The fight over creators’ rights seems like ancient lore these days, but for those of us who remember Destroyer Duck and all the fuss that spawned the Gerber vs Marvel fight, it lingers. The movie Howard the Duck tanked, but his cameo at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy reminded me of those old battlegrounds. But not all the battles were fought with Marvel and DC.
Wally Wood, despite being famous from as early as EC Comics, fought his own battles. He was one of the people who created witzend (issue #1 in 1966), the first pro fanzine in which all material was owned by its creators. Commercially a disaster, it did spark the first discussions around “Who owns this idea, anyway?” Other prozines would follow like Phase 1, Hot Stuf’ and Star*Reach. The seeds planted in the 1960s would bloom in the 1970s and 1980s, first as “underground comics,” but eventually as creator-owned and published works like The First Kingdom, Cerebus the Aardvark, and Elf Quest.
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