So the Kirby estate, with remarkable and canny timing, is suing for reversion of copyright, using the same lawyer who successfully went after the rights to Superman. How this is going to impact on everything is anybody’s guess.
PAD
So the Kirby estate, with remarkable and canny timing, is suing for reversion of copyright, using the same lawyer who successfully went after the rights to Superman. How this is going to impact on everything is anybody’s guess.
PAD
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I think Mr. Kirby deserves credit, but the estate? Why is it that everyone feels they should get something for doing nothing, expect being born.
Any money/credit/rights that Kirby himself deserves, his heirs deserve. After all, If Jack had the money when he was alive, he could have used it for himself and to lavish gifts on his family.
Who would you recommend get the money instead?
No one.
You want to continue to get money? Create/do something new.
Does a carpenter get money every time you open and close the door he put in your house? No.
Does GM/Ford/whoever get money everytime you drive your car? No.
Quit expecting to live off of one accomplishment…
This could royally bollix up teh sale to Disney–I assume they thought they were getting more than just a couple of years worth of characters.
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And I believe there is something like a 120 million dollar kill fee from marvel if the deal does not go through, so I imagine the Kirby estate lawyer is already planning on how to 12 million dollars. They need to make this go away and fast.
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I wonder how much more cheaply they could have made this all go away back in the day, but before anyone blames the current marvel team let’s remember that none of the execs behind kirby’s shabby treatment are the folks calling the shots now.
Which character created by Mr. Kirby even resembles the one he worked on or created? In appearance perhaps, so does the the person who changed the original get extra because their change caused the popularity to go up?
Mr. Kirby did great work, he was paid and excepted the pay, whether or not it was fair.
That should be the end of it.
Steve further said:
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“Mr. Kirby did great work, he was paid and excepted the pay, whether or not it was fair.”
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Steve, you meant to type accepted, not excepted.
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And Kirby was promised a better share, but never received it.
Bladestar said:
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“You want to continue to get money? Create/do something new.”
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Yet, Marvel continues to make good money off Kirby’s art and characters after all these years.
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And art is not the same type of product as a car or what a carpenter or plumber does.
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By saying ‘do something new’, are you saying artists shouldn’t get paid royalties?
Because, Steve, that is what the law says.
“Yet, Marvel continues to make good money off Kirby’s art and characters after all these years.”
Really? When was the last issue of any of these that Kirby drew?
And no, artists shouldn’t get perpetual royalties, copyright was created to give creators a LIMITED monopoly and then their work would pass in to the public domain, when was the last time anything passed into the public domain?
Creating something once doesn’t entitle yopu to live off it forever.
Marvel is making money off reprints of Kirby’s work. The Marvel Essential books and the Marvel Masterpieces, for 2. And, as that work hasn’t yet passed into the public domain, Kirby’s heirs should get some of the money from the reprints. And, because Kirby was an essential part in the creation of many of those characters, his heirs deserve a chunk of Marvel’s ášš, too.
Oh yeah so by that standard of thinking Disney doesn’t deserve to make any more money off of Mickey Mouse either? I don’t think that will fly anytime soon…
Bladestar, that depends on the contract signed. I think the Kirby people are arguing that Marvel has never had the proper rights to the characters in question. Apparently marvel was also unsure about that since they tried to get him to sign over those rights in return for his artwork.
It wasn’t that Marvel was unsure. It was that they wanted to be able to return the artwork (not just to Kirby, but all the artists) without making it seem as if it were being done because the artwork “belonged” to the artist, thus potentially undermining Marvel’s assertion that the artwork was property of Marvel. So artists were required to sign a release that essentially said the artwork was a gift and wasn’t a release of any of Marvel’s copyright claims on the work involved. As I noted elsewhere, Kirby had no problem signing that form for Devil Dinosaur and the Eternals. And then suddenly he did. I think his lawyers were laying the groundwork for this ever since the art return embroglio.
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PAD
What’s your feeling on this in general, PAD? I think I remember you talking some years back about some of the stuff during the ’80s that you were personally around for, like the controversy over returning artwork and the “contract on the back of the check” thing, as well as some of Kirby’s less credible claims as to his role in the creation of certain characters, but it was a while ago, and I don’t want to misquote you.
All I know about the art returns is that when Marvel was returning artwork from “Devil Dinosaur” or “The Eternals,” Kirby didn’t have any problem signing off on the art release forms that everyone else was signing. He got plenty of that art back without a hitch. That was the first art returned to him because it was the more recent and thus at the top of the pile, so to speak.
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And then suddenly, for some reason, he wouldn’t sign them anymore. Suddenly his lawyers were insisting that he had to receive a totally different form that spelled out in exhaustive detail all the rights involved. Marvel obliged him with a form that was something like five pages long, which his lawyers then wouldn’t let him sign. And that got reported in the fan press (most conspicuously Comics Journal) as “Marvel had everyone else sign a short, one page art release form, but Marvel sent Kirby a special five page form.” Which is, y’know, technically true, but it’s only because Kirby’s lawyers requested it.
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And Kirby’s lawyers also sent Marvel a list of characters that they wanted Marvel to acknowledge were the sole creation of Jack Kirby. Even Spider-Man was on it. Anyone out there think Steve Ditko had nothing to do with Spidey’s creation?
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PAD
Wow, those lawyers were pretty ferocious. I understand the concept of negotiating by asking for more than you expect to get, but Spider-Man? He did a cover based on Ditko’s design, which was even fairly similar to the cover Ditko had already drawn and Stan Lee rejected. The lawyers were just throwing in anything they could think of.
Yeah, in one of the articles I read about this lawsuit, they again listed Spider-Man as one of Kirby’s creations. Whereas in contrast, Ditko has basically washed his hands completely of his old creations and the mainstream publishers in general. In that respect, despite their differing political viewpoints, he’s very much like Alan Moore.
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The other anecdote I recall you relating was regarding Kirby’s claims to have created the Hulk completely by himself; apparently he said something in an interview along the lines that “I got the idea when I saw a mother lift a car off her trapped child; that made me realize that in moments of extreme stress, people could perform superhuman feats.” And you pointed out the problem with that; originally, the Hulk’s transformations had nothing to do with stress; he simply transformed at sunset and sunrise.
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Anyway, despite the fact that early Marvel was clearly a collaborative effort, I do hope the day comes when the law is changed to say that the people who actually put their creative energy into coming up with these properties are the true creators and should be compensated; it kills me that someone like Dave Cockrum died essentially penniless while his creations were making billions on the big screen (thank God for the Hero Initiative though… everyone should contribute to them).
The other anecdote I recall you relating was regarding Kirby’s claims to have created the Hulk completely by himself; apparently he said something in an interview along the lines that “I got the idea when I saw a mother lift a car off her trapped child; that made me realize that in moments of extreme stress, people could perform superhuman feats.” And you pointed out the problem with that; originally, the Hulk’s transformations had nothing to do with stress; he simply transformed at sunset and sunrise.
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Yeah, that interview appeared in Comics Journal, the same ones who talked about Kirby getting separate treatment without mentioning that Kirby’s lawyers requested that treatment. Groth’s personal agenda was all about vilifying Marvel, and Kirby was a perfect vehicle for it. I was at a Kirby panel where Kirby was flanked by TCJ reps, and I *so* wanted to get up and say, “Gary, I’m curious, in your interview with Mr. Kirby, why did you not challenge his recollection of the Hulk’s origins when they were demonstrably at odds with the actual printed story, since the Hulk’s rage=transformation bit wasn’t established until several years later?” But I didn’t.
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PAD
Let’s just give every character in the Marvel and DC universes to the Kirby / Shuster families and sort it all out from there. It’d be a hellova lot easier.
