Comic Artists Outraged Over Media Crediting Writer Grant Morrison For Frank Quitely's X-Men Suit Designs

X-Men '97 is apparently using Frank Quitley's New X-Men suit designs for their new season, but comic book media has it wrong.

Comic professionals are incensed at the mainstream media’s lack of crediting Frank Quitely for his designs of the New X-Men costumes nearly two decades ago, as several comic industry media outlets have reported the same story about X-Men ’97 but credited writer Grant Morrison instead. 

Comic creation is a collaborative process, and artists often feel like they don’t get the credit they deserve when co-creating, especially where superstar writers are concerned. This has been happening since Stan Lee and Steve Ditko fought over titles for the Spider-Man creation, as Stan Lee often was credited as the “creator,” much to Ditko’s chagrin. 

Steve Ditko wrote multiple essays on the topic, even going so far as to do an in-depth examination as to what creation is. When one looks at Spider-Man in-depth, the vast majority of the creation process was due to Steve Ditko’s efforts, with Stan Lee pulling far less than his share. 

The industry has not credited artists throughout its history, with the media failing to credit Rob Liefeld for his co-creation of Deadpool and numerous other examples.

It gets worse when it comes to superstar writers, as all of fandom typically refers to work on characters or “runs” under the writer’s credit solely. One can see this with writers such as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, or even Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison over hundreds of threads on the internet crediting the writers as if they are the sole creators of their comic properties.

The flames were fanned this weekend as Discussing Film posted, “The X-Men will wear Grant Morrison suits in ‘X-MEN 97’ Season 2.” This prompted several media outlets to report on the subject, including comic-centric outlets like Bleeding Cool and Comic Book Resources.

The only problem with the reporting is that Grant Morrison didn’t design the suits for the New X-Men that are being used for X-Men ’97; artist Frank Quitely did. 

This prompted numerous quote tweets of outrage by comic professionals.

Darick Robertson, co-creator of The Boys posted, “Here you go @DiscussingFilm I fixed it for you.” along with an image crediting the artist.

Invincible co-creator Ryan Otley said, “Writers write every line an artist draws. Don’t let artists tell you otherwise.”

Former X-Men artist Mahmud Asrar tweeted, “Contrary to common belief, it's not always the writer that does everything in a comic.”

Dozens more jumped on to comment and quote tweets with corrections, though the articles are still up from multiple outlets wrongly crediting Grant Morrison with the suit design. As of this writing, the headlines are still intact at CBR and Bleeding Cool.

While a minor controversy given the recent state of the mainstream comic industry, news outlets dedicated to the art of making basic errors in who created an X-Men suit design is par for the course for the lack of research these so-called journalists do.

What do you think of Grant Morrison being credited for Frank Quitely’s design of New X-Men costumes being implemented for X-Men ’97? Leave a comment and let us know.

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