Creator Backlash/Comic Books

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Creator Backlash in Comic Books include:

  • Robert Crumb has come to hate Fritz The Cat, especially after the movie came out and he felt it ruined his work forever, so in a follow up comic he killed Fritz off and discontinued the books.
    • His single most hated work, however, is the "Keep On Truckin'" comic; mainly because of how well-known and overused it became, how closely identified he became with it, and the fact that no one else realized it was supposed to be a satire.
    • In a live appearance, he spoke about how much money other people have made off of that one work, screening it onto posters, shirts, the works, none of which he ever saw a dime from. He advised the audience to never ever ever ever so much as mention the words Keep On Truckin to him.
    • He's also indicated that he resents the cover of Big Brother and the Holding Company's Cheap Thrills because he was never paid for it.
  • Pierre "Peyo" Culliford hated The Smurfs, but continued to work on it because it was a Cash Cow Franchise. He had a lot of pressure from his publishing company, from the team that did the cartoon version, from some French TV animators (for those of you who remember French TV in the '90s: Dorothee), and of course from kids.
  • James O'Barr came to hate The Crow because it glorified revenge (though the fact that the comic's popularity and success indirectly resulted in Brandon Lee's death probably didn't help either). All royalties he received from the movie were donated to charity.
    • However, the Special Edition released in 2011 shows that now, O'Barr has come to terms with the work, seeing it as about true love and the importance of self-forgiveness. This is thanks in no small part to Brandon Lee's fiancée Eliza Hutton, with whom O'Barr became close.
  • Warren Ellis grew to despise Planetary and its fans after they constantly sent him e-mails asking when the new issue was coming out. However, the situation came to a boil after the death of Ellis's father. When he asked his fans not to contact him while he was in mourning, guess who kept on e-mailing him? There's probably a good reason the later issues were so slow to come out.
    • Though the backlash never seems to extend to the work itself, which never wavers in quality. He even wrote a final issue years after the series was thought to have been finished.
  • Dave Sim, the creator of Cerebus, gradually began to regret the female characters he created in the series (feeling they were idealistic and unrealistic depictions of women).
  • Similarly, Sonic the Comic writer Nigel Kitching expressed dislike for Amy Rose's development in the comic (which was actually the result of Executive Meddling insisting on having a more suitable female role model), resenting not having the freedom to develop her and making her one dimentional compared to her flawed male comrades.
  • Alan Moore seems to loathe all of his old works because of their hand in creating the Dark Age of comics.
    • It gets to an extent where he really has it in for DC. He has compared his relationship with the company to having a child you love, then having it kidnapped by gypsies in the night and every once in awhile they send you photographs of the kid working as a prostitute.
    • His loathing of the film adaptations of those same comics is particularly well-known; Moore goes uncredited in all.
  • At conventions, Kurt Busiek accompanies his signature on copies of Spider-Man/X-Factor: Shadowgames with the refrain, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
  • Although Joe Quesada was the true diabolical mastermind behind Spider-Man: One More Day, it was written by J. Michael Straczinsky, who absolutely hated it even as he was being paid to write it. He had asked that his name not be put on the infamous final issue (a request that was ignored) and tells people at conventions where to find Quesada as his own personal vengence.
    • JMS also hoped he could use OMD to undo "Sins Past", another story he wrote under protest (in his version the Goblin Twins were Peter and Gwen's kids; Quesada didn't like the idea of two teenagers having sex, and proposed the much less squicky idea of Osborn being the father). He was told he couldn't.