jasonderoga86

Obviously, I have a problem with this. I’ve been reading up lately on how the industry is, in the words of Scott McCloud, “screwing the talent”. Black Panther writer and civil rights expert Ta-Nehisi Coates has said that he made pocket change from the Black Panther character while the two Black Panther films raked in so much dough one could get lost swimming in it. Jack Kirby, regarded by many as the King of Comics, famously said, “Kid… don’t do comics. Comics will break your heart.” Wally Wood, known for his work on Marvel’s Daredevil series (and designing/creating what would later be Daredevil’s well-known red costume), had been driven to the brink by all the pressures of the industry that he put a bullet in his head. He was quoted as saying, according to doing comics again, that “If I had to do it all over again, I’d cut off my hands.”

Why is it that the entertainment industry does this to its creators? I read the music/record industry takes the lion’s share of all its artists’ profit for their songs and albums. Makes you wonder if it's really the musicians who're suffering from illegal, free music downloads (not saying those downloads are right or legal, just stating this for this post). For the film industry, well, it’s deliberately and literally stealing profits from its actors with AI. That’s gotta be the biggest bitch-slap I’ve ever seen. That’s essentially saying, “Here’s a one-time payment. Now, by signing this contract, you are literally selling your image – features, voice, and all – to us. Afterwards, your image is stored in our archive, and you’re no longer entitled to any further compensation or profits from then on in. Don’t like it? Well then, there’s always McDonald’s.” When I hear the CEOs of the industry talking shit about the actors on strike, it really makes me angry. It reminds me of a retail job I once had, where people of my position (we were service clerks) agreed that though we portrayed the face of our store, that we were the reason for bringing customers in to make money for the company, we got paid the least. The management (that, in this retail job's case, was extremely incompetent and merciless) that never even so much as STEPPED OUT OF THEIR OFFICES to greet customers, got like what, 20x what we made. How in the hell does that make sense?