Can This Marriage Be Saved?

On 1 July, the Comics Beat published an article about the disagreement over fair credit for Rachel Hope Cleves’s Charity and Sylvia in Tillie Walden’s Charity and Sylvia.

That article cites historian Cleves as saying Walden contacted her by email twice as she created her graphic novel: in August 2024 with news that Vermont Humanities had commissioned the project and in spring 2025 with a draft. Cleves’s workload prevented her from studying that material closely. She didn’t raise the question of adaptation rights. The two authors never connected for a phone or video conversation.

Although Cleves had spoken at the Henry Sheldon Museum through a Vermont Humanities grant in 2022, it doesn’t appear that either of those entities ever contacted her about the graphic novel. Nor did Drawn & Quarterly after it agreed to publish Walden’s finished work.

Given the initial understanding that Walden would draw only on documents at the museum, as I quoted yesterday, and given lack of objections from Cleves, people involved in the graphic novel might have convinced themselves that there was no need to seek a formal approval from her. But it’s clear that Walden came to rely on Cleves’s history more than originally planned. Walden and Drawn & Quarterly should have done more before publication. 

Comics Beat reports that Cleves wishes “to see Drawn & Quarterly option [her book] for adaptation and co-credit her, with appropriate compensation.”  

For now (and 1 July was a holiday in Canada), the publisher says it “stands by Tillie Walden’s research for her graphic novel” while drawing attention to her citations and praise for Cleves on the book’s website. In fact, the press says, those citations were too long to be included in the printed book. That may be right from an aesthetic or cost standpoint, but it only shows how Cleves deserves more credit in print than one laudatory line.

I suspect Drawn & Quarterly wants to protect its author from accusations of deliberate plagiarism or downgrading Cleves’s work. And to ensure Walden gets credit for the effort and creativity she put into the graphic novel, which by its nature is quite different from its source material.

Likewise, Cleves deserves credit for all the work she did in unearthing and telling Charity and Sylvia’s life stories, whether or not the graphic novel borrows specific language, which would be the strongest evidence in a copyright case.

Tillie Walden is a comics creator who has delightfully found success at a time when one can actually make a living at that work. Drawn & Quarterly is an artsy independent comics publisher based in Montréal. Rachel Hope Cleves is a respected history professor at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. The development of both versions of Charity and Sylvia was supported by humanities grants.

No one goes into any of those enterprises to make a lot of money. People spend years producing scholarly studies or graphic novels because they think the work is important. Yet that situation makes fair credit all the more important.

A graphic novel and a scholarly biography aren’t competing for the same sales—but the comic could promote the study, just as the study made the comic possible. So I really hope there’s a way for these projects to become mutually supporting.