My Two Cents: The Auteur Theory of Comics

I recently posted on a review of Jack Kirby as Auteur by Barry Pearl. In the comments section of that post Arlen Schumer placed text “adapted from the visual presentation at the New York Comic Con panel, Saturday, October 15th, 2011”. I felt that Schumer’s text was much too important to leave in the relative obscurity of a comment section, so with his permission I have posted it below. I believe this is the first time I have ever had a guest posting in my blog.

I would like to add my two cents. Frankly when I first heard of the idea I already hated the term used. I rather dislike it when foreign words are wrapped around a simple concept. After all auteur is just the French word for author. However the term is relatively unimportant, at least compared to the underlying concept. I attended Schumer’s panel and found the presentation quite convincing. I do, however, have a couple of quibbles.

One has to do with the panel’s and text’s discussion of the legal issues between the Jack Kirby estate and Disney, Marvel’s recent owner. While the court battles concerning these issues might have been the instigation for the developing of the Auteur Theory of Comics, the legalities have no bearing on the theory and the theory has no bearing on the legal issues. As long as the work by Kirby is legally considered work for hire it does not matter if he is considered the author of the work, his estate cannot claim the copyrights.

The other quibble is not so much a disagreement with Schumer but rather an uncertainty on my part about how far the term author can be applied. While is seems eminently suitable for artists that work under the Marvel Method, should it be applied to artists who worked from a script? Such artists could be described as illustrators but I feel they have much more impact to the finished work than a typical book illustrator. However to me there still seems a great difference between artists who worked the Marvel Method and those who worked from scripts.

I believe ideas such as the Auteur Theory of Comics have great importance. We may not be able to correct past financial injustices, but we can correct failures to provide proper credits. While working with Stan Lee, the most credit Kirby (or Ditko) ever received beyond providing pencils was for supplying the plot. However artists who worked the Marvel Method did much more than plotting. While we normally think of authors as writers the definition includes creators. Therefore I think it is quite appropriate to describe Lee/Kirby (or Lee/Ditko, etc.) as the authors of the comics that they collaborated on.

6 thoughts on “My Two Cents: The Auteur Theory of Comics

  1. Arlen Schumer

    Harry–first off, thanx for posting my Auteir Theory essay in the first place! Now, on to your “quibbles”: re: the legal issues having a bearing on Auteur/the theory bearing on the legal issues: I could care less about the legalities at this point; they’re moot. This is now a moral/ethical crusade no different than the Neal Adams/Jerry Robinson crusade for stipends & credit for siegel & shuster in ’75 when they, too, clearly had no legal rights to superman. Adams/Robinson & a cast of hundreds basically shamed Warner Bros. into doing the moral/ethical RIGHT thing (for fear of the pr backlash)–not the “legal” thing. That is what has to be done NOW in the comic book field, by today’s “cast of hundreds,” if not thousands, who make their living in part due to the DE FACTO co-creations of Jack Kirby (and Ditko), to pressure Marvel/Disney with the same pr backlash unless they do the moral/ethical right thing in the Kirby matter. The same battle must be waged for Bill Finger too, especially in light of the upcoming 3rd Dark Knight film, a billion-dollar property that Finger never saw a dime of, for the character he legitimately co-created and was screwed out of; see my Alter-Ego cover & article from 1999 (shameless plug coming!:) : http://www.arlenschumer.com/images/stories/history_pdfs/BATMAN_coverstory.pdf

  2. Arlen Schumer

    ..and onto quibble # 2; you wrote, “While is seems eminently suitable for artists that work under the Marvel Method, should it be applied to artists who worked from a script?” Harry, the first question i need to ask you, before answering your “quibble,” is: did you read my essay?:) Because I absolutely address that issue in a number of places–for example: “The overarching concept of the Auteur Theory of Comics is that it applies to any artist who does the visualizing of a comic book story, because the act of illustrating a comic book script—whether old-school full-script “DC style,” “Marvel style,” or whatever style—makes that artist a de facto auteur of the final “product” and therefore a de facto 50/50 co-creator of the work…Like film, comics are a synchronistic collaboration of words and pictures, ergo any form of a verbal script is only half of the art form known as the “comic book”—whether it’s as brief as Lee’s capsule directives to Kirby, or as extensively detailed as Alan Moore’s panel exegeses for Gibbons to follow in Watchmen.”

  3. Arlen Schumer

    ..and lastly, Harry, re: whether the Auteur Theory has any “bearing” on the legalities, from my essay’s conclusion: “Think of this Auteur Theory of Comics being the testimony in defense of Kirby that could have/should have followed Lee’s entirely self-serving testimony, enlightening the court, the media covering the trial, comic book readers and the general public to truly understand, maybe for the first time, the role of the artist in the de facto co-creation of a comic book work, and to the truth of the Marvel Method in actual practice, asserting an artist of the magnitude of Jack “King” Kirby his morally and ethically rightful place as the auteur of the Marvel Comics Universe.”

  4. Harry Post author

    Arlen,

    About your reply to quibble #1. You may say that “you could care less about the legalities” but your presentation and the essay that was derived from that presentation included comments about the legality. That includes the conclusion you quote from. All I am saying it is now time to end referring to the legal questions at all.l

    About your reply to quibble #2. Sure I read your essay and was at the original presentation, but did you read the title to my post? It was “My Two Cents”. You may be satisfied with applying the title auteur/author to comic book artists who worked from scripts but I am uncomfortable with using the same designation for artists working from scripts as compared to the Marvel Method.

  5. Arlen Schumer

    Harry–to pt.1: you say “now is the time to end referring to the legal questions at all”–but I’m NOT arguing the legalities themselves, which is EXACTLY what I’m TRYING to “leave behind,” only trying to elevate the discussion ABOVE the legalities and into the moral/ethical plane (where the siegel & shuster victory happened); especially because Team Lee is constantly using their legal victories as a defacto conclusion that Lee is sole creator. And to pt. 2: you wrote in your original post, “However to me there still seems a great difference between artists who worked the Marvel Method and those who worked from scripts.,” but you didn’t go on to say what that “great difference” is; then, re: your last post/comment? yes, I am indeed “satisfied” with “applying the title auteur/author to comic book artists who worked from scripts”–but backed it up with the bulk of what is, essentially, what my Auteur essay is partly about–but you say, “I am uncomfortable with using the same designation for artists working from scripts as compared to the Marvel Method.” So what are you “uncomfortable” about–and why didn’t my essay/presentation NOT make you “comfortable”?

  6. Harry Post author

    Arlen,

    You may say you are leaving the legalities behind, but you seem to let the “Team Lee” make you do otherwise. Like I said, it is time to leave such talk behind.

    I could accept the using the auteur/author term for comic book artists working from scripts, but then I would want some term to distinguish those artists from those working the Marvel Method like Kirby. I believe the Marvel Method resulted in a much more important contribution from the artist.

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