That is the crux of the matter. Comics companies today are incapable of training new writers or artists. They have to find them elsewhere. They also have no memory of the writers from the past who can still tell good stories. So they go with the "name" and hope for the best.

Care to actually name names? I ask, cos I'm guessing I'm who you're talking about. In which case I feel the need once again to clarify my position, but I'll keep it super short this time: Gerber needs to learn from Neal Addams, an artist with a considerable reputation for getting his (financial) due as a creator. Thing is, he does it by talking directly to the people who sign the checks, in a reasonable manner, with reasonable requests... not by publicly slagging off all and sundry.

I've reconsidered, and looked over the threads again, and, no, I still stand by that one.

but I did get the impression that there was a great deal of knee-jerk reaction against the very fact that he was, as many online tough-guys chose to characterize it, “whining”.
And that triggered something in me.

Clearly. Now consider for just a moment, that there wasn't anybody trying to be a tough guy, and that you might have had an overreaction, due to something you read into the posts.

And then consider why some people might have criticized your reaction.

Fourthworlder said:
"I never complained about Gerber bitching about the man (Marvel). His complaining seemed to get personal about this new writer, and that triggered something in me."

For one sentence, about the Omega situation (which he later backed down from, at least the more personal aspect of it), sure.
I was referring more to the general totality of what Gerber's said about his problems with the big 2 over the years. I realize that the Omega thing has become the central issue in this thread, but I did get the impression that there was a great deal of knee-jerk reaction against the very fact that he was, as many online tough-guys chose to characterize it, "whining".
And that triggered something in me.

As for the rest of your post, well, a good chunk is based on unfounded assumptions about how people would behave in a hypothetical situation, another chunk is assumptions about which characters would have their rights reverted and which wouldn't (your principle seems to be, let the companies keep the ones that aren't making money... which begs the question of what happens when someone comes along and makes an unpopular character popular, or adopts them as a "pet character"? Who gets the rights then?), and much of the rest is displays a misunderstanding of how Mrvel and DC make money; here's a hint: it's not from comics. If creators own the rights to the characters, then they get the money from licencing for cartoons, movies, and most importantly for Marvel in particular, toys. And that's why they'd go out of business.

I don't think I'm likely to turn you to my point of view, David. But at least I'm pretty sure you understand it! So unless I've once again radically misinterpreted what you're trying to say, what say we call it a draw?

I'm eating up like half the total space on this thread, it's becoming embarrassing...

Okay, here's something I had:

And for that kind of story to be practical, someone has to be giving up their rights to some extent. Fair enough, and fully true. But:

So what I’m saying is, creators should be realistic about what they should expect in terms of rights to their work depending on the kind of work they are doing. Doesn't necessarily follow. A creator owning their character doesn't automatically mean they won't let anybody else ever use it (I can supply examples if you like), and more importantly, letting somebody else use it, in a rights regime where creators own what they've made, doesn't mean anybody has to be afraid of a "use it or lose it" rule being applied. And anyway, Jesus, what's wrong with someone doing a co-op thing, and throwing their character into a company, but if the company pisses them off and they leave, then they take their character with them someplace else? There's nothing in the world that says a company run like that couldn't go on and have great sales successes, is there? Marvel's actually survived just fine despite the ROM fiasco, and Wildstorm survived Aliens, so what's really the diff? Like it's so bad when creators yank their properties, but it's totally no-problem cool when corporations yank theirs?

Fine, well, here comes the re-writing (and just in time, 'cause I was about to go all Atticus on these "deal's a deal" hillbillies who think contracts ought to include clauses stating that the contracts including them can't be challenged in court because it -grumble- just ain't right for a body ta complain, and anyway I never asked fer no durned legal rights, I'll sell 'em up to ya fer a barrel o' water or a new jug ta blow on)...

In three contrary words:

Which they wouldn't.