IF the contract Kirby signed with Marvel stated that he would have any rights to his work, then there is some legitimacy behind this claim. Based on everything I’ve heard about comic companies in the sixties, mostly from writer grumbling that they didn’t get to keep any creative control of their characters, I don’t think this is the case.
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If you create an IP for my company and you sign a contract saying you can take it elsewhere or stop me from selling it, good for you. But if I draw up a contract saying that every bit of that IP is mine in return for the hefty sum I pay you (or not so hefty, if I’m smart), then you have no right to complain after you sign. You can’t eat your cake and keep it too, or at least you shouldn’t be able to…
On the other hand, the law (from my years ago classes in IP) is far from clear on this. The work-for-hire provisos are of questionable leaglity. And the nature of freelancers working with the comic companies muddy the waters considerably.
MrBlake — your comments rest on the assumption that there was, in fact, a written contract which Kirby signed with Marvel! One which would apply to his work on the first appearance of the “Fantastic Four” (among other characters), either because he signed it before FF #1 was published, or else because it was later written in such a way as to specifically waive any claims he
From what I’m reading about this on the Internet, I have a sneaking suspicion that there was NOT any signed contract between Kirby and Marvel at the time he drew FF #1, and that there probably wasn’t any retroactive agreement on the subject of whether or not his work in the early 60s has been work-for-hire.
Which seems to leave it all up in the air.
If that turns out to be the case, and if this makes it all the way to a courtroom battle, then I suspect that at some point a judge will have to mutter to himself: “Okay, what does the strict letter of the law say, regarding who gets the Full Benefit of the Doubt when the publishing company and the freelance artist totally FAILED to express the nature of their business relationship in a written agreement at the time?”
I don’t know what the law says (or said in the late 50s and early 60s, in New York State or at the federal level) about resolving that sort of doubt. So I have no idea how the judge will end up ruling — if, in fact, that becomes the key point which needs to be resolved in the case!
Hmmm…there’s something about this that leads me to my rant about “intellectual property” and how cultural lag is going to eventually shatter the laws.
Cultural lag, for those who don’t know, is the sociological terms when a given society’s nonmaterial culture (like its laws) hasn’t caught up with its material cutlure (physical, real, things). A good example would be the file sharing fiasco of the ’90’s. No one had even considered that anyone would be bright enough to make a program that allowed for some hundreds of millions of people to share songs via the internet (enter Napster), and it took a while (about 7 years) for the laws (and music companies) to catch up to the already existing phenomena.
The cultural lag I see here is that the internet has completely changed what we consider “intellectual property” and at some point, it might be ridiculous to try and regulate and codify into law practices (but people will try).
The point someone raised is a good one; even if someone generates an original idea,to what degree, 60 odd years later, is the product even remotely similar to the original. I understand the legal concept of “fruit from the poisonous tree”, and the expansions on the idea couldn’t even have occurred if the original wasn’t made, but… I dunno, I think we might be on some strange path here.
I think you may be on to something, in that, while I believe that I’m sure that Disney has a lot of insanely ridiculous lawyers who will probably take a stance similar to that. I don’t know what the most legal resolution of this conflict will be, but I do know that Disney almost certainly has a team of the best lawyers in the business who wait around for a case like this.
It’s been said that pretty much the entirety of U.S. copyright legislation for the past few decades (including the Sony Bono Act and the DMCA) has been for the sole purpose of keeping “Steamboat Willie” out of the Public Domain.
Which is ironic in the extreme, since “Steamboat Willie” was itself a parody (for profit) of a live-action silent movie, “Steamboat Bill” which most definitely wasn’t Public Domain at the time (but is now, I believe).
I thing that wether the Kirby State had a right or not to sue is less of a juicy subject compared to the timing in wich they choose to do it.
If they really feel entitled to those copyrights, they had plenty of time to do it. Choosing to do it precisely now is whats fishy. Not diminishing of their right to do it, but fishy. I know the USA is a very litigant society, but what bugs me is the non-straigtforward aproach to legal procedures. Suing aiming to get settlement money is wrong to me. I can understand how many people see it as the lesser of two evils but its hard to respect it.
Of course, there is the possibility of Kirby State honestly seeing it as their last chance to claim those copyrights because Disney would be much harder to beat at that than Marvel. I dont know if Disney’s franchise “Witch” is popular in America (it’s originally Italian). Most here in Europe think Disney treated the creators in that case in a draconian way.
I think the Kirby estate is just getting all their ducks in a row. The copyrights for a lot of the characters are set to expire starting around 2017. Hopefully between now and then Disney can make good and not let it get nasty.
Isn’t this what happened with Captain America? How did Joe Simons claim turn out?
I dont think it will play a part in the sale but then again Disney might not realize what they are getting into and treat this lightly so it can blow up in their faces.
RD Francis: Similar case, sure – look no further than Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore owning the co-copyright to Angela and Medieval Spawn. They went to court to sort that out, and now, while Todd McFarlane is welcome to use both characters, he has to pay Neil and Alan when he does.
From Neal Gaiman’s Journal:
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/04/pajamablog.html
“If I feel like licensing out a Medieval Spawn comic — or Medieval Spawn underpants — I can. It’s co-created, not work for hire, and co-owned.”
—matt
There’s a question about these cases that I’ve never gotten an answer to. If in these cases, the estate gains control of most or all of the IPs in question and an agreement can not be reached with the corporation that previously controlled them, are they worth any thing? My understanding is that Disney/Marvel, Time-Warner, etc. would still control the trademarks associated with the properties and even key parts of the myths that were added well after the initial copyright, and usually not by the creators. Are the original copyrights financially exploitable divorced from the other aspects of the properties?
It’s an interesting can of worms. Who really ‘deserves” the credit (by which we mean tons of money) for some of the most popular creations? Wolverine first appeared in a Hulk comic written by Len Wein. he was designed, I believe, by John Romita Sr and first drawn by Herb Trimpe.
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But THAT Wolverine would have been about as popular as the Hypno-Hustler. Chris Claremont and John Byrne made him into the character that appealed to so many people. Virtually all the aspects of the character that made him a breakout hit came from them.
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But it gets even more complicated. You have to factor in Dave Cockrum’s contribution–he gave Logan his distinctive unmasked look.
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So how is this going to be divvied up?
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As much as I love Kirby’s work and think he should always be given a lion’s share of the credit for Marvel’s success it’s always left a bad taste in my mouth that a lot of his fans seem to think he should get ALL of the credit. Asking for ownership of Spiderman is the kind of overreach that makes me wonder how much faith I can put into the other claims. (And I’ve never understood how people could seriously think that Kirby was, as some think, the real writer of the Lee/Kirby comics. Just look at the work the two men did when they were not working together.)
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One thing about Disney–they will do anything to keep copyrights. If they have to buy off the Senate, they will. If and when they offer the family a generous settlement I hope they take it.
It’s an interesting can of worms. Who really ‘deserves” the credit (by which we mean tons of money) for some of the most popular creations?
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That’s exactly right. I mean, sometimes it’s clear: Two teens from Cleveland created Superman. Certainly many things were added along the years (Kryptonite, for instance, was entirely a radio creation) and his powers have expanded dramatically, but he’s still basically the same character. Len’s original concept for Wolverine, on the other hand, was that he was an actual mutatedwWolverine and his claws were in his costume; Claremont was the one who decided that the claws came out of his hands, and it was that revelation that first piqued fan interest in him.
