When did creators started getting credits?

[drakeborough]

In the thread Copyright of Scrooge McDuck I learned that, in some countries, authors still don't get any credits.

Jan 17, 2017 0:17:03 GMT RobbK1 said:

We never got our names printed in the books in The Netherlands. But, in 1992, they started putting our names on the first page of our stories printed in books for Denmark, and all the other countries with Egmont franchises. I heard that that was due to Danish law, and also European law. I don't know if t was due to one or the other, or both. But, in 1995, and for a few years after, we no longer got our names in the books. Apparently, there was some confusion as to the wording or actual interpretation of those laws.  We started getting credits again in Egmont countries' books starting in 1998 or 1999. [...] In most Dutch books (other than the album collections for each artist), we still don't get any credits.

This surprised me: I knew some editors waited too many years to credit the writers and artists, but I didn't realize that in 2017 some editors would still refuse to credit them.

Since it would be off-topic to continue the discussion in the other thread, I'm opening a new one to ask this question: which countries still refuse to credit the authors? And as for countries that do credit them, when did the start?

I'll answer part of my own question by saying that in Italy creators started getting credits in 1988, the same year The Walt Disney Company Italia got the licence from Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. Originally it was just the first letter of the given name plus the surname, but since 1990 the given name is written in its entirety. Before 1988 there was only a special case: in Mickey's Inferno (1949) most panels of the story have lines of poetry, and the first panel says "verseggiatura di G. Martina" ("verses by G. Martina"); however, Martina was not credited for writing the story, nor was Bioletto for drawing it.

How about other countries?

[rasterax]

Around 1997 in Germany (and presumably other Egmont countries). First only in magazines, credits in pocket books followed a little later. Initially the writers were always listed as "co-writers" (as in, co-written with Walt Disney??).

[sirredknee]

Jan 20, 2017 11:26:54 GMT drakeborough said:

Before 1988 there was only a special case: in Mickey's Inferno (1949) most panels of the story have lines of poetry, and the first panel says "verseggiatura di G. Martina"

Not even credits for Barks' stuff? In Germany we had the Barks-only album series "Die besten Geschichten mit Donald Duck". Some of those earlier albums (from 1985 onwards) included the info "Idee und Zeichnung von Carl Barks" on the cover. It had to be stopped for later albums, though.

[drakeborough]

Jan 20, 2017 12:24:35 GMT sirredknee said:

Jan 20, 2017 11:26:54 GMT drakeborough said:

Before 1988 there was only a special case: in Mickey's Inferno (1949) most panels of the story have lines of poetry, and the first panel says "verseggiatura di G. Martina"

Not even credits for Barks' stuff? In Germany we had the Barks-only album series "Die besten Geschichten mit Donald Duck". Some of those earlier albums (from 1985 onwards) included the info "Idee und Zeichnung von Carl Barks" on the cover. It had to be stopped for later albums, though.

Oh, don't get me wrong, even before 1988 there were a few Italian album series which printed only Barks stories and gave him credits. Notably, the Italian volume Vita e Dollari di Paperon De' Paperoni (August 1968) is regarded as the fist official publication in the world to mention the name of Carl Barks as the creator of Uncle Scrooge; all seven stories of the volume are long Barks stories. And the comic ZIO PAPERONE, which was the first attempt at a complete series of Barks reprints and obviously credited him, started with its first issue in December 1987.

In my previous message I was thinking of Topolino, the main Italian publication which in its current form has been published since 1949, originally as a monthly before becoming a bimonthly in 1952 and a weekly in 1960. Topolino's current habit of listing the writer and artist at the bottom of the story's first page started in 1988, while prior to that all stories published by Topolino were uncredited, even the ones by Barks; however, few Barks stories were published by Topolino after his retirement, since it is mainly a comic for new or new-to Italy stories; reprints are published in other comics. A few Barks stories have been republished by Topolino in recent years for special occasions (such as Christmas on Bear Mountain in 2007 and Vacation Time in 2008), and of course Barks was credited in these stories.

[Fritz]

In the US, Gladstone was the first Disney publisher to regularly credit the story creators; this was in 1985. Western kept everything anonymous right up until the end (1984). Interestingly, Gladstone credited all D-coded stories only as "Gutenberghus" (Egmont's name at the time); it wasn't until Disney Comics in 1990 that Gutenberghus/Egmont stories started to be credited--Vicar and Branca were regularly credited by name, for example.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

In Italy the names of both writers and artists started to appear in the second half of the 70's. But the stories were not tagged with the corresponding authors. So you knew what writers and artists had been working on that issue in your hands. But then it was up to you to get which specific story was drawn by, say, Cavazzano and which one by, say, Scarpa. Or which story was by the guy named Martina and which one by that Cimino, and so on.
The specific credits for each story started to appear in the very late 80's, as drakeborough said in the opening message of this topic.

I do not know exactly in France, but I have a Picsou Magazine from 2001...and quite incredibly it does not have credits at all! 

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jan 20, 2017 16:08:54 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

In Italy the names of both writers and artists started to appear in the second half of the 70's. But the stories were not tagged with the corresponding authors. So you knew what writers and artists had been working on that issue in your hands. But then it was up to you to get which specific story was drawn by, say, Cavazzano and which one by, say, Scarpa. Or which story was by the guy named Martina and which one by that Cimino, and so on.
The specific credits for each story started to appear in the very late 80's, as drakeborough said in the opening message of this topic.

