We definitely need editors that care more about continuity and the quality of the finished product. The buck stops with them, if they have to re-write the entire book to make it good, then they should do that. If the book is not good, then it should not ship.

A good editor should be invisible. They should just be a name in the credits. The only time an editor should be "credited" is when the mistakes get through. I'm speaking from a consumer viewpoint. Internally, a good editor should absolutely get credited for their work of helping to get good comics out.

I skimmed over a Comics Journal article yesterday which talked about creator credits. (It was specifically about Roy Thomas wanting "some" credit for co-creating Wolverine.) In the piece, it was mentioned that Jerome Siegel (co-creator of Superman) didn't really develop the character's mythos/backstory, that that was done by editor Mort Weisinger, who, with his writers and artists, gave much more information about Jor-El & Lara, Krypton, Kandor, Argo City & Supergirl, the Legion, the Phantom Zone criminals, etc. Pointing this out, the speaker thought that in addition to the credits in the Superman movie including creators Siegel and Joe Shuster, perhaps a "developed by" credit should have been give to Weisinger. Interesting take on the situation.

By this logic, X-office editor Jordan White is that bartender who let the drunk kids trash the place and just smiled as the whole place burned down.

What about Roy Thomas wanting Wolverine co-creator credit when he was just the editor? Jim Shooter apparently improved the Dark Phoenix saga by insisting that Jean Grey die (then later reversing that decision).

They should get so much credit, they should be blamed for the death of comic books. If that, they literally cured me of buying regular comic books. I just reread old stuff and enjoy it like a good familiar favorite tea.

Here's a legit question. Who should I blame for the character assassination of Frank Castle? Jason Aaron or whoever the editor was? Was that Jason's idea, or was he just following orders?

How much story input do the editors have? It should be limited to making sure the writer doesn’t break continuity or write someone out of character. But lately it seems more like they might be dictating the direction of the book as a whole. “Hey, writer x, we want to hire you to write Captain America. Make the story something about him losing faith in the American way, and fighting systemic oppression.” “Okay, but writer y just did a Cap run with that exact premise, and it got cancelled after six issues for low sales.” “Yeah, so do it again, because we don’t think the point got hammered home hard enough.”

There's a excellent interview on KZfaq of the late, great Denny O'Neil discussing the job of an editor. It reinforces everything you say here, Perch. To reduce it to a basic soundbite, he said that his job as an editor was to make the writer look good. Because if something stupid gets into print...

Editors deserve more good and bad credit but also should be either made to be more responsible or replaced by another editor who is. Case in point, whichever editor allowed Chip Zdarsky's Batman run to go through should be replaced as they clearly do not care for the mythos of the character at all.

The biggest thing lacking in editorial today is courage. Both the courage to help choose talent to work with who may challenge them and the courage to give tough feedback to the "friends" they are working with.

A good editor is like a good IT person. You only notice them if something goes horribly wrong.

I credit Heather Antos for making me drop IDW titles. Maybe that’s not fair. It’s really her bosses that let her act the way she does online that pushed me to drop IDW.

It depends. It's on a case-by-case basis. How much influence did he have? Julie Schwartz seemed to elevate his books, giving a new energy to old DC characters. He clearly was doing a lot more than proofreading.

I generally think editors should be given more credit. Finding/developing talent, keeping good talent happy & motivated, tieing together continuity across books, going to bat for writers/artists against corporate decisions ... all of that yields better comics experience for readers who enjoy a shared universe as opposed to short runs on single titles. For example, i don't recall if it was Perch or another youtube channel that mentioned that Chris Claremont did his best work when there was a good editor to reign in the subplots and veto items. Imperfect sports analogy -- editor-in-chief = head coach, editor = offensive coordinator. You need someone to take the reigns, recruit/delvelp talent, deal with the press/owner, etc. Everything has to come together for a successful franchise.

As a guy who had the great fortune to be an editorial intern at Marvel in the early 2000s, I have a lot that I want to say here. But in short: 1) If they are actually doing the job as it should be done, then they deserve a tremendous amount of credit. But: 2) If the are that type of professional editor, they understand their role as a critical silent guiding hand, and will seek none.

Editors largely get little blame and little credit because you have to know how the sausage is made in order to really know what they do.

Blame is the word you are looking for, not credit.

Do we go to movies for the actors or the director?

So, editors should get more credit when there are solid runs on a book? Like, if a book puts out a consistent high quality for a period, we can attribute that success to the editor better than their involvement in any individual book. An editor should have a larger picture view of a book's performance than on the individual issue level, which is where the the artist/writer lives

Jim Shooter signs books all the time

It depends on the person. Attack on Titan would have been even worse if the editors weren’t in Isyama’s ear on a lot of things. It’s just difficult because personalities can dictate who gets more credit. A real humble editor which the best are wouldn’t care as long as the book comes out better!

I miss editor's notes

I’ve got to the point now where I think they should get 99% of the blame for everything. None of this can happen without them.

I don’t get the hate Roy is getting. He’s not getting any royalties off this wolverine co-credit change. This bs about how he waited until everyone was dead is also a dumb argument because Len Wein said years ago that Roy had helped create Wolverine. I don’t think every editor should get a co-credit for the creation of a character but if the editor had a big say in its creation then yes they should get some recognition for it. It doesn’t take anything away from the artist or the writer, when people look up who did what it will say exactly what role people played. I also don’t get this argument where people say editors shouldn’t get credit because it’s their job. Using that same logic why do writers and artist get credit? Because that’s their job as well. I also don’t get this argument about how it shouldn’t matter because it wasn’t done this way in the past. It’s called progress, there’s lots of bad practices that were done in the comic industry, are you saying they shouldn’t ever change?

My sister once edited someone’s book for free. I bought the book and found several spelling errors and grammar errors. But to be fair she did do it for free. You get what you pay for.

FIRST!