An e-mail from Erik Larsen...

Above: My pal Brandon Carr sent me this shiny Erik Larsen sketch.

Albert-

I have never understood what point of a "Creator's Bill of Rights" is.

Who decided what creator spoke for me and decided what rights I did or did not have? In what way has that been adhered to or enforced?

I have often heard it spoken about in reverence by the people who were there but I have never seen it, read it, or had it cited by anybody in all my years as a creator or publisher. It seems as pointless and arbitrary as me naming individual slices of Kraft cheese slices before I devour them. Okay--so Percy Pro decided I should be able to reprint my comics...why does that hold any weight with anybody? We're not forming a country and establishing rules--a few guys got together and made a list of "rights" with no authority invested in them by anybody.

I not only don't think it's "viable today" but as far as I can tell it's never been viable.

Which is not to say that creators don't have rights--of course they do--but the people who hammered out the "Creator's Bill of Rights" weren't the ones who determined what those rights are or were--those rights were determined in courts of law all across this land. I suspect that any judge would not put much stock in any Bill of Rights cobbled together by a small group of comics pros holed up for a long weekend somewhere.

-Erik Larsen

Image Comics
2134 Allston Way, 2nd Floor
Berkeley CA 94704
(510) 644-4980