I do not know exactly in France, but I have a Picsou Magazine from 2001...and quite incredibly it does not have credits at all! 

Yes, we only got them a little later. Today they're in all the books, but for a while, Super Picsou Géant didn't have them even though Picsou Magazine had them.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Have you noticed that in the last few months Picsou Magazine has started to credit even the inkers? (Actually creating some confusion, because the inker is not explicitly called "inker", but given as a second name for the drawing). This is very interesting. I think it is a novelty (outside the US, where credits are always very precise).

[RobbK1]

I think my first credits in comic books were in 1990 Egmont books. They gave credit until early 1995, then stopped until starting again in 1997 or 1998. In Dutch books, we've never been credited in the weekly or monthly regular, thin comics, or the regular thick books ("Winterboeken" and "Vakantieboeken", "Big Fun"). But, we've only been credited in special books that feature all one artist. So, I've gotten many credits in Jan Gulbransson's "De Grappigste Avonturen Van Donald Duck" (we should be due for a second album in that series soon), and I've also gotten a few stray credits in Bas Heymans', and Sander Gulien's.

[The KKM]

In Portugal, only circa 2002 or so, I'd guess.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Jan 20, 2017 23:51:15 GMT RobbK1 said:

I think my first credits in comic books were in 1990 Egmont books. They gave credit until early 1995, then stopped until starting again in 1997 or 1998. In Dutch books, we've never been credited in the weekly or monthly regular, thin comics, or the regular thick books ("Winterboeken" and "Vakantieboeken", "Big Fun"). But, we've only been credited in special books that feature all one artist. So, I've gotten many credits in Jan Gulbransson's "De Grappigste Avonturen Van Donald Duck" (we should be due for a second album in that series soon), and I've also gotten a few stray credits in Bas Heymans', and Sander Gulien's.

Just out of curiosity, may I ask you which was at the time the general attitude of the authors (at least those that you knew) towards this lack of public credits? Did that make you people suffer in some (intellectual) way? Or didn't it bother you at all? Or something in between, like you were not very happy about that but in the end it was not a great matter and you just used to have a good laugh at that?

[RobbK1]

Jan 21, 2017 10:06:17 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Jan 20, 2017 23:51:15 GMT RobbK1 said:

I think my first credits in comic books were in 1990 Egmont books. They gave credit until early 1995, then stopped until starting again in 1997 or 1998. In Dutch books, we've never been credited in the weekly or monthly regular, thin comics, or the regular thick books ("Winterboeken" and "Vakantieboeken", "Big Fun"). But, we've only been credited in special books that feature all one artist. So, I've gotten many credits in Jan Gulbransson's "De Grappigste Avonturen Van Donald Duck" (we should be due for a second album in that series soon), and I've also gotten a few stray credits in Bas Heymans', and Sander Gulien's.

Just out of curiosity, may I ask you which was at the time the general attitude of the authors (at least those that you knew) towards this lack of public credits? Did that make you people suffer in some (intellectual) way? Or didn't it bother you at all? Or something in between, like you were not very happy about that but in the end it was not a great matter and you just used to have a good laugh at that?

I started with Oberon in 1985.  At that time, no one but Barks had gotten any credits.  We had no problem with that, as it had been that way forever.  Then, in 1990, when we started to get credits from Guttenberghus (Egmont), we with Oberon, expected to get them, too.  So, we were disappointed that we didn't.  Then, when Egmont stopped giving them for those 4 years, we at Egmont were disappointed.  But we were happy to get them back.  I hope we can start getting them in the Dutch books, too.

[Orora]

For a long time, comics in French Disney magazines did not have their authors credited... unless they were French, and even then, there were a lot of "Comicup" comics which encompass a lot of different artists.

Even as a kid, this kinda annoyed me, not knowing who actually drew what.

[Spectrus]

Jan 20, 2017 21:44:17 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Have you noticed that in the last few months Picsou Magazine has started to credit even the inkers? (Actually creating some confusion, because the inker is not explicitly called "inker", but given as a second name for the drawing). This is very interesting. I think it is a novelty (outside the US, where credits are always very precise).

Some recent German publications have also done that, i.e. saying "Drawings: Giorgio Cavazzano & Sandro Zemolin". The Fan-Edition even explicitly credits inkers when it's known (like Rodolfo Cimino for "Bodacious Butterfly Trail").

[RobbK1]

Jan 20, 2017 11:46:03 GMT rasterax said:

Around 1997 in Germany (and presumably other Egmont countries). First only in magazines, credits in pocket books followed a little later. Initially the writers were always listed as "co-writers" (as in, co-written with Walt Disney??).

I was getting credits in German magazines at the same time they started giving them in Scandinavian magazines.  I believe that was 1990, if I remember correctly.  Then, in late 1992 or 1993, The Scandinavian countries stopped giving them, but if I remember correctly, The European courts overruled that, and they were forced to start giving credits again in 1995.  I believe that USA started giving them in 1985, with the start of Gladstone's franchise.  The Dutch franchise never has given them in ordinary comic books, only in some selected albums.