“There’s a class system in the comics. The artist is the lowest form of life on the rung of the ladder. The publishers are usually businessmen who deal with businessmen. They deal with promotional people. They deal with financial people. They deal with accountants. They deal with people who work on higher levels. They deal with tax people, but have absolutely no interest in artists, in individual artists, especially very young artists. They’re not going to be that interested in very, very young people. They pat you on the head and say, ‘How are you, Jackie?’ Things like that. But the fact is that very young people were the ones who did the work and enabled these guys to continue the kind of lives they liked. But they never recognize that. They’re humans, too. If they don’t think you’re important, they’ll treat you in that particular manner. Their accountants are more important to them than you are, and yet you’re making the sales that they depend on. It’s an odd set-up, but it exists.
A very young person can come up with an idea— well, Superman is the classic example, see? All these businessmen are at the top of the pyramid, but the entire pyramid is resting on two little stones, and the pyramid denies the existence of these stones because it’s so big. It’s loaded with officials, but the little stones are the ones that are holding it up because that’s where the support is coming from, and I was in the same position.”
— Jack Kirby (via)