You see I disagree with you, and don't think the shared-universe publishing properties would collapse in a rights-rich world. And why? Because there's no reason to think that they would. Obviously things couldn't continue as they have, in a world where the Kane family owned Batman, the Siegels owned Superman, etc...but then hey, they're actually not good examples, are they? Batman and Superman heirs, they're gonna care about the money, not the purity of the turf. They're gonna leave the properties in the hands of the editors, and content themselves with a fat cheque every two weeks. Right?

Silence gives assent...

I'm not talking timeline redaction, you see. I'm talking practical matters of how and when, and under what conditions. Give the Batman heirs their Batman money today -- I think they'll be happy. You might not be able to re-mount Nextwave as it is if various Kirby people say "back off this iteration of Machine Man", but then again so what? Backdate it two years, and I guarantee you won't miss old Aaron. Warren and Stuart would've just gone nutto with different characters. Other characters no one really cared too much about. Anyway it wouldn't be too different from Joe Q. saying "we need purple Machine Man for Civil War, so find someone else"...which could've happened. Could still happen. Anyway what I'm saying is -- Nextwave? Oh, for Christ's sake don't worry, you still get Nextwave.

And Ditko, Ditko...can I just say this? You think Ditko wants money? Can you not see he's washed his hands clean? Send him a letter informing him he's retroactively won half the rights to Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, and I'll give you fifty bucks at six-to-one you'll never get an answer. Take the bet?

But Ditko's a one-off. Everybody else is a working cartoonist, and they'll take money for everything but the most precious, precious, personal pet projects. Rocket Racer? Use 'im, God bless ya. Tigra in the Avengers again? Sounds good. Valkyrie? Englehart says, just don't make her a bimbo, deal? Oh, and the estate of Bill Everett requests Namor not suck, if you're okay with that.

What's wrong with that? Of course, forgive me, I'm not being as realistic as I promised I would. And in reality, I agree that any rightsholders would inevitably have to give up something, just for their property to be published at all. And in reality, they'd probably have to give up quite a bit. But the difference is, they be bloody well paid for it.

Paid money that was owed a long time ago!

But minus the interest!

Marvel and DC would survive. Though you wouldn't get Mantis without Englehart, or Howard without Gerber, or Thanos without Starlin, or Death without Gaiman, or Hannibal King without Marv Wolfman. But...sorry to repeat myself, but what in the hell's wrong with that, again? For a low, low fee, you could use Mankiller and Starfox all you want, I'm sure. Glorian, the Jackal (although that might be contingent on no more Spider-clonery), Thundra, Firebird, X Da Marvel...buy 'em up, Joe! Pennies on the dollar! All it requires is a different business model, that accounts for a different marketplace. All it needs is the tiniest bit of change.

You're too pessimistic, David. I think it'd be fine.

My two cents.

I didn't say Marvel and DC's business would collapse, (although, since most of both their revenues are based on the licencing of properties that would no longer belong to them, it probably would, but that's besied the point I was making) I said that the shared universes that they maintain would collapse, at least as viable publishing proerties. Which they would.

And if the Kane family owned the copyright to Batman, Siegel and Shuster's families shared the rights to Superman, etc, etc... where would that leave Frank Miller in regards to DKR and his Daredevil work? What if Siegel and Shuster's estate don't like All-Star Superman? What heppens to Giffen and DeMatteis' Justice League? How many people's permission would that require for a reprint?

What happens in a case like Stan Lee's? Here is a creator who set out to create a shared company owned universe, who suddenly finds himself with half ownership of an enormous batch of characters he may or may not be able to use... there's every chance that Steve Ditko might turn around and say that he can't use his creations, or reprint his work.

You can't just rely on everyone's good will, and assume that everyone will be okay with anything anyone wants to do with their characters because "hey, it's all licencing money"; that's naive, and defies common sense.

I'm not talking about money, here. I'm talking, believe it or not, from an artistic standpoint. The whole point of a shared universe is the idea of the "toybox" that everyone contributes to, and everyone gets to play with. And if you want to play with the toys, then giving up the copyright on whatever you do with them, and anything you contribute to the box in the process, is just the price you pay for that.