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Comics are a collaborative medium and assigning sole credit isn’t always that clear cut. For instance, Stan’s own recounting of the Silver Surfer’s origin is that the character appeared whole cloth on the page entirely from Kirby’s invention. But certainly Lee’s development of the Surfer’s way of talking and personality made him a breakout character. With Lee, you have the Silver Surfer. Without Lee, you have the Black Racer (remember him?)
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I know there was that ad about “What About Jack?” but if all the copyrights are assigned to Kirby’s estate, then an ad that says “What About Stan?” or “What About Steve?” would be equally appropriate. The Kirby claim to Spider-Man stems from the fact that Kirby worked up an origin story for a character called Spider-Man and the assertion that he designed the costume. Well, no. Kirby’s story entitled “Spiderman” (no hyphen) involved a young boy (named Timmy, I believe) discovering a magic ring in the attic that gave him spider powers, and Ditko in fact designed the costume. Memory isn’t always dependable and rights aren’t always clearcut.
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PAD
I agree it’s usually tough (if not impossible) to say “This one person is responsible for creating this character.”
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But on the other hand, there’s often plenty of documentation to show that a particular writer or artist is at the very least a co-creator (either by visually designing the character, or creating the background for the character), and often the company doesn’t even dispute that… but the law says the creator is entitled to no share of the profits reaped from their creation, because they were working for the company at the time they created the character. It just seems to me this is morally wrong and should be changed.
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I mean, Spider-Man was pretty clearly created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, not “Marvel Comics”.
After having made the same mistake myself and being corrected by the esteemed Mr. Wein himself, I now feel honor-bound to let everyone know that Len Wein never intended Wolverine to be an actual mutated wolverine. That’s an urban legend, one so persistent that the “Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed” column fell for it. (They’ve since published a correction.)
The mutated Wolverine bit was Claremont’s idea. (And teased in X-Men #98.) Then Archie Goodwin used a similar bit in the origin of Spider-Woman so he dropped it.
However, it is worth noting that Len Wein intended Wolverine to be a teenager (with the claws in the gloves).
But Wolverine’s a mess creatively – either Stan Lee or Roy Thomas came up with the name; Len Wein used the name to come up with his basic characteristics (“short and nasty” to oversimplify); John Romita designed the original outfit; and Dave Cockrum came up with Wolverine’s “unmasked” look. So who created Wolverine? 🙂 (And that doesn’t get into Claremont’s contributions the backstory, making the claws a part of him, etc.)
As I understand it, when copyright laws got changed to extend the period that a work was under copyright (particularly work for hire, which is copyrighted for a fixed period of time and not dependent on the lifespan of the author), there was a sort of loophole involved where people who signed up to produce a work for hire could apply for copyright reversion when the old copyright would have ended. That is to say, 75 years after the deal was made, when the rights would originally have expired and the property would become public domain, I (or my estate) would be able to say, “Hang on. When I signed that deal, I didn’t know that Marvel would get those rights for another 45 years. That wasn’t in our deal, and I want those extra 45 years of copyright to go to me, not to Marvel.”
In other words, 1) This is perfectly legal and legit, and not some frivolous lawsuit. It’s about the money, yes, but so is Marvel trying to keep the rights for themselves. Both sides are being equally greedy (to use the emotionally-charged term.) 2) This is mostly about the older stuff Kirby created for Timely, not about the FF and the Hulk and stuff. 3) Since copyright and trademark are two very different things, this will probably be settled by pushing around big piles of money until everyone’s reasonably satisfied. 🙂
If it’s only the Timely characters that are at issue then the only one of any impact on Marvel, so far as i know, would be Captain America. And how can the Kirby estate claim that to be entirely his while Joe Simon is still alive? I’ve heard one account that says that Simon claimed to have pretty much come up with most of the design for Cap–any truth to this?
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I’m 100% for the Kirby estate getting everything they deserve but I hope they do not do to other creators what they say was done to Jack in order to get it.
1. I believe there was already a ruling that Joe Simon and anybody else weren’t able to reclaim the copyright on Captain America, wasn’t there? Since Joe Simon was an editor at Timely at the time, he was considered “on staff and under contract” and Captain America became a “Work made for hire” instead of a submission. And Kirby would be considered a sub-contractor rather than a co-creator.
2. I’m fuzzy on this, but aren’t the creators allowed to reclaim the copyright at the point of renewal? That might be the Kirby estate contention in regards to Fantastic Four, Hulk, X-Men and Silver Surfer. It has been almost fifty years since FF #1 and the copyright is coming up for renewal in two years. The problem here would be proving sole creatorship, since if he created the works in conjunction with Stan Lee, they become works for hire since Stan was on staff at Marvel.
Bill Mulligan says:
September 22, 2009 at 9:32 am
If it’s only the Timely characters that are at issue then the only one of any impact on Marvel, so far as i know, would be Captain America. And how can the Kirby estate claim that to be entirely his while Joe Simon is still alive? I’ve heard one account that says that Simon claimed to have pretty much come up with most of the design for Cap–any truth to this?
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From what I’ve been reading, it doesn’t look like they are going for sole ownership, but just want their (Jack’s) share of the copyrights when they start expiring.
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Bill K. says:
I’m fuzzy on this, but aren’t the creators allowed to reclaim the copyright at the point of renewal? That might be the Kirby estate contention in regards to Fantastic Four, Hulk, X-Men and Silver Surfer. It has been almost fifty years since FF #1 and the copyright is coming up for renewal in two years. The problem here would be proving sole creatorship, since if he created the works in conjunction with Stan Lee, they become works for hire since Stan was on staff at Marvel.
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Also from what I can find the first property, which is the Fantastic Four expires in 2017 not in two years. Not sure where to look to confirm this but that would mean a court date that is almost 8 years away.
They can’t be trying to claim the copyright “at the point of renewal”; copyrights don’t get renewed. They are for a fixed period of time (120 years for companies, 70 years after the death of the author for an individual) with no renewal possible. Trademarks get renewed, as do patents, but once something leaves copyright, it’s forever in the public domain. This is why companies that make their living off of intellectual properties keep lobbying to get those terms extended.
This is a fascinating subject – thanks, PAD!
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But off the topic… it’s Australia, it’s after midnight, and it’s September 23rd. Happy Birthday!
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Cheers,
JB
Quote P.A.D.:
“Len’s original concept for Wolverine, on the other hand, was that he was an actual mutatedwWolverine and his claws were in his costume…”
Its funny, but I just bought the Wolverine: Origins DVD, and in the extras there is a dual interview between Len Wein and Stan Lee, and he (Len) swears that that was not his original concept (mutated wolverine).
Now I wonder if he is just saying that to keep the fan base happy (it is a kind of silly, “Silver Age” concept ^_^).
Wein’s original intent was covered in this issue of Comic Book Legends Revealed:
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http://goodcomics.blogspot.com/2005/10/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-21.html
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He has quotes from Wein to back up the idea that Wein intended Wolverine to be a teenager and that the claws were in the gloves, not inside him. The article states the part about Wolverine not being a mutant, but it doesn’t have any quotes backing that one up.
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Another issue of CBLR covered that Len Wein didn’t come up with the healing factor, he originally just thought that Wolverine was strong and tough, like Spider-Man. I didn’t find that one article in my quick search.
Here’s a post from Wein’s own blog, dated February 24 of this year, denying that the mutated wolverine concept was his idea:
http://lenwein.blogspot.com/2009/02/say-what.html#links
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I recall first reading about that idea in a text piece in the back of the “Incredible Hulk and Wolverine” special that reprinted “The Incredible Hulk” #180-181. I pulled my copy out, and the text quotes Dave Cockrum speaking of the High Evolutionary’s possible involvement in Wolverine’s origin.
