Should Comic Artists Sign their Work?

[Dunder Ed]

Should artists sign their works? IPC have let them sign for years, even though some didn't, but DC Thomson have only just lets them sign it. At DCT it was an honour to be able to sign your work back in the day, an honour bestowed to Dudley W and Alan M. Should signing work be encouraged or still left as an honour for the best artists? It does make it easier to find out who drew the strip. I'd be interested to know what you guys think, especially those that do draw strips for DCT.

[Nigel Auchterlounie]

I always just stuck my name on it some where. I didn't realize that there was or used to be a policy on it.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, until the late 90s, signatures on DCT strips were a rare sight. Nowadays, the majority of strips are signed.

[Lew Stringer]

Considering comic publishers have built their empires on the work of writers and artists, yes, of course they should be credited.

Fortunately when I started out in the business company policies had shifted and artists were allowed to sign their work. I've always added a discrete signature to my strips where, hopefully, it doesn't distract from the flow of the story.

Nigel, yes, sadly for decades most artists were forbidden to sign their pages, and art assistants would scrutinize the artwork ready to white out any trace of a signature. Some Fleetway artists in the 1960s became adept at hiding their signature or initials in the shading of walls or hedges for example, but quite often they couldn't elude the process white. (Oddly, although Fleetway and Odhams were both part of IPC, Odhams did allow signatures but Fleetway didn't. However this was drastically "remedied" when IPC took more control in 1969 and credits vanished from most strips.)

Even now, writers are still mostly uncredited in humour comics, which is a shame I think.

I remember being told by an ex-IPC staff member that the reason given for denying credits was that it'd distract readers and spoil the illusion that the strip wasn't real (!??!) ...but more likely it was to stop rival publishers tracking down the artists and offering them an incentive to work for them instead.

I think the anonymity of creators is partly responsible for the British public's dismissive attitude towards comics. They know the characters, but not the creators. (I've even met people who think comics are just "made by the printers".) Yet many people know for example that Hergé created Tintin, and that Reg Smythe did Andy Capp, because the creators were clearly credited.

Stan Lee introduced full credits to Marvel Comics in the 1960s. He was far from being the first editor to allow credits, but he did it in such a brilliant showmanship way that it really boosted the company profile, made the readers feel closer to the creators, and added an extra sales incentive as readers hunted down other comics by their favourite artists. In short, it was a benefit to the company, not a drawback.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Lots of IPC artists used to sign their work in the 70s: this is how I first discovered the names behind the works of Robert T. Nixon, Brian Walker, Trevor Metcalfe, Sid Burgon, Terry Bave and many more.

I certainly didn't mind these good people signing their artwork if they wanted to, but I always more admired and respected those who deliberately never signed their work: Mike Lacey, Reg Parlett, Graham Allen and others.....[and, of course, the majority of D C T artists!]

I always appreciated the aura of mystery that surrounded those who chose to remain anonymous:

WHY are they remaining anonymous? Are they living a secret double-life? Are they hiding from the tax man? Are they a member of the Royal Family? Are they drawing from jail? etc etc etc.......



once the name was 'out of the bag', I always felt the link between reader and artist was more 'humanized', and lost something. Today of course, you can converse directly with many comics artists direct on forums like this one: this was unthinkable back in the pre-web days, you often went years [and in some cases decades ] before you even discovered the name of specific artists: today, you can sometimes find out if they are off to have a cup of tea------ in my case, it took me over 20 years to discover the name of my favourite comics artist.


The explosion in communications technology is a great thing in many ways, but to me it has 'normalized' the status of many artists, and brought everything down to boring old Earth----- at one time they seemed to be an elite force removed from us mere mortals.......

[Lew Stringer]

Lots of IPC artists used to sign their work in the 70s: this is how I first discovered the names behind the works of Robert T. Nixon, Brian Walker, Trevor Metcalfe, Sid Burgon, Terry Bave and many more.

I don't think they were allowed to sign their work when IPC first took over though. Were there any signatures in the early issues of Whizzer & Chips?

The IPC adventure comics certainly had a downer on credits in the early 1970s.

I've always thought it was curious that some artists chose not to sign their pages. Reg Parlett certainly had the opportunity in the late 70s and early 80s, but declined for some reason. Perhaps he and others considered it egotistical, conditioned by years of A.P. and Fleetway policy denying them the right to sign their work?

[dandy mad]

Don't see an issue with artists signing their own work after all they drew the strip

[Marionette]

I think writers and artists should be credited, no question. However, I do think that this has lead to something of a superstar system in America, where some creators have become very successful despite their talents, rather than because of them, and individual expression is encouraged to the point where characters who don't have some obvious symbol on their chest can be unrecognisable from issue to issue.

