2. The right to full control over the creative execution of that which we fully own.

Without this right, the first one is meaningless. What difference would my full ownership of Zot! make if I could be forced, at a publisher’s whim, to change my characters’ appearance, bring villains back from dead, to write long crossover scenes or even just to change a little piece of dialogue on page five, panel three, and in doing so undermine a message I may have been working to get across for over a hundred pages! No change is so important that it can’t be discussed, but the final say over what goes into Zot! is still in the hands of its creator and owner. Companies that take on creator-owned properties do so at a certain risk, but when a creator trades in his or her control over their creation for a twelve-issue contract and some money in the bank, they do more than just risk that their message will be distorted in the long run. They virtually guarantee it.