In other fields—such as comics, recorded music, or motion pictures—creator ownership has traditionally been uncommon, with either work for hire or publisher purchase of the material being standard practice.
[6] The short-lived genre publisher Atlas/Seaboard Comics, which operated from 1974 to 1975, offered some of the highest rates in the industry, plus return of artwork to artists and author rights to original character creations.
Adams attempted to form the Comics Creators Guild, with a contentious meeting in May 1978 attended by 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.
[citation needed] In addition, Adams, along with the Joker creator Jerry Robinson,[11] notably and vocally helped lead the lobbying efforts that resulted in Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster receiving decades-overdue credit and some financial remuneration from Superman publisher DC Comics.
[13] In 1980, Marvel created the mature readers anthology Epic Illustrated, offering its writers and artists ownership rights and royalties in place of the industry-standard work for hire contracts.
[17][18] 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.
[27] 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.
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.
In the end, however, many prominent comic book professionals, including some involved in its drafting, hold that the Creator's Bill of Rights itself had little or no impact on the industry.
Propelled by star power and upset that they did not own the popular characters they created for Marvel, several illustrators, including the X-Men's Jim Lee, The New Mutants/X-Force's Rob Liefeld, and Spider-Man's Todd McFarlane formed Image, an umbrella label under which several autonomous, creator-owned companies existed.
Many popular creators followed Image's lead and attempted to use their star power to launch their own series; ones for which they would have licensing rights and editorial control.
Chris Claremont, famous for his long run as the writer of Uncanny X-Men, created Sovereign Seven for DC; Joe Madureira, also made popular by Uncanny X-Men, launched Battle Chasers for WildStorm Productions; and Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross, and Brent Anderson created Astro City for Image.
From the start, Vertigo founding editor Karen Berger was committed to creator-owned projects, working on several "[her]self with new writers and artists" as well as established names, with the express intention of "trying to bring new people into the industry, as well as use some of the best creators in comics".
[citation needed] In 1994, Dark Horse Comics founded the Legend imprint in part to provide star creators like Frank Miller and John Byrne an avenue for creator-owned projects.