a book comes into question. They are also continually lowered as newer, younger people enter the field that are willing to work for less.

Having a unified group that could keep rates at a reasonable level for these hardworking and sometimes overworked men and women is something we could use much more than a writer or artist guild.

Eric Powell (The Goon, Chinatown): Yes, comic creators should have a union. The are a lot of things the comic industry as a whole should be doing to help this inbred business and expand readership. Will we ever have a union? I doubt it. Because this business on a whole, for lack of a better term, is retarded.

Mike Carey (X-Men, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Crossing Midnight, Faker): In any industry, it can never be a bad thing if the workforce organizes itself to present a united front. It's a good way of preventing the law of the jungle from operating, which in non-unionized workplaces it all too often does. By "the law of the jungle" I mean workers being laid off because they refuse to do unpaid overtime, women getting lower wages for doing the same jobs as men, people being denied sick pay or sacked because they're sick, and so on and so on, world without end.

Of course, unionization is probably most important for vulnerable, lower-paid workers who find it hard to move into other jobs or whose options are limited in other ways. But that doesn't mean it isn't important for people in other industries or other rungs of the industrial ladder. You don't wring concessions to human decency out of major corporations by asking politely. So yeah, I'm all for it. Workers of the world, unite.

Jay Faerber (Noble Causes, Dynamo 5): I think comic book writers should unionize, but I don't see how they could. I do almost all my work at Image, where I'm paid completely on the back-end, after my books have come out and Image has been paid by Diamond. This is a completely different model than Marvel and DC work under, so I can't imagine a union that would work for both situations.

The other big problem is that a large portion of the comic book audience is made up of potential scabs. And I don't mean that as an insult, but a good number of comic book fans want to make comics themselves. A far greater percentage than you find in, say, people who watch TV or read novels. In comics, I'd say well over 50% of the audience has real aspirations to do this job. So if the comic book writers ever went on strike, think of how many people out there would be willing to cross the picket line for their shot at writing X-Men or whatever. And that's not an insult. I'm not being critical of these fans. Ten years ago, I was one of them!

At the end of the day, I don't really know much about unions, so I don't really feel qualified to say whether or not a comic book writer's guild could work -- despite the fact that I think it's a good idea, for all the reasons Vaughan outlined in his recent piece.

Jason Aaron (Scalped, Wolverine, Ghost Rider): Like Brian [K. Vaughan] said, it's a shame that so many creators get no royalties at all from the continued use of characters they created. If unionization could change that, then yeah, I'd be interested. But personally, I have no complaints about the way I've been treated in the industry so far. And really, having read all the stories over the years about creators suing their employers because they feel they've been taken advantage of, I can't say I don't go into any work-for-hire situation without my eyes wide open. Will comic creators ever unionize? I don't know. But I know if Vaughan was the one doing the talking, I'd definitely listen.

Jimmy Palmiotti (Countdown to Final Crisis, Jonah Hex, Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, Dock Walloper, Painkiller Jane): Personally, I think it would help a lot of the people out there because as a rule of thumb, creative people are not very good at anything to do with math, being able to represent what they want or need and are not able to understand even the most basics of contracts. If they unionized they would have more protection from companies trying to rip them off and would be able to finally get a better piece of the bigger pie that the publisher gets. Could they do this? Well…it’s a big job and really, I haven’t met the single person capable of getting this together, but I sure hope they are out there. If a decent, fair and smart union was put together and I agreed on their terms and ideas, I would join in a heartbeat. I think it is long overdue.

Jeff Parker (X-Men: First Class, Agents of Atlas): It's kind of moot, because it's impossible in our industry at the moment. For one, you would really need to include artists, they carry a heavy load of character creation and storytelling. But I think sales overall would have to be up more to give the creators the clout they'd need to negotiate as a union- if you could get all of those people to unionize. And comics would need all the venues to exploit that other media do. Really, the ‘80s would have been the prime time to do it.

Any points you would want to hammer out across the board would have to be done with the Big Two to have resonance, and their readership by and large support the characters over creators. Which makes replacing creative teams less painful for them. I don't mean to make them out to be ruthless, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate. I think they're way better with such things than say, TokyoPop. They haven't been in a big rush lately to create new properties either, which is where creators would have more clout.

