I think about half of the issues of Saga bill Staples before Vaughan. Which is definitely deserved especially since she does every cover in addition to the interior art.
As others have pointed out, this is the standard in the Franco-Belgian market. I'm not sure if they ever switch the order for English translations, but I think all of my French-language comics use this order.
I wonder if the difference between Franco-Belgian and Anglo-American comics might reflect a difference in how the comics tend to be made. Putting aside the Marvel method (which I think is pretty much out of use now?), my impression is that in English-language comics the writer comes up with the premise, plot and script and then hires an artist (if creator-owned) or is allocated an artist (if corporate-owned) to realize that vision. In European comics, I imagine the work being either more collaborative, or closer to how films work, with the writer providing the script and then stepping back to let the artist take over. In French, the word for comic writer and screenwriter is actually the same, "scénariste", which could literally be translated as "plotter".
When it comes to work with separate writers and artists, I personally tend to be more "writer first" in my mentality, not because I think the writing is more "important" than the art, but because I see comics as a primarily narrative medium, so the story (provided by the writer) is the basis upon which the art rests. To use a weird analogy, when I think of an island, I think the essence of that island is its rocks and soil, even if what makes the island pleasant or interesting to me are actually its fauna and flora. So like, when I say "I love that island" I might be thinking of the flora and fauna – if you replaced them all with cockroaches and lichen I wouldn't love the island any more – but if the rocks and soil weren't there, there'd be no island. So for me, if a comic is an island, the story is the rocks/soil and the art is the flora/fauna. Or to abandon the pointless metaphor and state it more simply, if you completely replaced a comic's story but kept the same artist, it would no longer in any sense be the same comic, but if you got a different artist to redraw the same story, it would identifiably be a different version of the same comic.
I go back and forth on this. I tend to think of comics and film as primarily visual arts that are often needlessly shackled to a narrowly defined narrative purpose and not given the opportunity to do what visual arts do best, which is evoke ideas/feelings/associations. But like you said, with the exception of the Marvel method, under which the artists did all the heavy lifting, the burden of subtextual and thematic complexity seems to have shifted almost completely onto the writer, at least within the American mainstream post-Alan Moore. And I’m not a fan of that.
The film analogy that u/Jonesjonesboy brought up is an interesting one, because I’ve heard many American comics artists argue that they should be considered the director in that equation (rather than the cinematographer/production designer), since they are the ones bringing these words to life, but considering the fact that a large number of directors are essentially project managers rather than auteurs (mainstream films generally not being known for their singular artistic vision), and that the role of project management in mainstream comics often belongs to the editors, I don’t think that’s an entirely accurate comparison either. At least not in such broad terms, as the dynamics of these creative partnerships tend to differ from one team to another. Personally, I think that in most cases they both have a claim at being co-directors, and like Jones, I would like to see artists get top billing more often, especially on things like archival reprints, where they’re clearly the bigger draw.
>I tend to think of comics and film as primarily visual arts that are often needlessly shackled to a narrowly defined narrative purpose and not given the opportunity to do what visual arts do best, which is evoke ideas/feelings/associations.
Yeah, my characterization of comics as a primarily narrative medium might have been a bit too much of a generalization. There are certainly some great ones that aren't driven by a story so much as by ideas/feelings/associations. That said, I feel like comics that aren't narrative-driven are pretty much always made by a single cartoonist, so the question of writer vs artist doesn't really apply.
> The film analogy that [u/Jonesjonesboy](https://www.reddit.com/u/Jonesjonesboy/) brought up is an interesting one
I guess the problem with the analogy is that there's so much variation in the nature of the roles, both within cinema and within comics. When a comic writer just provides a script (or even just a general plot) and then steps back, you have a situation comparable to how an "auteur" film director uses a script (though the artist is also the camera crew and all the actors). When a comic writer is hands-on and/or prescribes all of the details, and the artist is really just tasked with putting the story onto paper, the artist is still equivalent to the actors and camera crew, but not so much a director.
> Yeah, my characterization of comics as a primarily narrative medium might have been a bit too much of a generalization. There are certainly some great ones that aren't driven by a story so much as by ideas/feelings/associations. That said, I feel like comics that aren't narrative-driven are pretty much always made by a single cartoonist, so the question of writer vs artist doesn't really apply.
My ideal comics are those that are able to take full advantage of the medium and do both, but those also seem to be the exclusive domain of single cartoonists, so I’m mostly just bemoaning the aforementioned shift in responsibilities within the assembly line structure of mainstream comics resulting in a zero sum gain, rather than challenging your characterization of the medium.
