Gerry Conway Publicly Apologizes to Top DC Comics Brass

[CBR News]

After calling out DC for their "despicable" creator equity policies, Conway writes an open letter to Geoff Johns, Dan DiDio, Jim Lee, and Larry Ganem.


Full article here.

[gbshabo]

there's a lot of humility in the way gerry Conway handled this in the end. Much respect for him. Here's hoping to see some DC related Gerry Conway work on tv or on the printed pages.

[Dmreyn]

I think it's pretty obvious that unless you're Bob Kane or Schuster, you're not getting any recognition. On the Marvel side, unless you're Lee or Kirby, you can forget being recognized for anything a creator did. Too bad, so sad....but unfortunately, that's what it's like to work for the big 2. The true fans will recognize you and your work regardless. For example, as a Batman fan myself, I know that Bill Finger had just as much a right, if not more so, for having his name mentioned for coming up with the Batman mythos as Kane did, it was just Kane was a better sneaky businessman (and therefore Kane is mentioned on the front page of every Batman comic ever, even the ones he had jack s#it in writing or illustrating). That's life I suppose.

[Dmreyn]

And also: "Geoff, Dan, Jim, and Larry sincerely want to do the right thing by creators." Really? Since when? The policies of 30 years ago have not changed much, as far as I'm concerned. Creators still don't own their characters. They're still not recognized when put in other media.

[Blacksun]

And also: "Geoff, Dan, Jim, and Larry sincerely want to do the right thing by creators." Really? Since when? The policies of 30 years ago have not changed much, as far as I'm concerned. Creators still don't own their characters. They're still not recognized when put in other media.

they just did damage control now that Gerry talked on mic for everyone that DC is bad at paying royalties. Impossible that for all this time they didn't saw something was wrong with the system. Sure Gerry is a nice guy and is apologizing, but he didn't needed to do it.

[BohemiaDrinker]

And also: "Geoff, Dan, Jim, and Larry sincerely want to do the right thing by creators." Really? Since when? The policies of 30 years ago have not changed much, as far as I'm concerned. Creators still don't own their characters. They're still not recognized when put in other media.

No, they didn't.

Yet, there was an unofficial compensation going on due to Paul Levitz's position and way of doing things.

Didio is not Levitz; that also doesn't mean he's the devil; he probably does want to do the right thing for creators in this matter - I have heard a lot of stories of creators and Dan Didio falling outs, but pretty much all of them were on the creative side.

He just does things differently; some things takes time to adjust.

[gwangung]

He just does things differently;

That's a mortal sin for some folks.

[Darth Kal-el]

Didio probably has a balancing act with what he wants to do and what corporate will allow. I don't understand why he gets all the ire

Conway just came out and said Didio is trying to help creators and he is still being attacked

[konkrypton]

Conway's obviously a gentleman. It takes big ones to call out a corporation for mistreating its employees, even bigger ones to admit when you've goofed it up.

[KingsLeadHat]

The people Conway apologized to (all creators in some fashion or another and involved in the creative aspect of things directly) should be noted as not being the people responsible for the unfair treatment of creators in the first place. I haven't liked many of Didio's policy's, but I never for a minute blamed him from anything to do with creator equality. Obviously all of these guys have to protect their careers, and are obviously okay being DC company men, but I think it would be overly cynical to think that they don't care about creators. Who knows what they've attempted to do behind closed doors only to be told to go back and draw a pretty picture as a response? I wish some fans would stop being so naive as to focus all their rage at figure-heads like Didio. I think we all know who's responsible at this point. It ain't former/current writers, artists and editors.

[Dmreyn]

I can understand the arguments made for both sides, but here's my 2 cents. Isn't it pretty much an unspoken acknowledgement that you get to "play in the toybox" with DC and Marvel while you're a writer, use the heroes and villains as you desire, and come up with new ones, but don't get to reap any potential benefits from it when it's your time to move on? I figured it had been that way for decades now.

[Jim Kelly]

The people Conway apologized to (all creators in some fashion or another and involved in the creative aspect of things directly) should be noted as not being the people responsible for the unfair treatment of creators in the first place. I haven't liked many of Didio's policy's, but I never for a minute blamed him from anything to do with creator equality. Obviously all of these guys have to protect their careers, and are obviously okay being DC company men, but I think it would be overly cynical to think that they don't care about creators. Who knows what they've attempted to do behind closed doors only to be told to go back and draw a pretty picture as a response? I wish some fans would stop being so naive as to focus all their rage at figure-heads like Didio. I think we all know who's responsible at this point. It ain't former/current writers, artists and editors.

To be fair, in his original Tumblr message, Conway didn't name any of these guys or say that the state of affairs was their fault. In his new Tumblr message, he apologizes to these guys but not to the person or persons he did name before. In my opinion, as far as those guys (Didio, Johns, Lee, Ganem) are concerned, there was nothing for which Gerry had to apologize. It's possible they ended up getting the brunt of the blow from fan outrage and Gerry saw that they were being wrongly targetted, even though he never set his sights on them.

Maybe Conway is becoming Canadian--we say Sorry as a matter of course--it's our Hello and Good-Bye as Stephen Colbert rightly noted.

Or to put it another way: The cat did it.

[Joe Kalicki]

And also: "Geoff, Dan, Jim, and Larry sincerely want to do the right thing by creators." Really? Since when? The policies of 30 years ago have not changed much, as far as I'm concerned. Creators still don't own their characters. They're still not recognized when put in other media.

Creators sell their characters to the company, but they get creator credit when they're used in other media, as well as financial compensation.

[The Darknight Detective]

I can understand the arguments made for both sides, but here's my 2 cents. Isn't it pretty much an unspoken acknowledgement that you get to "play in the toybox" with DC and Marvel while you're a writer, use the heroes and villains as you desire, and come up with new ones, but don't get to reap any potential benefits from it when it's your time to move on? I figured it had been that way for decades now.

It goes back at least as far back as "The Wizard of Menlo Park" and his invention factory.

[krazijoe]

they just did damage control now that Gerry talked on mic for everyone that DC is bad at paying royalties. Impossible that for all this time they didn't saw something was wrong with the system. Sure Gerry is a nice guy and is apologizing, but he didn't needed to do it.

Wait...I thought Damage Control was a Dwayne McDuffie and Ernie Colón creation, not Gerry Conway...