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Chuck
In his book Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig proposes a radical change in copyright terms. He said there are four principles to keep in mind about copyright terms: 1. “Keep it short. The term should be as long as necessary to give incentives to create, but no longer.”
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2. “Keep it simple. The line between public domain and protected content must be kept clear.”
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3. “Keep it alive. Copyright should have to be renewed.” He went on to say that if the maximum term is long, the copyright owner should be required to indicate periodically that he wants protection to continue.
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4. “Keep it prospective. Whatever the term of copyright should be, the clearest lesson that economists teach is that a term once given should not be extended.”
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Lessig goes on to argue that these changes should produce an average copyright term much shorter than the current one.
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Lessig also said that just as property rights extended into the heavens until the airplane came along, certain changes should be made regarding free use vs. fair use. He argues that derivative rights should be for a much shorter term; and that the scope of derivative rights be narrowed.
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I believe that copyright is important, and that protecting one’s copyright is equally important. But I also believe all works must eventually enter into the public domain. According to current copyright law, works created on or after Jan. 1, 1978 is ordinarily copyrighted for the author’s life plus 70 years. Copyright of a joint work lasts for 70 years after the surviving author’s death; and the duration of work-for-hire copyright is 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter. More details can be found at coyright.gov. Click on the “copyright basics” PDF.
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One can argue whether the current length of copyright makes sense (for example, should a work created by someone at age 20, who dies at 100, be kept out of the public domain for 150 years?), but I, for one, don’t like the idea of corporations getting hold of copyright and pretty much keeping control indefinitely. Assuming Marvel (or whatever it will be called at the time) is still around in 2063, should it still own the rights to the Hulk? No. Should Stan and/or Jack’s estates? Not sure. But if they do, I think the character should be nearing public domain status by that time.
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According to Lessig, in 1790 Congress enacted the first copyright law and secured copyright for 14 years. The author, if still alive at the end of that term, could renew for another 14 years. Otherwise, the work passed into the public domain. He said that at the time, 14 years was long enough for the majority of copyright owners; and that such a structure would make sense today. He argues that most books go out of print after one year, and when that happens used books “are traded free of copyright regulation. Thus the books are no longer effectively (his emphasis) controlled by copyright.”
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I don’t know. A 28-year term still seems too short, but again, 150 years seems too long. What if the total maximum term, including all renewals, was 75 years? Or 100? Would that be better? Or maybe the term should be for the life of the author, unless the author dies less than 20 years after the work is published. In which case the rights are extended to his heirs for, say, an additional 20 years.
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In the meantime, if current law allows some rights to revert to the Kirby estate, then I’ll side with them over Marvel (assuming a licensing agreement between both parties can’t be reached).
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I’ll leave it to the experts when it comes to figuring out who owns what when it comes to original co-creators and/or later contributors (as in Bill Mulligan’s Wolverine example).
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Rick
Well, you can pretty much thank Disney for a lot of the expansions of copyright law, it’s their way of attempting to make sure that the Mouse never leaves their hand. If this deal goes through and Disney gets it’s hands on the Marvel copyrights, they’ll likely try to keep them ’til every soul on earth is burning in the apocalypse, and then have another 500 years go by.
This post will, unfortunately, be epic.
I was hoping you could help me sort out a dilemma at hand. It’s on point that I’m 26, white, female, homosexual, and unemployed but back in school. I want, or at least, I believed I wanted to purchase X-Factor with the small amount of spending money I’ll have available in the first week of October. You know, TPBs, single issues up to current, get myself on a pull list, the works, and this is because, you guessed it, Shatterstar and Rictor sucked face. Spring break!!!
It’s been my goal and the goal of many of my likewise-homosexual friends since highschool to find media depicting homosexuals getting to do the things heterosexuals do. And that means media where us queers get to punch faces and blow up buildings or, goodness gracious, shock and awe, go to work and come home to our partners without spending all day and all our screentime angsting about Queer Issues. (And only hopefully without becoming Dead Tragic Queers to advance a plotline.)
I’ve followed your blog on and off (mostly since the Potato Moon) and I feel I can at least make basic assumptions that we’re in the same ballpark politically, morally, etc. The thing is, I don’t have the same feelings about Marvel Comics, and especially after I got some links passed to me through the intertubes, today.
I’m going to explain my situation but please, and I’ll assert it again throughout, be aware that I don’t see you as implicit in these events. Rather, I have two questions for you about X-Factor that I think can be better answered if you’re informed of the information informing my questions.
Apparently, and this may be news to you or not, one Peter Parker has a harridan roommate of color who’s raped for laughs. It’d be great if I was exaggerating that, or, I don’t know, using a turn of phrase, but…pretty much, no.
http://tinyurl.com/lkjus9
http://tinyurl.com/ksp6vh
http://tinyurl.com/m4dfo9
I’m not here looking for apologies. I certainly don’t believe on any level that you’re responsible for something another artist under (probably) another editor (I haven’t checked) got published by your publisher. However, there’s something further troubling about that first link, and to see it you can scroll up from the comment I linked. It’s Tom Breevort saying:
“Because we’re an American company whose primary distribution is centered around America, the great majority of our existing audience seems to be white American males. So while within that demographic you’ll find people who are interested in a wide assortment of characters of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds, whenever your leads are white American males, you’ve got a better chance of reaching more people overall.”
Okay, so this is a rehash of the same old tired “White males can be universally related to while women and people of color have stories that aren’t universal because they have experiences that aren’t universal like the experiences of white males.” And then Mark Waid from Boom! backs him up. However, it’s also a blanket statement that Marvel, from the standpoint of the publisher, doesn’t write comics for me and isn’t planning on writing comics for me. And, really, that’s fine.
Generally, I support small publishers catering to diverse groups and haven’t given my money to Marvel or DC for years exactly because of these events and these attitudes which have been perpetuated pretty much since the advent of what are now considered “mainstream comics.” However, seeing it on the verge of making a financial commitment to a Marvel product threw me for a loop. So, I looked up some stuff on X-Factor.
I read about a plotline involving Madrox sleeping with Siryn and M basically simultaneously. It sounds from what I’ve read like things have been strained between Siryn and M after this event.
Having not read your work in awhile, although certainly having known and loved your original run on X-Factor (and Space Cases having shaped my entire childhood), it’s in the context of current events that I have to ask if this is being played for “Herp derp! What will Madrox do with two angry women when he wants to sleep with both of them? It’s hard to be a straight white male!” or with concern and nuance for the women’s perspective, the hurt they’re feeling, and the reasons they might feel Madrox is inaccessible as a target to take their frustration out on.
It’s certainly true that women can tear each other apart when they don’t want to lose the affections of a man they’re attracted to, whether or not that’s the healthiest thing for them. There’s also a vast, illimitable chasm between the “Herp derp!” Peter Parker situation above and writing about the complexities of female relationships.
It’s not that I don’t want to trust you, it’s that after years of girls in refrigerators and as sex objects I just want to know if M and Siryn’s stories are about who Madrox ends up sleeping with or their evolution of the two women as individuals. (Which could easily end up with one of them becoming a partner to Madrox, but would be wholly different from the “Herp derp” situation.) Reading the stories and making up my own mind would be awesomecakes if I wasn’t looking at putting $100 bucks down.
“This may not be the book for you” or “You know, that’s not the perspective I’ve been writing from but I’ll consider it” would be equally respectable answers to “I think you’ll like what you find.” At least, I would respect them equally. It’s not like the comic industry can disappoint me more than it already has in the time since I first picked up comics seventeen years ago.
