Issues covered by the Bill included giving creators proper credit for their characters and stories, profit-sharing, distribution, fair contracts, licensing, and return of original artwork.
[citation needed] Creator's rights has long been a source of conflict in the American comics industry, going back to the medium's late 1930s origins.
[citation needed] Creator-owned titles began to appear during the late-1960s underground comix movement, including the publishing collective Cartoonists Co-Op Press, and the Robert Crumb-led United Cartoon Workers of America.
In 1978, Adams helped form the Comics Creators Guild, which over three dozen comic-book writers and artists joined, including Cary Bates, Howard Chaykin, Chris Claremont, Steve Ditko, Michael Golden, Archie Goodwin, Paul Levitz, Bob McLeod, Frank Miller, Carl Potts, Marshall Rogers, Jim Shooter, Walt Simonson, Jim Starlin, Len Wein, and Marv Wolfman.
[5][6] This decision helped lead to the modern industry's standard practice of returning original artwork to the artist, who can earn additional income from art sales to collectors.
[8] Moore's outspoken opinions and principles, particularly on the subject of creator's rights and ownership, would see him burn bridges with a number of other publishers over the course of his career.
[17] Sim was motivated to bring together the eventual signatories to the Bill by a 1987 incident surrounding The Puma Blues, a comic book published through his company Aardvark One International.
Sim soon enlisted the support of self-publishers, Mirage Studios founders, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, both of whom also used Diamond as a distributor.
[20][21] Sim believed that if a consensus could be reached among creators at the summit, he could ethically justify bypassing Diamond and selling directly to readers of Cerebus.
[25] According to Sim, the provision of the Bill that affirmed the creator's right to choose the means of distributing his or her work "was the answer that I had been looking for when the process got started.
Kevin and Peter promptly published a hardcover of the complete Turtles and sold it direct to their readers, helping to reinforce the point—we have the right to do this".
[26] Steve Bissette reflected in 2005 that "the Creator Bill of Rights is still as valid and relevant as ever", but lamented that it had received a "paucity of attention or discussion since" its debut.
[31] Erik Larsen, an artist, publisher and cofounder of Image Comics, denied that it had any impact on Image Comics or the industry in general, stating that "[t]he Creators’ Bill of Rights was always a puzzle to me… Those who drafted and signed it, talk about the Creators’ Bill of Rights as though it’s a document of some historic import, I'll grant you, but outside of those who signed it—I've never had it brought up or even mentioned in passing to me by anybody in the industry".