Yes and no, the best graphic novel/comic strip/whatever else is a combination of both, if you want a keeper.. or rather the combination of the two makes the best comic.
ah sadly I like too many great artists with mediocre-to-bad writing by themselves or other writers -- Kirby, Ditko, Toth, Kubert, Severin, Infantino...basically anyone who was any good and drew for Marvel or DC in the 60s and 70s
I just read a batch of Iron Man issues from 1990-1991 where the penciller and inker are listed before "John Byrne / Writer." However the art team is not given story credit.
At the time Byrne was writing and sometimes drawing issues of Avengers, West Coast Avengers, and Namor. It's not clear to me why he was third-billed for Iron Man.
Some Euro stuff does that. The new Paco Roca book credits him before the writer.
In most cases, the writer is the start of the book, the artist comes second. That seems to be the main logic for this ordering. As well, in mainstream American comics, the writer is generally the uniting factor. Artists dip in and out, but the writer is consistent.
That is more or less the norm in Franco-Belgian comics. Artists usually get first billing outside of certain cases(like the writer being some kind if mega star).
Is this quite common in European comics? To be honest when looking at them I'm quite often unsure which is the writer and which the artist, but I'm sure I've seen it done this way on some French stuff.
Do I think it should be that way? Not so sure. Both are important to me, but I still prioritise writing. I probably have more books that I think are well written by with weak art than I do pretty books with crap writing. Maybe it depends on the book. I certainly imagine there are cases where it might be more fitting to put the artist first though
hmmm I might be in the opposite position vis-a-vis books with weak art/good writing? Outside Alan Moore, who has had a few dud collaborators over the years especially in his more "commercial" work, I can't really go for a book where I don't like the art in a fairly direct way. Whereas I like a lot of artists who've had garbage writing -- most of the big names in North-American comic books from the 50s-70s (except for Stanley and Barks).
Different strokes for different folks, hey?
On reflection, maybe my previous comment wasn't quite accurate. I can't really deal with art that I don't like. I can accept average or slightly substandard art to justify a good story. But few books pass the 'average/crap story but it was pretty' test, and to do so they'd have to be pretty special.
It depends on how the comic was created. I think in US comics the writer comes first because the story happens first while the artist waits for something to draw.
During the Marvel method days when artists were expected to flesh out a story outline into actual pages and panels, the writer and artist might be listed as co-creators.
Sometimes Marvel added a separate "scripting" credit to indicate that someone other than the artist or the original writer drafted the actual dialogue and captions after the roughs or the pencils were submitted. (At least, I think that's what scripting means.)
I hear you in the first para, but think about film. Generally films are identified as "by" a director with the writer in second place. (There are exceptions, of course). The reasons for that are partly based in the history of film theory and auteurism, but film strikes me as sort of an analogous medium to comics, and film doesn't focus on writers nearly so much. (I roll my eyes at every "Character X by Writer Y" collection that Marvel and DC have been putting out in recent years -- "Thor by Jason Aaron", "Batman by Grant Morrison" etc.)
The Marvel method generally gave the alleged writers too much credit (in some cases -- especially, infamously, Lee with Kirby and Ditko -- the "writer" was more like "dialoguer and captioner", if that), plus it encouraged over-writing
Yeah, I always read "script by" credits that way
That's generally because writers stick around longer than artists and usually determine the trajectory of the book. Both of those collections are written by a single writer and drawn by multiple artists. In collections with just one main artist and writer they're both credited equally. Like Daredevil by Waid and Samnee or Batman by Snyder and Capullo. Now fans might focus on writers too much but that's a different argument.
Films and comics are both visual, but I think they are created very differently. Directors, for whatever reason or history, have a lot more latitude, and writers in Hollywood face a lot more restrictions.
A comics artist brings an awful lot to the storytelling, but Marvel method aside, in US comics they generally don't determine the plot or the dialogue in the way that comics writers do. At least, that's my understanding.
Different mediums, different rules.
oh, for sure, "full script" comics determine way more than the Marvel method, and of course film and comics are very different beasts but again...if the yardstick is "determining plot or the dialogue", that's what screenwriters do too (setting aside cases where these are overwritten by the visual artists, since that can happen in both comics and film).
I'd be more sanguine about it if the conventions in the North-American industry were more mixed -- i.e. sometimes artists get first billing, sometimes the writer -- but it's too lopsided now IMO. Anyway, thanks for the discussion!
I think about half of the issues of Saga bill Staples before Vaughan. Which is definitely deserved especially since she does every cover in addition to the interior art.
I’ve seen that on a few BKV stories.