My other question is if buying the TPBs supports you, or just Marvel? I’m leery of buying them if you’re not getting royalties off them because I do not, on the whole, support Marvel comics at this point in time. Maybe, someday, that will change for the better. (In the case of corporate-profit-only TPBs I’d just have to only subscribe to the single issues.) I suppose, though, supporting back issues of X-Factor would better insure its future either way. Gah. If only the entertainment industry wasn’t so morally complicated.
I read about a plotline involving Madrox sleeping with Siryn and M basically simultaneously. It sounds from what I’ve read like things have been strained between Siryn and M after this event.
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That’s something of an understatement. Basically what happened was that Madrox, who had been drinking pretty heavily over previous issues, wound up falling over and creating a dupe who was extremely (a) libidinous and (b) charming. The dupe wound up bedding both Monet and Siryn (although we did not establish that Madrox himself didn’t bed either woman until later) which I should stress is not similar to the Chameleon business since the dupe was actually an aspect of Madrox and not a fake.
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Nevertheless this led to a ton of blowback, ranging from: Monet beating the crap out of Madrox in hopes of getting the specific libidinous dupe to emerge so that she could beat HIM up; to Monet and Siryn’s friendship being damaged and having to be mended; to Siryn subsequently learning that she was pregnant; to the baby…well, I won’t tell you what happened with that, but it was pretty intense. What it comes down to is that it’s twenty-five issues later and there’s still fall out from the incident being dealt with. The truth is that Madrox didn’t “want” to sleep with either of them; it was the dupe, representing inner desires of Madrox, who took it upon himself to act upon Madrox’s desires.
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I like to think the storyline falls within the parameters of what you’re looking for. Ultimately only you can decide that.
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And yes, buying trades benefits me.
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PAD
I realized from the comments higher up that today is your birthday, so, happy birthday! I hope you have a most excellent one.
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Thank you, sincerely, for assuaging my concerns. I don’t even ask for my entertainment to be unimpeachable, just to skirt certain more damaging tropes. The story sounds like the kind of juicy drama that can only happen when superpowers get involved and something to get me through long, cold assigned reading on bankruptcy and on contract law next month.
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In short, I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my concerns and will definitely be picking up X-Factor when I get my monthly stipend. There’s an “in long” bellow but it doesn’t change the fact that I am currently both satisfied and optimistic and very likely, at this juncture, to join in the word of mouth game. Thank you.
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(And thank you for Space Cases, too. It only lasted two seasons, but I was one happy thirteen year old. Harlan and Radu and Catalina and Suzee and Davenport and…Aw, heck, man, I can still sing the themesong. 🙂
Wasn’t there a PSA comic where Peter Parker was sexually molested as a child?
yes No?
Well I know the answer is “yes”….
I forgot to add that I really don’t expect my actual comment to be approved for the public entry but am not sure if my e-mail is visible to you. At any rate, it’s calicokat [at] darkless [dot] net and I will survive and carry on if you choose, for whatever your own reasons (time, subject matter, etc.) not to respond.
Callie K.
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I think all posts here are posted automatically.
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Your post is long and thought inducing, but it is not for me to answer it, except I’d like to address the part about trade editions.
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Whether you buy the individual issues or the trades, you are helping Marvel, and thus Peter David. Both help insure further X-Factor comics from Peter David. Buy whichever works best or easiest for you.
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But I think it is more fun to read individual issues because you can then be part of the online discussion.
It’s possible they are posted automatically. Although, my two didn’t appear on the website for three hours and well after comments posted at a later timestamp. I’m stuck writing a law paper all day so I refreshed occasionally while gradually going insane searching for supporting cases on Westlaw. (Sadly my conservative course of study and soon-to-be-career means I can’t use my real name here. Those are the times.)
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I didn’t realize I needed that period between lines trick. I wish I had!
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Thank you for your input. Back in the day, I used to buy both individual issues /and/ TPBs of the comics I was reading. That was, obviously, a bygone day, but certainly if I found a book that gave me the same enjoyment I used to get from comics before I realized my kind (you know, the homosexuals) weren’t really welcome there I would show it the same support and be happy to support it both monthly and in TPBs!
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Not to spam one meelion links, but: “Who cares about the death of a gay superhero, anyway?”
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http://tinyurl.com/5ltafo
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You could say I’ve been waiting for Shatterstar to snog Rictor, or for any two established characters to show some same sex love, a long time. 🙂 I dropped my very last comic pulls exactly when Northstar died in three continuities in one calendar month. (Although, murderous zombie assassin for the lulz?)
Not to spam one meelion links, but: “Who cares about the death of a gay superhero, anyway
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That article is somewhat out of date since the events of X-Factor #45 are not reflected in its description of Shatterstar and Rictor.
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PAD
While the original article still reflects some of the staggering inequities and losses homosexual readers have faced in mainstream comics, clicking on comments link does have Perry exploding with joy over Rictor and Shatterstar. I don’t know if he intends to amend the original article, although the article itself was a milestone for the community in terms of our ability to say “We’re not crazy! Well, we’re probably crazy, but they’re also out to get us.”
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I do pray that we at least get a full plot arc or two with Rictor and Shatterstar. The X-Factor 45 was in stores in, what, June? And I waited this long to see if either of them, well, immediately died, was disfigured, etc. so whatever audience you picked up, it’s quite possible it’ll continue increasing with time. The breach of trust is so huge between the industry and the fans that some of us may be, well, cautiously coming in pressed against and inching along the wall, crawling in the ventilation shafts, or shuffling underneath a cardboard box much like Metal Gear Solid’s Solid Snake.
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Getting invested financially can be intimidating, but getting invested emotionally is so much more intimidating than that. That’s where they get you, when they say “Sorry, it doesn’t matter how many low key work and school nine-to-fivers and firefighters and don’t-tell soldiers are really out there. You can’t be heroes in the mainstream narrative and you certainly can’t be couples.”
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Also, a holla for my bisexual friends in town and in the blogosphere. If Rictor turns out to be a bisexual in comics that isn’t Wildly Promiscuous but just has a larger pool of people to choose committed relationships from I think I know about twenty people in town and on the blogosphere I can sell on your book. They’re the people who have lamented to me in the past, “At least there’s narratives where you /exist/!”
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(Although, now I’m seeing a safari group: “Today we observe the subspecies /bisexual monogamous/ in his native habitat. Carefully, carefully, and oh so quietly or we may startle him into the underbrush.”)
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With the forever-continuing nature of mainstream comics, and while I’d heart the world if they were together 4ever working through problems and drama like two people do, I wouldn’t even be Deeply Wounded if they eventually broke up if they did it for reasons people break up…just hopefully not because one of them is graphically, violently killed.
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And now, away to turn in this memorandum. Let me say one more time, though, you’ve made my day a lot brighter. Woosh!
While the original article still reflects some of the staggering inequities and losses homosexual readers have faced in mainstream comics, clicking on comments link does have Perry exploding with joy over Rictor and Shatterstar. I don’t know if he intends to amend the original article, although the article itself was a milestone for the community in terms of our ability to say “We’re not crazy! Well, we’re probably crazy, but they’re also out to get us.”
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While I can see how the argument can be made, the more you narrow focus a group, the more you can contend that terrible things have happened to them. Lots of terrible things have happened to lots of characters; I’m not sure I accept the concept that gays have been targeted. I mean, if you consider that Sue Richards has been put through some incredibly awful experiences, and that Sue Dibney was raped and murdered, you could argue that 100% of all women named Sue married to guys who stretch have been treated shamefully.