We do have options though, we're not totally pathetic. Our industry is smaller (than film and tv) and individual creators stand out more in it. We can negotiate our own terms with publishers. That's a bit more Darwinian than most would like, but there it is. Maybe a loose coalition of creators who give each other advice like fair page rates to ask for, something like that could probably work now and later evolve into a union.

Brad Meltzer (Justice League, Identity Crisis): When I first got into comics and we were trying to help William Messner-Loebs, one of the first things I did was ask Paul Levitz about how best to help all the "older" writers who came before (since clearly this issue would be coming up again). Paul knows and cares about and works for this issue as much as anyone I've encountered. And his answer was clear: the only way to help the so-called previous generation is to unionize. Because that's how you get health care for all. At the time, I spoke to a few creators about it: whether we should all pull a brand new Image-style junta, but this time in the name of health care for the older guys. Since then, the conversation has continued with a few others, which is when I learned that there are those trying to get that health care right now. So now we see how they do -- and if they can pull it off. But as I've always maintained, for an industry built on heroes, we do a pretty crappy job of taking care of our own. So stop reading this and go give to the Hero Initiative.

B. Clay Moore (Hawaiian Dick, Jackie Karma, 76, Superman Confidential, JSA Classified): I think unionizing comic book writers is an almost impossible task, to be honest. I can appreciate the thinking behind the notion, but as an industry we're dealing with a wildly disparate array of situations when it comes to who's employing the writers and the writers' various employment situations. I don't think it's in every industry's best interest to unionize, and, understanding as I do how the comic book industry works, I'm not sure it would be best for us.

I'd probably be more likely to support co-operative efforts along the lines of Comics Pro (the recently created retailer organization) than an effort to unionize. I'd also be behind pooling resources to help provide affordable health insurance for freelancers.

Keith Champagne (Arena, Robin Annual, Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters): Should comic book writers unionize? Yes. Could they unionize? Uhhh...maybe?

I would strongly support a union among comic book writers (and artists and letterers and colorists), I think it's an idea that's been long overdue in this field for no other reason than the health care that a union would afford its members. Although that's far from the only reason...

It seems like there have been good-hearted attempts to form a union over the years that never got off the ground, so it's hard to say if such a thing is possible to organize and implement. I think there are a lot of people in this business who aren't "protected" by a superstar status or who scrape along job by job who would be fearful of biting the hand that feeds them, or of being replaced by one of hundreds of slush pile submissions chomping at the bit to get in the door regardless of whether there's a union or not. We've all been that guy at one time or another, it's not too hard to remember those days.

On a related note, while I do support the WGA, I don't think the industry should throw its arms wide open to accommodate a flood of striking WGA members who might want to write a few comics to kill time until they can get back to their day jobs. That hardly seems fair to a writer who's been waiting months for that six-issue series he or she has been counting on to get approved, only to find that suddenly, the show runner from Sanford and Son got the gig instead.

Peter David (She-Hulk, X-Factor, Marvel Adventures Hulk): A group of us tried it years ago. The CBWA: The Comic Book Writer's Association. It wasn't even an activist union so much as an endeavor to get an organization together that would enable us to provide health care and benefits. It was like herding cats. We couldn't get enough people interested or involved. I've still got the membership hats and other incentive items for membership that I paid for out of pocket sitting in my garage, if anyone wants them.

Tony Bedard (Countdown to Final Crisis, Birds of Prey, Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes): Maybe we should unionize, but I doubt we could. I mean, there's 12,000 people in the Writer's Guild. There's power in those numbers. How many comics writers are there? I'd be surprised if there are 120. And could we maintain solidarity in a strike? Most of us live hand-to-mouth. How soon would people cross the picket line to feed their families...or pick up a juicy assignment left lying fallow? How many wordsmiths out there would step over their own mother to write Cap or the Hulk or Batman? Of course, I'm no collective bargaining expert, so maybe there's a way to do this that I'm not thinking of, and the issues BKV brought up about how we cast aside our veteran creators do bear looking into. But in this very small and snarky pond, I fear the first Comics Writers Strike would end up resembling the Air Traaffic Controllers Strike of the 1980s.