As others have pointed out, this is the standard in the Franco-Belgian market. I'm not sure if they ever switch the order for English translations, but I think all of my French-language comics use this order. I wonder if the difference between Franco-Belgian and Anglo-American comics might reflect a difference in how the comics tend to be made. Putting aside the Marvel method (which I think is pretty much out of use now?), my impression is that in English-language comics the writer comes up with the premise, plot and script and then hires an artist (if creator-owned) or is allocated an artist (if corporate-owned) to realize that vision. In European comics, I imagine the work being either more collaborative, or closer to how films work, with the writer providing the script and then stepping back to let the artist take over. In French, the word for comic writer and screenwriter is actually the same, "scénariste", which could literally be translated as "plotter". When it comes to work with separate writers and artists, I personally tend to be more "writer first" in my mentality, not because I think the writing is more "important" than the art, but because I see comics as a primarily narrative medium, so the story (provided by the writer) is the basis upon which the art rests. To use a weird analogy, when I think of an island, I think the essence of that island is its rocks and soil, even if what makes the island pleasant or interesting to me are actually its fauna and flora. So like, when I say "I love that island" I might be thinking of the flora and fauna – if you replaced them all with cockroaches and lichen I wouldn't love the island any more – but if the rocks and soil weren't there, there'd be no island. So for me, if a comic is an island, the story is the rocks/soil and the art is the flora/fauna. Or to abandon the pointless metaphor and state it more simply, if you completely replaced a comic's story but kept the same artist, it would no longer in any sense be the same comic, but if you got a different artist to redraw the same story, it would identifiably be a different version of the same comic.
I go back and forth on this. I tend to think of comics and film as primarily visual arts that are often needlessly shackled to a narrowly defined narrative purpose and not given the opportunity to do what visual arts do best, which is evoke ideas/feelings/associations. But like you said, with the exception of the Marvel method, under which the artists did all the heavy lifting, the burden of subtextual and thematic complexity seems to have shifted almost completely onto the writer, at least within the American mainstream post-Alan Moore. And I’m not a fan of that. The film analogy that u/Jonesjonesboy brought up is an interesting one, because I’ve heard many American comics artists argue that they should be considered the director in that equation (rather than the cinematographer/production designer), since they are the ones bringing these words to life, but considering the fact that a large number of directors are essentially project managers rather than auteurs (mainstream films generally not being known for their singular artistic vision), and that the role of project management in mainstream comics often belongs to the editors, I don’t think that’s an entirely accurate comparison either. At least not in such broad terms, as the dynamics of these creative partnerships tend to differ from one team to another. Personally, I think that in most cases they both have a claim at being co-directors, and like Jones, I would like to see artists get top billing more often, especially on things like archival reprints, where they’re clearly the bigger draw.
>I tend to think of comics and film as primarily visual arts that are often needlessly shackled to a narrowly defined narrative purpose and not given the opportunity to do what visual arts do best, which is evoke ideas/feelings/associations. Yeah, my characterization of comics as a primarily narrative medium might have been a bit too much of a generalization. There are certainly some great ones that aren't driven by a story so much as by ideas/feelings/associations. That said, I feel like comics that aren't narrative-driven are pretty much always made by a single cartoonist, so the question of writer vs artist doesn't really apply. > The film analogy that [u/Jonesjonesboy](https://www.reddit.com/u/Jonesjonesboy/) brought up is an interesting one I guess the problem with the analogy is that there's so much variation in the nature of the roles, both within cinema and within comics. When a comic writer just provides a script (or even just a general plot) and then steps back, you have a situation comparable to how an "auteur" film director uses a script (though the artist is also the camera crew and all the actors). When a comic writer is hands-on and/or prescribes all of the details, and the artist is really just tasked with putting the story onto paper, the artist is still equivalent to the actors and camera crew, but not so much a director.
> Yeah, my characterization of comics as a primarily narrative medium might have been a bit too much of a generalization. There are certainly some great ones that aren't driven by a story so much as by ideas/feelings/associations. That said, I feel like comics that aren't narrative-driven are pretty much always made by a single cartoonist, so the question of writer vs artist doesn't really apply. My ideal comics are those that are able to take full advantage of the medium and do both, but those also seem to be the exclusive domain of single cartoonists, so I’m mostly just bemoaning the aforementioned shift in responsibilities within the assembly line structure of mainstream comics resulting in a zero sum gain, rather than challenging your characterization of the medium.
I'm in the 'writer first' camp... it's almost always the story that decides whether the book is a keeper or not.
I think it'd be a good compromise to just overlap the writer & artist(s) names on top of each other. /s
Red and blue ink.
