Bill Messner-Loebs Homeless in Detroit

[Shaka Zulu]

Once again, a comic book writer/artist is found to be in dire straights financially and health-wise:

According to a report from Fox 2 Detroit News, writer/artist Bill Messner-Loebs is homeless - living out of his car following a string of financial hardships.

Messner-Loebs is best known for his work for DC Comics in the 1980's and 1990's, including stints on The Flash, Impulse, Wonder Woman, Doctor Fate, and more, as well as co-writing The Maxx with Sam Keith.

Bill Messner-Loebs Homeless in Detroit

Although I'm glad to see organizations like Hero Initiative out there helping men like Messner-Loebs, one has to ask why, with all of the successful movie and TV properties out now about superheroes, these men (and some women) are nearly broke, homeless, starving and sick. What is it with the comics industry that this is happening all of the time?

 

[FormerLurker]

A lot of it is that the comics companies are either lax, or deliberately late, in giving both credit and compensation when properties the creators developed for them make the transition to the big, or small, screen. It's all about money, who has it, who's supposed to get some of it, and whether the former are willing to share with the latter when the time comes.

Hero Initiative was founded on the idea that these creators deserve whatever help they can get, from whoever they can get it from, until the publishers cough up the due compensation the creators deserve, so they don't end up in these situations. Far too many of them fall through the cracks one way or another.

I watched the video, and am happy that he is getting at least some help from someone. But it is insulting, and infuriating, that the comic companies, and especially their current editorial staff's, are abandoning such proven creators in favor of flavor-of-the-month types who can't be bothered to hit deadlines, or respect the characters they work on, just because they're older, and don't want to do the kinds of disrespectful to character and reader alike stories that the editors want.