Terry Moore (Runaways, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, Strangers in Paradise): The comic industry lacks some sort of cohesion found in other, organized industries that prevents it from having leaders. Perhaps this is due to the nature of the industry people themselves, who tend to be mavericks, rebels and loners. Most of the creators I know would never join a club or association of any kind. We are the frontier of the book industry. Frontiersmen don't form unions.

David Hine (Spawn, Strange Embrace, Poison Candy, Silent War): Should comic creators unionize? Yes, absolutely. And I've amended the question to include artists. Comics are unique in that the writers and artists work so closely to create the finished work. They really should be considered under the same umbrella.

Although there have been improvements in conditions for comics creators over the past couple of decades, the introduction of limited royalties and recognition of the writers' and artists' role in the creation of characters has only come about when pressure was placed on the publishers by creators who had some clout.

Could we unionize? Very, very tough. I've worked as a freelance illustrator and that is another field where there is no really effective union, although we do have the Association of Illustrators in Britain who produce guidelines for rates and working practices.

Those guidelines are no more than that. They are impossible to enforce because every time a freelancer tries to hold out for the recommended rate of pay, you can bet there will be someone out there who will do the work for less.

Freelance creators are notoriously difficult to organise and the only way a union would be able to effectively negotiate with publishers is if the membership included the vast majority of creators. Ideally there would be a closed shop. If you don't belong to the union, you don't work in the industry.

That sounds kind of dictatorial but in fact it is the soundest way to deal with industrial relations. Unions can be a wonderfully democratic system, where representatives are elected and policy-making is an open and democratic process. The people who really hate closed shops are the employers because closed shop unions actually give employees some leverage.

(Apparently the WGA is also loathed by a few assholes out there who are kicking and screaming because they're going to miss a few episodes of Lost or Heroes but thankfully they don't get to cross any picket lines.)

Will a union ever happen? I'm not optimistic. There is too much greed, selfishness and frankly cowardice among the masses of creators and would-be creators who are desperate to hang onto whatever livelihood they can scrape out of the comics industry.

But the screenwriters did it, so I guess we can always dream.

[SeamusMcClernan]

...if a legendary Creator like Dave Cockrum didn't have to spend his last years in-and-out of V.A. hospitals.

[SyVyN11]

Unions:maximum pay for minimum work.

Simple as that.

[80Pork]

A lot of good points made. Yeah, a union would be great, but it would be rough to do. Nice article.

Oh, and Peter David...I'll take some of those CBWA incentive items!

[ausuran]

Originally Posted by SyVyN11

Unions:maximum pay for minimum work.

Simple as that.

Not really. It's about getting benefits that are useful and ensuring that the bigger company doesn't screw you out of money. If you're doing all the work but getting paid a small amount while the bigger powers make money it's not fair. Also, if you think you should get things like sick time and other things, you could be laid off at the whim of the company. It happens all the time in non-union situations. How'd you like to lose your job because you had the Flu and couldn't go to work? Sound fair to you?

[MadBandit]

Hell, yeah. It'll be tough with egos and beefs among professionals, but it'll be worth it.

[MadBandit]

Originally Posted by ausuran

Not really. It's about getting benefits that are useful and ensuring that the bigger company doesn't screw you out of money. If you're doing all the work but getting paid a small amount while the bigger powers make money it's not fair. Also, if you think you should get things like sick time and other things, you could be laid off at the whim of the company. It happens all the time in non-union situations. How'd you like to lose your job because you had the Flu and couldn't go to work? Sound fair to you?

Don't forget if you have a family to support.

BTW, there is on-line video coverage of the bi-coastal strike:

Fight the power!!!

http://youtube.com/user/wgadotorg

http://youtube.com/user/wgaamerica

[Beheader]

It would be nice. It would keep some publishers from not paying their talent, while continuing to make new books, screwing over more people.

But I just don't see it happening for that reason.

[wretchedangel]

Originally Posted by SyVyN11

Unions:maximum pay for minimum work.