Nextwave would never have been published without the current system. Do Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen deserve the rights to that series? Or do the rights belong with the people who originally created the characters?

Advancing this argument doesn't mean that I don't believe that creators deserve the rights to their creations. If you do work outside the shared universe framework, then obviously you should retain copyright on that work. I'm not suggesting Ellis should hand over the rights to Transmetropolitan. As I type this, I'm uploading pages to my own comic on webcomicsnation. If someone tried to take the rights to that comic away from me they'd find themselves with an almighty fight on their hands. But if I was offered the chance to work on Batman, I wouldn't expect a cut from the next Batman film as a result, you know?

But I maintain: "Give every creator back the copyright on every creation they ever came up with, and..."

And, damn it, DC and Marvel would both be fine. They'd still be in the black, they'd just have to not treat creators like Dixie Cups to stay there. And a shared universe would still be possible -- why not? Let's not take one unusual (not to say aberrant) company, and claim it as overwhelming evidence of a rule. What about Malibu? Marvel bought it and crushed it, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have worked if it'd been left alone. In fact that Marvel did buy it and crush it says to me that they considered it a valid potential competitor.

Truth is, a creator-based shared-universe company hasn't succeeded; but there's where you get the true application of your, and I quote so as not to seem snotty, "variety of reasons", in truth. Because one of those reasons must be the predatory behaviour of the Big Two. Even though some others must be "lack of deep pockets" or "failure to find a sufficient audience", or even "failure of the principals to get along".

My previous blustering notwithstanding, it's by no means a slamdunk that widespread creator's rights = collapse of shared-universe comics.

Not even for the shared-universe comics that we know at the present time. If Malibu imagined doing it, well then why couldn't the fabulously more money-packed Marvel or DC companies get away with it?

In other words: I'm going to disagree with you here, David. Nothing's been proved, because nothing's been tried. And I don't believe creator's rights would bankrupt any golden goose. Copper goose? Anyway the goose doesn't want to change, even if it turns into lead.

Hey, did you hear there's going to be more Beanworld? Let me just add, I'm practically the original lover of the shared-universe concept, but forget business: editorial decisions at the Big Two have driven me away anyway, like probably permanently. So it can all come crashing down for all I care.

But I also rather like shared universe stories with multiple writers and/or artists, whether it's the Marvel or DC universes, or the Wildstorm or ABC universes, or The Wild Cards books, or the crazy and rich timeline that a fair proportion of 2000ad's characters are part of.

And for that kind of story to be practical, someone has to be giving up their rights to some extent.

So what I'm saying is, creators should be realistic about what they should epect in terms of rights to their work depending on the kind of work they are doing.

And also that if you created a comic book within a shared universe framework, at a time when the concept of creators rights was still not that widespread, and for which you were paid with paychecks that had the terms printed on the back then you shouldn't be surprised when thirty years later the legal owners of the work act like the legal owners of the work. You can be upset about it, sure, that's fair enough. But pick your battles.

No, not even close. Did you read my comment?

I'm talking quite specifically about shared universe stories. I made that very clear when I said:

"Well, that depends how much you like shared-universe stories, by multiple creative teams. Give every creator back the copyright on every creation they ever came up with, and the Marvel and DC universes just evaporate."

I kid.

But let me be serious for a moment: is the principle you espouse that, in order for comics companies to turn a profit, the rights of the creators must be accorded to the publisher?

Then let the comics companies fall!

Because they will fall, if that's what's holding them up.

Except that it's been tried, and it really didn't work, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes a creator doesn't know which of their caharacters is going to be a "pet" untill they've been writing them a while, and no-one knows which -if any- of their works is going to be successful. Sometimes creators change their minds about how much control they want over characters other people have already used, which then lands the other creator/s in a difficult situation when it comes to reprints.

Sometimes it comes down to people simply not being as easy going and/or trustworthy as we'd all like them to be.

The best example of this would probably be Image comics.