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That sort of criticism serves as a disincentive for writers to have characters who are specifically gay, because if you treat them the same way that you would treat any other character, suddenly there’s a whole new dynamic of fan response. If you have him turn villainous (as many other characters have) suddenly you’re a gay basher. If you kill him off, suddenly you’re part of a company-wide conspiracy to murder any gay characters. If you introduce a character who is gay (or black, or female for that matter) your options are curtailed because you risk getting blowback for story developments that would be taken in stride if the character is a straight white male. Don’t believe me? Look at the “Doctor Who” fans who howled that Russell Davies hates gays because he’s killed off gay characters. Never mind that the notion of introducing any manner of sexuality into “Doctor Who” would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. Never mind that Davies himself is openly gay. In the minds of some fans, he killed off gay characters, therefore he hates gays.
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But of course if writers decide to avoid the entire mess by just sticking to white hetero characters, they’re accused of lacking diversity in their writing. They’re discouraged from being inclusive by the very people who complain about lack of inclusion. It’s a problem.
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PAD
PAD: Look at the “Doctor Who” fans who howled that Russell Davies hates gays because he’s killed off gay characters. Never mind that the notion of introducing any manner of sexuality into “Doctor Who” would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. Never mind that Davies himself is openly gay. In the minds of some fans, he killed off gay characters, therefore he hates gays.
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The most recent example of this with Russell Davies was on the Doctor Who spin-off, Torchwood. I think looking at that one closely is actually a pretty good example of how things get written this way.
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The gay character who died was Ianto, who was the boyfriend of the leader of the group, Captain Jack. So really, what Davies did is what writers have done since the invention of writing: he killed the love interest. In this case the love interest just happened to be a man instead of a woman.
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This is where a lot of the “women in refrigerators” stuff comes from. It’s not that writers set out to hurt women, it’s that they set out to hurt the main character in the worst way possible that let’s him keep fighting.
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It’s the same reason why there was the cliche of the Black partner always dying in cop movies for awhile. The script was always written to have the partner die, that was just the best way to move the story. But then when it came time to cast the roles, they wanted a Black guy in the movie and that’s where they put him.
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So it’s not that anyone wanted to kill the Black guy, they just wanted a Black guy and the place to put him was in the disposable character.
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But that leads to showing what the real problem is. It’s not that writers always do bad things to minority characters. They need to be able to do bad things to any character. The problem is when the minorities never make it into the lead roles. Getting back to Torchwood, the important detail of the show was the gay main character, Captain Jack. So yes, a gay character was in the expendable role, but this is also one of the few cases where there was a gay character that the audience knew wouldn’t die because he’s the hero of the story. Also, they know he wouldn’t die because he’s immortal, but that’s beside the point right now.
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It’s good that we’re in an age where the expendable roles (which means all of the supporting characters) can be filled by any type of person. It’s also good that we’re slowly getting to the point where they can be the heroes of the stories as well.
I kind of see both sides of the argument to an extent. I think that while the list brought my attention to some things I was unaware of, it really reached in other parts. For example, the way it brushes over Hulking and Karolina Dean of Young Avengers and Runaways respectively. I believe it makes some note of the fact that although in a short story arch these two characters are captured and tortured, yet their teammates weren’t. Well… in many other story arches these two characters are the ones coming to the rescue while the other characters are captured. If you’re looking to compile a list of bad things that have happened to any group in comics you can find tons of things to rack up… if you reach for them like that.
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I think one of the hardest aspects about representing minority characters in comics is bringing them into popularity in such a way that these characters will be around forever. I mean, no spluh that there weren’t really gay characters introduced in the Silver Age of comics. Since then the cultural climate has shifted quite a lot, but the same characters that we’ve known for the last several decades are still (in most cases) the most well known and popular ones. So even if you introduce a gay character in comics today, how is that character ever going to compete with Spider-man or the Hulk? It won’t.
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Honestly, the part of that article that I found most illuminating was the amount of gay characters who have been killed by spikes, stabbing, or other form of penetration. It seems that when killing off gay male characters (and this isn’t just in comics), they very commonly meet with their demise through some form of penetration. And that is the sort of story-telling trend that I think can be curbed.
The most recent example of this with Russell Davies was on the Doctor Who spin-off, Torchwood.
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For clarification, I’m pretty sure that Torchwood was what PAD was intending to refer to when mentioning Doctor Who. 🙂
I figured that, but since I was giving a specific example, I thought I should cite the source.
I think I spent more time on this and rewrote more of this than my memorandum. Delicious priorities. It’s much easier to toe the line with the law than with these issues. There’s some syntax like PAD isn’t in the room and some syntax like he is and that’s mostly because I’m addressing multiple responses. I love a discussion! I’m also not taking up any more blogspace on this entry after this dissertation, although I’ll read con-crit of my views with vested interest. If anybody wants to chat me up they can feel free to e-mail me, but in a stunning turn of events I am physically capable of shutting my yap and don’t want to drown out any further comments with exactly how loquacious I /am/.
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This, though. This! I am breaking up into, um, three posts…? The shame.
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This is where a lot of the “women in refrigerators” stuff comes from. It’s not that writers set out to hurt women, it’s that they set out to hurt the main character in the worst way possible that let’s him keep fighting.
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I can be found on the internet criticizing RTD’s writing choices for Torchwood. When RTD gave his interview about Ianto’s demise, he said more or less that it was bold, creative writing and that if people couldn’t keep up with it they needed to get out of the pool. The problem with “women in refrigerators” is, well, it’s been done – more than a few times! It’s not particularly bold, or creative, or original to kill off the most important person in the hero’s life to keep him fighting. It’s par for course. It’s an easy out for a writer to drum up some dramatic conflict without having to reach for it.
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The shame about Torchwood: COE was that Jack had enough epic conflict with the plotline involving his grandson to carry the mini-series. Instead, RTD had to “up the stakes.” He had to let the audiences know that /real/ losses could be incurred! But I wasn’t suddenly struck with amnesia. I still quite remembered Tosh and Owen had died in the season 2 finale.
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From my own perspective, Ianto’s death was akin to Trinity in the Matrix’s – too busy emotionally manipulating the audience for the character to get around to dying. I could easily imagine both Trinity and Ianto gasping out “And…I forgot…to…change…the cat…litter…..” well before gasping their last. (Although Trinity’s case is the most grievous case of this ever and difficult to compare to /anything/ else. What did she take, like half an hour?)
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I admittedly had an initial “Seriously? Another dead queer?” rant for Torchwood. (Gay cinema is the best place to find Dead Tragic Queers so RTD doesn’t actually get a pass for being gay.) Later, I realized what I hated about Ianto’s death. It was that I felt so manipulated by the time the bûggër finally knocked off, just like I feel to one extent or another when I’m confronted with other fridged characters, men or women.
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If you have him turn villainous (as many other characters have) suddenly you’re a gay basher. If you kill him off, suddenly you’re part of a company-wide conspiracy to murder any gay characters.
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I would never want to say and apologize for inferring that if Shatterstar or Rictor comes up to die, or one of them decides to turn malicious, etc., that I would inherently consider that bad storytelling or persecution of homosexuals.
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There are so many deaths that are part of good storytelling, deaths that progress a storyline and/or deaths that occur because the character died, because it’s sudden and painful and a consequence of war (I think of the Supernatural Season 2 finale and the movie Serenity and, actually, Owen and Tosh, where not everything is said between them, the team finds Tosh dead and so many emotional threads are left raggedly unresolved). There is plenty of room for well written deaths where the viewer doesn’t feel like the writer is looming over their shoulder staring creepily at the media they’re consuming saying “Are your heartstrings tugged yet? Arrrre they? o___o”
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(Do I think killing Northstar three times in one month was egregious? It was. And, man, it’s just as bad if there was a person coordinating these things as if there wasn’t. “Let’s kill Northstar month” was still a bit much.)