I mean I'm all for individual expression, but when you are drawing a franchise title like Superman, I think I should be able to recognise Lois Lane without having another character point her out.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

I seem to remember Denis Gifford signing his work on 'Koo-Koo Klub' in very early WHIZZER and CHIPS, Lew: but yes, it was probably rarer in the very early 70s: I'm not exactly sure precisely when a lot of IPC artists started signing their names, but it was pretty common by the mid-70s: I'll conduct a quick search of the IPC comics I do have from the 70s.


EDIT: I just looked through every page of the debut copy of SHIVER and SHAKE, from March 1973, and sure enough, no signatures to be seen anywhere; however I have some copies of MONSTER FUN a mere two years later, and I'm pretty certain that Les Barton and Leo Baxendale are credited within these: maybe IPC artists started signing around the time of WHOOPEE! [1974]?

There was definitely a period in the fairly early-mid 70s when the floodgates opened up and a good few artists started signing their work regularly......

[Lew Stringer]

EDIT: I just looked through every page of the debut copy of SHIVER and SHAKE, from March 1973, and sure enough, no signatures to be seen anywhere; however I have some copies of MONSTER FUN a mere two years later, and I'm pretty certain that Les Barton and Leo Baxendale are credited within these: maybe IPC artists started signing around the time of WHOOPEE! [1974]?

There was definitely a period in the fairly early-mid 70s when the floodgates opened up and a good few artists started signing their work regularly......

It was closer to the late Seventies when it started to become commonplace at IPC and later than that at D.C. Thomson, but my point was that for decades the major UK publishers didn't allow most artists to sign their pages.

A.P. allowed Roy Wilson so sign some covers and annual pages, people such as Reg Wooton had a special deal to allow a credit, and Hulton, City, and Odhams allowed signatures for some artists, but most A.P., Fleetway, and D.C. Thomson artists were anonymous for years.

There is the fear, as Marionette said, of creators becoming bigger than their characters, but that only really applies if you target the fan demographic I think. Most younger kids wouldn't be so easily swayed as they'd still favour the characters over the artists, but at the same time it's nice to let them know there are human beings behind the stories.

Forcing artists to be anonymous was such an outlandish idea it's a shame it held sway for so long. After all, if a music CD, a film or a book had no credits we'd think it pretty odd. I suppose that comics were regarded as so lowbrow and disposable (and still are by many) that they weren't considered important enough. In some cases even certain artists thought they were slumming it drawing comics so wouldn't sign them even if it was allowed.

I'm glad things changed. These days with creators plugging their work on the Internet and at conventions publishers gain tons of free publicity and extra sales. It's a win-win situation for both creator and publisher.

[Dunder Ed]

Back when DCT wouldn't let anyone sign their work was there any way to know who did the work. Another question in the time when IPC was letting people sign would they allow the ghost artists to sign? Back in the final decade of the Buster and Whizzer and Chips readers would often ask in letters who the artists of specific strips were, IPC were too happy to oblige.

[Lew Stringer]

Back when DCT wouldn't let anyone sign their work was there any way to know who did the work.

Sometimes you'd be lucky to spot their style if they did some signed work for a magazine or newspaper for example, but otherwise, no. I'm sure some editors had no trouble tracing them through agencies though. (Lots of artists used agents back then.)

Another question in the time when IPC was letting people sign would they allow the ghost artists to sign? Back in the final decade of the Buster and Whizzer and Chips readers would often ask in letters who the artists of specific strips were, IPC were too happy to oblige.

Depends on the ghosting. My first IPC job was ghosting a Tom Paterson 'Scooper' strip for a Jackpot Annual and I was allowed to sign it. That was in the mid 1980s though. I'm sure that 15 years earlier it'd have been whited out.

[Dunder Ed]

Other than Dudley W and Alan M was there anyone else who was allowed to sign their artwork?

[Lew Stringer]

Other than Dudley W and Alan M was there anyone else who was allowed to sign their artwork?

At DCT years ago? Not as far as I know.

Bear in mind though that even Dudley Watkins didn't sign his children's comics pages throughout his career. (Can't remember at the moment when the signatures stopped.) I had no idea who drew Desperate Dan until I was bought a Broons book in 1971 and spotted the same style.

[philcom55]

I think DC Thomson made another exception in allowing John Millar Watt to sign his work for their annuals during the 1960s.

Oddly enough they never seemed to have a problem with cartoonists signing strips in their newspapers or women's periodicals.

- Phil R.