The comics industry is meant to be a place where dreams come true, and if you only spent your time reading the comics you love that would probably be the case. Sadly, the reality is that the industry is a precarious place fraught with all sorts of danger, the biggest of course being that Marvel and DC could screw a creator royally at a moment's notice.
The Big Two's long documented mistreatment of comics creators is - as you may suspect - nothing new. The creators of the very first American superhero, Superman, were left high and dry by their publisher, while even the King of Comics himself, Jack Kirby, found himself in constant conflict with the two biggest comics publishers.
It's a sad story, and it's also one that tragically repeats itself in pretty much every age in some form or another.
Whether it's writers and artists being poorly compensated, creators being forced to abandon specific plot lines due to bizarre editorial policy or even the misattribution of credit, the comics industry boasts an appallingly long history of creator mistreatment - one that looks set to persist into the next decade...
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.