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Earlier, my roommate argued to me that she preferred when gay characters in a relationship in a continuing story die instead of break up – that because so many queers are written as unable to commit to relationships, at least the death means the forces of fate ripped the partner away and not that the character’s are incapable of committing to enduring love. I can see her argument, as well, especially in comics where the most famous and enduring relationship has been Cyclops and Phoenix and even that couldn’t stand the test of time. (Hey, 46 years of the same story would be pretty boring even for somebody who enjoys monogamous stories.)
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On this second thought, I retract my statement that one is even preferable to the other. In fact, the more I think about it the only preferable situation is that the stories are told about individuals instead of tropes.
So it’s not that anyone wanted to kill the Black guy, they just wanted a Black guy and the place to put him was in the disposable character.
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There’s an excellent essay by Alaya Dawn Johnson over on The Angry Black Woman and it’s about the show Supernatural, but is applicable pretty much anywhere: http://tinyurl.com/nxyebm
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In it and in the comments there’s some great discussion about how, well, yes, there are some reasons – in this case, contract conflicts with multiple actors – that black characters check out from Supernatural, but when you start to notice a trend in their treatment and how they check out perhaps there’s also an inherent problem? I think there’s good points made on both sides. If I didn’t use links, I could talk for another five thousand words, but a strongly related essay is “What kind of card is race?” (http://tinyurl.com/l8c78y)
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There’s enough intersectionality between queers and other minorities that I think it answers the question of “What kind of card is gay?” At least in the conclusion: “In short, and let us be clear on it: race is not a card. It determines whom the dealer is, and who gets dealt.”
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I fully understand the need not to be creatively stifled by trying to keep in mind the demands of this group or that group. Before the recession hit, I had gotten out of college with an English Major with a focus in Creative Writing. (Now, I’ve escaped back to school.) I have a lot of friends in the television and publishing industries. (By a lot, I mean seven.) Even though I’m not actively writing for my bread (I’ve been invited into the e-romance sphere; I’m…considering it), issues of creative control are legitimately important to me.
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In fact, the problem I’m having embracing writing romance novels is that they have to end in HEA. Happily Ever After. It’s the reason I can’t put words to paper. And, the worst thing is I’ve been writing a fanfic series that I promised my friends would end, if I get around to ending it, HEA, no matter what. When it’s a publisher mandate, I’m like “I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP.” I embrace an aversion to a restraint of artistic license. (Note to self: Remember you typed this later when higher education fails you and you’re slowly starving.)
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[Secretly, maybe it’s that I’d have to stop overwriting and I’m too infatuated with adverbs and dialog tags I could reasonably omit and I hate breaking up admirably long sentences with periods.]
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They’re discouraged from being inclusive by the very people who complain about lack of inclusion. It’s a problem.
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It’s true that minorities are reputed for always complaining. It’s true that writing work of interest to minorities can be stepping into a minefield without ever knowing it and there’s definitely massive internet dialog on the subject.
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I think it’s still safe to say that people can and do overreact. Sometimes people are so used to reacting that a hint of a familiar pattern turns into an unwarranted attack. Sometimes the hapless are torn into without justification. It remains the unfortunate case that those responses are honed on grievances that deserve a reaction. (Google “Racefail.” Spoiler: It contains Fail, and everything else under the sun that could be said about anything.) I don’t think it negates the fact that trends exist and we see the trends because they pattern so many other aspects of our lives. On top of that, it’s so very hard for women and minorities to break into the media industry of the United States. (I.e. the Liar cover controversy: http://tinyurl.com/yelurcn and this entire excellent book http://tinyurl.com/ybd4huk) Just as pressing, U.S. media overruns the media of every country on earth, leaving alternatives slim. (Bollywood has broken out!)
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My observations so far in my life are that although we hunger to see ourselves reflected in what we read and watch, there’s a persistent frustration over our inability to influence the narratives being told about our often-intersecting groups. Many times, when the cry goes out, it’s a cry of: “We’re starving and want to be fed. Why are our only two choices being fed poison or not being fed at all?”
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The fact remains we can’t just go out and make our own media and get it distributed with any regularity no matter how badly we want it. We often have no choice whether we eat, are made ill, or starve. That’s the limitation of sitting and waiting for the dealer to pitch us our hand. I experience it as a woman and a homosexual and I’m still acutely aware that in many ways people of color are hit even harder in their day to day experiences.
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BUT.
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There’s light at the end of this diatribe! I decided that throwing caution to the wind is what credit cards are for and I purchased some X-Factor today. (At Oxford Comics, which, me being new to the town, I was told by my roommate was the only place to shop. So, funny story, the cashier – I think his name was Jerry – was like “Oh, these are Kathy’s husband’s books.”) I am enjoying the hëll out of them. Against my fears, the women are conflicted, richly characterized, fully human and free to be morally ambiguous. There are ethnic characters (M, Rictor and Rhane), and they’re written as individuals rather than stereotypes. Believe me, that’s crazy refreshing, and I haven’t even gotten anywhere near men kissing, yet!
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The icing on the cake is that the writing’s sharp; the dialog’s so often stunningly funny, and other times it’s well into literary. I love the scene breaks into seemingly overlapping conversations. This book is, in fact, not part of the problem. So, definitely, when I say “There is a problem” I’m not saying “PAD is part of the problem.” This is what I want to read. This is exactly the nature of story I want to read. It reads real, true to life despite all the super-shenanigans, and that’s fantastic. I couldn’t be happier someone is writing it and it’s being published by a mainstream publisher. I can’t wait to get to Shatterstar and Rictor! I’m interested in seeing the creative vision of this narrative unfold, wherever it travels.
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This is an extremely long way of saying that when it comes to X-Factor, I’m thrilled for it to keep doing what it’s doing. There’s the “Give them what they want” camp of writing and the “Give them what they need” camp, but I the one true camp might be: “Give them what they want, not what they expect.” No work’s perfect on every note, but, so far, X-Factor is authentically strong.
Minutiae
Getting back to Torchwood, the important detail of the show was the gay main character, Captain Jack. So yes, a gay character was in the expendable role, but this is also one of the few cases where there was a gay character that the audience knew wouldn’t die because he’s the hero of the story.
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This paragraph is super-semantic. Jack’s actually not gay, although he’s queer. Jack is omnisexual, or, as the series says, he’ll do “anything with a post code.” Ianto himself is bisexual. Because alternative sexualities just aren’t represented in heteronormative writing or society, the trend now is to refer to “GLBTQ” characters and real individuals. (Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer.) Queer is being adopted by (some) heterosexuals who don’t fit the monogamous-marriage standard. Other gays and lesbians are still put off by the term, despite the reclamation of the past decade.
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You can also type GBLTQ to make it like an awesome sandwich.
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I think one of the hardest aspects about representing minority characters in comics is bringing them into popularity in such a way that these characters will be around forever. I mean, no spluh that there weren’t really gay characters introduced in the Silver Age of comics. Since then the cultural climate has shifted quite a lot, but the same characters that we’ve known for the last several decades are still (in most cases) the most well known and popular ones.
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This is why Shatterstar and Rictor are so important to me, my friends, and many of the people I’ve spoken to in the blogosphere. Good god, they’re established characters! Eighteen years old and twenty two years old, respectively. I’m still in shock, and I’ve had months to digest it. (I kind of actually am. Hence my slow uptake of the books.) No matter what happens, it’s a step. A definite step. Heck. It’s even edging into the territory of “a giant leap.”
(Apparently it was too long for three parts. *clears throat*)
So it’s not that anyone wanted to kill the Black guy, they just wanted a Black guy and the place to put him was in the disposable character.
