10 People Who Changed The Comic Book Industry Forever

The visionaries that made the medium.

Jack Kirby
DC Comics

Chronicling the evolution of the comic book medium and those who were most responsible for it is a pretty difficult one, to say the least. Countless creators have all managed to leave an impact on the industry in some form or another, and with influence manifesting on the page as much as it has off it, even recently, it's clear that more change is yet to come.

And, to that end, it's also clear that there are way more than just ten people who've set the course for comics this past century. Many, in fact, have been stricken from the historical record, marginalised or even just forgotten, with creative disputes, legal discrepancies and work-for-hire contracts distorting the creative processes that gave birth to the medium's most iconic features.

Bill Finger, the newly rediscovered creator of Batman, is a testament to that.

Things are getting better though, and while there are still major strides to be made in many respects, that doesn't make celebrating those creators who did change the medium for the better any more difficult, particularly when they're as far-reaching as they are.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.