I think everyone who has read comics for decades has a story like this one in them, as an exorcism if nothing else.
Briefly the creators of a lot of comics characters weren't treated well by the industry - they were working class toiling in a disposable medium, and often cheated on things like profits and ownership of intellectual property and original art.
And then there's Jack Kirby - co-creator of Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men... Basically, the properities that in the last couple of decades have made all the money in the world as a cinematic universe. Even where someone else suggested an idea, Kirby's art gave it life.
Kirby also was notoriously treated badly by the industry - the bit in my story where Steamshovel won't go into a toystore because it has his characters as action figures, and he isn't seeing any money from the sales, is taken from Kirby's life.
He was also very hostile towards his frequent collaborator Stan Lee, and did a brutal satire of him in a story for DC painting him as con-artist Funky Flashman.
The good news - Kirby was lucky to live just long enough to be feted by a new generation of comic artists that grew up on his work, and even found a bit of financial success.
And then there's Stan Lee, who is a complex figure - made a huge contribution to Marvel in the 60s, but it's hard to separate his role as hard-working editor/writer/scripter from the artist's contribution. His energetic (if a bit obnoxious) prose style does have a love of language though, parodied in this story.
So that fraught relationship is an influence for this story, through the lens of a made-up comics industry - but really, the story is about the paradox of creativity, with Kirby virtually giving it all away, but his ideas going on to dominate culture. Making art's only real reward is getting to make more art, anything else is a bonus.
And yes, Flimflam is an AI - this story is a computer program instructed to create new commerical super heroes, and failing to. It fails because creativity is from the soul, and can't just be a Frankenstein of other people's ideas, or a little polish on someone else's work.
Building on the previous story "Final newsletter...", there's also a bit of experimentation including other formats in the story - fan magazine, newspaper review, social media ad. Definitely fun exercises.
I like this one (same way I like my pulp hero story King Solomon) because it's playful with language - people just don't speak like this, so it's a treat to let loose as a writer!
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