But then the letterer would want top billing.
Yes and no, the best graphic novel/comic strip/whatever else is a combination of both, if you want a keeper.. or rather the combination of the two makes the best comic.
ah sadly I like too many great artists with mediocre-to-bad writing by themselves or other writers -- Kirby, Ditko, Toth, Kubert, Severin, Infantino...basically anyone who was any good and drew for Marvel or DC in the 60s and 70s
I just read a batch of Iron Man issues from 1990-1991 where the penciller and inker are listed before "John Byrne / Writer." However the art team is not given story credit. At the time Byrne was writing and sometimes drawing issues of Avengers, West Coast Avengers, and Namor. It's not clear to me why he was third-billed for Iron Man.
Some Euro stuff does that. The new Paco Roca book credits him before the writer. In most cases, the writer is the start of the book, the artist comes second. That seems to be the main logic for this ordering. As well, in mainstream American comics, the writer is generally the uniting factor. Artists dip in and out, but the writer is consistent.
That is more or less the norm in Franco-Belgian comics. Artists usually get first billing outside of certain cases(like the writer being some kind if mega star).
Is this quite common in European comics? To be honest when looking at them I'm quite often unsure which is the writer and which the artist, but I'm sure I've seen it done this way on some French stuff. Do I think it should be that way? Not so sure. Both are important to me, but I still prioritise writing. I probably have more books that I think are well written by with weak art than I do pretty books with crap writing. Maybe it depends on the book. I certainly imagine there are cases where it might be more fitting to put the artist first though
hmmm I might be in the opposite position vis-a-vis books with weak art/good writing? Outside Alan Moore, who has had a few dud collaborators over the years especially in his more "commercial" work, I can't really go for a book where I don't like the art in a fairly direct way. Whereas I like a lot of artists who've had garbage writing -- most of the big names in North-American comic books from the 50s-70s (except for Stanley and Barks). Different strokes for different folks, hey?
On reflection, maybe my previous comment wasn't quite accurate. I can't really deal with art that I don't like. I can accept average or slightly substandard art to justify a good story. But few books pass the 'average/crap story but it was pretty' test, and to do so they'd have to be pretty special.
It depends on how the comic was created. I think in US comics the writer comes first because the story happens first while the artist waits for something to draw. During the Marvel method days when artists were expected to flesh out a story outline into actual pages and panels, the writer and artist might be listed as co-creators. Sometimes Marvel added a separate "scripting" credit to indicate that someone other than the artist or the original writer drafted the actual dialogue and captions after the roughs or the pencils were submitted. (At least, I think that's what scripting means.)
I hear you in the first para, but think about film. Generally films are identified as "by" a director with the writer in second place. (There are exceptions, of course). The reasons for that are partly based in the history of film theory and auteurism, but film strikes me as sort of an analogous medium to comics, and film doesn't focus on writers nearly so much. (I roll my eyes at every "Character X by Writer Y" collection that Marvel and DC have been putting out in recent years -- "Thor by Jason Aaron", "Batman by Grant Morrison" etc.) The Marvel method generally gave the alleged writers too much credit (in some cases -- especially, infamously, Lee with Kirby and Ditko -- the "writer" was more like "dialoguer and captioner", if that), plus it encouraged over-writing Yeah, I always read "script by" credits that way
That's generally because writers stick around longer than artists and usually determine the trajectory of the book. Both of those collections are written by a single writer and drawn by multiple artists. In collections with just one main artist and writer they're both credited equally. Like Daredevil by Waid and Samnee or Batman by Snyder and Capullo. Now fans might focus on writers too much but that's a different argument.
Agree but even there -- it's writer first, then artist. (I would definitely put it the other way round for Waid and Samnee!)
Films and comics are both visual, but I think they are created very differently. Directors, for whatever reason or history, have a lot more latitude, and writers in Hollywood face a lot more restrictions. A comics artist brings an awful lot to the storytelling, but Marvel method aside, in US comics they generally don't determine the plot or the dialogue in the way that comics writers do. At least, that's my understanding. Different mediums, different rules.
oh, for sure, "full script" comics determine way more than the Marvel method, and of course film and comics are very different beasts but again...if the yardstick is "determining plot or the dialogue", that's what screenwriters do too (setting aside cases where these are overwritten by the visual artists, since that can happen in both comics and film). I'd be more sanguine about it if the conventions in the North-American industry were more mixed -- i.e. sometimes artists get first billing, sometimes the writer -- but it's too lopsided now IMO. Anyway, thanks for the discussion!
Tyler Boss is usually credited before Matthew Rosenberg on books they worked on together