Simple as that.

not in my experience
i work in the UFCW (groceries and retail clerks) and they have it so screwed up that its maximum work for minimum pay
our operating ratios reaching 175% (that you doing the work of almost 2 people) sometimes and the Union does nothing to help it

[Hypestyle]

if this was attempted, the people involved should be careful to have inclusive by-laws; many labor unions have achieved much good in their respective fields, but many have also become rather insular and strident.. young artists wanting to get in the business should not be made to feel that they must pay a king's ransom just to be a part of it..

[phunengames]

Originally Posted by SyVyN11

Unions:maximum pay for minimum work.

Simple as that.

As opposed to the possible outsourcing credo of minimal pay for maximum work? It is sad that the bumper sticker slogans that work in elections do not work that well in real life. Things are always more complicated than that and the coments of the pro in the article seem to point that out.

[MadBandit]

Originally Posted by Beheader

It would be nice. It would keep some publishers from not paying their talent, while continuing to make new books, screwing over more people.

But I just don't see it happening for that reason.

It's not a matter of "nice"; it's a matter of neccesity and decency. Though he left the industry, look at writer Bill Mantlo (loved his Incredible Hulk run in the 1980s)

.



http://www.sleepinggiantcreations.co...lo-portal.html

[MadBandit]

Originally Posted by Hypestyle

if this was attempted, the people involved should be careful to have inclusive by-laws; many labor unions have achieved much good in their respective fields, but many have also become rather insular and strident.. young artists wanting to get in the business should not be made to feel that they must pay a king's ransom just to be a part of it..

True. Rob Rodriquez (Sin City, Spy Kids) left the WGA because he felt they charge too much ($2,500). If the comic book industry wants to form an union, the entrance should be less than a thousand.

[ThatGuamGuy]

Originally Posted by SyVyN11

Unions:maximum pay for minimum work.

Simple as that.

The worker is the rubber band. On the one hand is the company, trying to get maximum work for minimum pay. If the workers don't unite together, they have no power pulling as a counterweight against the company.

If you want to boil it down, it's as simple as *that*. But you can't boil it down so far as to remove the company entirely; discussing unions without that context makes no sense at all.

[A-Newton]

Originally Posted by SyVyN11

Unions:maximum pay for minimum work.

Simple as that.

That sort of statement is indicative of willful ingorance on the history and accomplishments of unions.

Is that history a completely rosy picture? Of course not. But insisting or even implying that Unions exist to allow the worker to be overpaid and lazy is insulting.

[SpyGuy]

While I wholeheartedly support the notion of getting better benefits for comics creators, I honestly can't see a union being a practical idea. As some mentioned above, there are too many aspiring creators more than willing to fill the gap if said union went on strike and fans have shown that they'll still buy comics without issues by the regular creative teams.

Besides, chances are that any increased cost to companies like DC and Marvel of paying more to union members would quickly be passed along to the consumer, driving up the price of comics even further and encouraging more people to quit comics altogether.

[avengingtitan]

Jay makes a good point.

Jay Faerber (Noble Causes, Dynamo 5): I think comic book writers should unionize, but I don't see how they could. I do almost all my work at Image, where I'm paid completely on the back-end, after my books have come out and Image has been paid by Diamond. This is a completely different model than Marvel and DC work under, so I can't imagine a union that would work for both situations.

The other big problem is that a large portion of the comic book audience is made up of potential scabs. And I don't mean that as an insult, but a good number of comic book fans want to make comics themselves. A far greater percentage than you find in, say, people who watch TV or read novels. In comics, I'd say well over 50% of the audience has real aspirations to do this job. So if the comic book writers ever went on strike, think of how many people out there would be willing to cross the picket line for their shot at writing X-Men or whatever. And that's not an insult. I'm not being critical of these fans. Ten years ago, I was one of them!

At the end of the day, I don't really know much about unions, so I don't really feel qualified to say whether or not a comic book writer's guild could work -- despite the fact that I think it's a good idea, for all the reasons Vaughan outlined in his recent piece.

[Simon DelMonte]

1. Aside from all the reasons offers that there is not likely to be a comic book writers union, the simple fact is that the labor movement is moribund in this country. New unions almost never form these days. As a liberal, I wish it were not the case, but it's been like that for ages.

2. It would have been interesting there was a quote from someone like Chuck Dixon or Beau Smith, as it seems like everyone who was asks is at least somewhat to the left of center.

[gwangung]

(Apparently the WGA is also loathed by a few assholes out there who are kicking and screaming because they're going to miss a few episodes of Lost or Heroes but thankfully they don't get to cross any picket lines.)

You know, I still don't get this attitude.

It's a very authoritarian attitude, with management as uber-boss, who has to have control over all the underlings. It treats writers as interchangeable parts (along with all other artists), who can easily be swapped out with other writers. And that the owners are far more responsible for the success of a show/movie than anyone else.

None of those assumptions really make sense to me. First of all, no business operates like that in real life; even classic manufacturing businesses are cooperative to some degree. And creative businesses absolutely DEPEND on cooperative sharing of talent and effort. Writers/artists are NOT interchangeable parts--are folks really thinking that Chuck Austen is essentially the same as a Geoff Johns or Alan Moore???? And while owners/producers are important (hey! I AM one in real life), they wouldn't be making ANYTHING if they had run of the mill artists/writers/etc. bringing the property to life.

I just don't get that atttitude that treats artists as paid workers, cogs who are interchangeable...

[Nat Gertler]

Some of the statements seem a bit odd, because while they apply well to the concept of unionizing in general, they don't apply so well to comics writing in particular. Comics writing is primarily done on a freelance basis and done on a piece rate, rather than an hourly rate. Concerns about unpaid overtime don't fit that mold, as the self-employed writer sets their own hours. And a closed shop is hard to maintain in a field with a strong self-publishing tradition exemplified by Sim, Smith, Moore, and so forth (although admittedly self-publishing has seriously waned from its peak.)

[MadBandit]

Originally Posted by Simon DelMonte

1. Aside from all the reasons offers that there is not likely to be a comic book writers union, the simple fact is that the labor movement is moribund in this country. New unions almost never form these days. As a liberal, I wish it were not the case, but it's been like that for ages.

2. It would have been interesting there was a quote from someone like Chuck Dixon or Beau Smith, as it seems like everyone who was asks is at least somewhat to the left of center.

I don't think you'll get any support for an union from conservatives. Look what happened with air-traffic controllers when they struck: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profess...ion_%281968%29

[ssava]

No way.
I'm just not in favor of Unions.

I'd personally never go for it.

[MadBandit]

Originally Posted by gwangung

You know, I still don't get this attitude.

It's a very authoritarian attitude, with management as uber-boss, who has to have control over all the underlings. It treats writers as interchangeable parts (along with all other artists), who can easily be swapped out with other writers. And that the owners are far more responsible for the success of a show/movie than anyone else.

None of those assumptions really make sense to me. First of all, no business operates like that in real life; even classic manufacturing businesses are cooperative to some degree. And creative businesses absolutely DEPEND on cooperative sharing of talent and effort. Writers/artists are NOT interchangeable parts--are folks really thinking that Chuck Austen is essentially the same as a Geoff Johns or Alan Moore???? And while owners/producers are important (hey! I AM one in real life), they wouldn't be making ANYTHING if they had run of the mill artists/writers/etc. bringing the property to life.

I just don't get that atttitude that treats artists as paid workers, cogs who are interchangeable...

Great point/question.

I think it's an American mindset where people who are artistic are look upon as freaks, losers, non-conformistic and needless because they use their brains. This society praises the likes of athletes and pop music vocalists, who don't require deep, critical thinking while working. Just look at the chimp in the White House.

[MadBandit]

Originally Posted by ssava

No way.
I'm just not in favor of Unions.

I'd personally never go for it.

So you feel workers should be exploited and it's their fault?

[LOKICEL]

The funniest part of the writers strike is that one issue they are fighting for is compensation on DVD sales etc. Yet every time the Companies bitch about piracy, they hide behind the talent by saying "they" are being victimized.

Greed is good I guess.