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There’s an excellent essay by Alaya Dawn Johnson over on The Angry Black Woman and it’s about the show Supernatural, but is applicable pretty much anywhere: http://tinyurl.com/nxyebm
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In it and in the comments there’s some great discussion about how, well, yes, there are some reasons – in this case, contract conflicts with multiple actors – that black characters check out from Supernatural, but when you start to notice a trend in their treatment and how they check out perhaps there’s also an inherent problem? I think there’s good points made on both sides. If I didn’t use links, I could talk for another five thousand words, but a strongly related essay is “What kind of card is race?” (http://tinyurl.com/l8c78y)
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There’s enough intersectionality between queers and other minorities that I think it answers the question of “What kind of card is gay?” At least in the conclusion: “In short, and let us be clear on it: race is not a card. It determines whom the dealer is, and who gets dealt.”
.
I fully understand the need not to be creatively stifled by trying to keep in mind the demands of this group or that group. Before the recession hit, I had gotten out of college with an English Major with a focus in Creative Writing. (Now, I’ve escaped back to school.) I have a lot of friends in the television and publishing industries. (By a lot, I mean seven.) Even though I’m not actively writing for my bread (I’ve been invited into the e-romance sphere; I’m…considering it), issues of creative control are legitimately important to me.
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In fact, the problem I’m having embracing writing romance novels is that they have to end in HEA. Happily Ever After. It’s the reason I can’t put words to paper. And, the worst thing is I’ve been writing a fanfic series that I promised my friends would end, if I get around to ending it, HEA, no matter what. When it’s a publisher mandate, I’m like “I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP.” I embrace an aversion to a restraint of artistic license. (Note to self: Remember you typed this later when higher education fails you and you’re slowly starving.)
.
[Secretly, maybe it’s that I’d have to stop overwriting and I’m too infatuated with adverbs and dialog tags I could reasonably omit and I hate breaking up admirably long sentences with periods.]
.
They’re discouraged from being inclusive by the very people who complain about lack of inclusion. It’s a problem.
.
It’s true that minorities are reputed for always complaining. It’s true that writing work of interest to minorities can be stepping into a minefield without ever knowing it and there’s definitely massive internet dialog on the subject.
.
I think it’s still safe to say that people can and do overreact. Sometimes people are so used to reacting that a hint of a familiar pattern turns into an unwarranted attack. Sometimes the hapless are torn into without justification. It remains the unfortunate case that those responses are honed on grievances that deserve a reaction. (Google “Racefail.” Spoiler: It contains Fail, and everything else under the sun that could be said about anything.) I don’t think it negates the fact that trends exist and we see the trends because they pattern so many other aspects of our lives. On top of that, it’s so very hard for women and minorities to break into the media industry of the United States. (I.e. the Liar cover controversy: http://tinyurl.com/yelurcn and this entire excellent book http://tinyurl.com/ybd4huk) Just as pressing, U.S. media overruns the media of every country on earth, leaving alternatives slim. (Bollywood has broken out!)
.
My observations so far in my life are that although we hunger to see ourselves reflected in what we read and watch, there’s a persistent frustration over our inability to influence the narratives being told about our often-intersecting groups. Many times, when the cry goes out, it’s a cry of: “We’re starving and want to be fed. Why are our only two choices being fed poison or not being fed at all?”
.
The fact remains we can’t just go out and make our own media and get it distributed with any regularity no matter how badly we want it. We often have no choice whether we eat, are made ill, or starve. That’s the limitation of sitting and waiting for the dealer to pitch us our hand. I experience it as a woman and a homosexual and I’m still acutely aware that in many ways people of color are hit even harder in their day to day experiences.
I think the important part was too long to post. Or got caught by flood control. Or is in an approval cue.
.
The end of the important part, though, was that I bought some X-Factor on credit, and it was freaking awesome, and I’m looking forward to more. So far, the issues that make me squeamish are not present because the characters are written with fully fleshed out personalities and aren’t “a woman” or “an ethnicity,” they’re complex and wonderful enough to just be “people.” That? Is the most important part.
This paragraph is super-semantic. Jack’s actually not gay, although he’s queer. Jack is omnisexual,
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Yes, Jack is omnisexual, but I don’t think that affects my point. Captain Jack is a character in a homosexual relationship, played by a happily married gay man.
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(Have you seen pictures of his wedding? It’s awesome, they wore kilts. Somehow that seems much cooler than a groom in a kilt and a bride in a white wedding dress).
.
Back on topic, as far as the audience is concerned, Jack is a fairly classic hero who happens to not be heterosexual. That’s not such a common thing. I think it’s worth something. I think the lack of it is why most of the gay characters we’re used to seeing are usually expendable.
(The missing part 2, if in fact this post goes through. It pretty much concludes my current thoughts.)
.
So it’s not that anyone wanted to kill the Black guy, they just wanted a Black guy and the place to put him was in the disposable character.
.
There’s an excellent essay by Alaya Dawn Johnson over on The Angry Black Woman and it’s about the show Supernatural, but is applicable pretty much anywhere: http://tinyurl.com/nxyebm
.
In it and in the comments there’s some great discussion about how, well, yes, there are some reasons – in this case, contract conflicts with multiple actors – that black characters check out from Supernatural, but when you start to notice a trend in their treatment and how they check out perhaps there’s also an inherent problem? I think there’s good points made on both sides. If I didn’t use links, I could talk for another five thousand words, but a strongly related essay is “What kind of card is race?” (http://tinyurl.com/l8c78y)
.
There’s enough intersectionality between queers and other minorities that I think it answers the question of “What kind of card is gay?” At least in the conclusion: “In short, and let us be clear on it: race is not a card. It determines whom the dealer is, and who gets dealt.”
.
I fully understand the need not to be creatively stifled by trying to keep in mind the demands of this group or that group. Before the recession hit, I had gotten out of college with an English Major with a focus in Creative Writing. (Now, I’ve escaped back to school.) I have a lot of friends in the television and publishing industries. (By a lot, I mean seven.) Even though I’m not actively writing for my bread (I’ve been invited into the e-romance sphere; I’m…considering it), issues of creative control are legitimately important to me.
.
In fact, the problem I’m having embracing writing romance novels is that they have to end in HEA. Happily Ever After. It’s the reason I can’t put words to paper. And, the worst thing is I’ve been writing a fanfic series that I promised my friends would end, if I get around to ending it, HEA, no matter what. When it’s a publisher mandate, I’m like “I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP.” I embrace an aversion to a restraint of artistic license. (Note to self: Remember you typed this later when higher education fails you and you’re slowly starving.)
.
[Secretly, maybe it’s that I’d have to stop overwriting and I’m too infatuated with adverbs and dialog tags I could reasonably omit and I hate breaking up admirably long sentences with periods.]
.
They’re discouraged from being inclusive by the very people who complain about lack of inclusion. It’s a problem.
.
It’s true that minorities are reputed for always complaining. It’s true that writing work of interest to minorities can be stepping into a minefield without ever knowing it and there’s definitely massive internet dialog on the subject.
.
I think it’s still safe to say that people can and do overreact. Sometimes people are so used to reacting that a hint of a familiar pattern turns into an unwarranted attack. Sometimes the hapless are torn into without justification. It remains the unfortunate case that those responses are honed on grievances that deserve a reaction. (Google “Racefail.” Spoiler: It contains Fail, and everything else under the sun that could be said about anything.) I don’t think it negates the fact that trends exist and we see the trends because they pattern so many other aspects of our lives. On top of that, it’s so very hard for women and minorities to break into the media industry of the United States. (I.e. the Liar cover controversy: http://tinyurl.com/yelurcn and this entire excellent book http://tinyurl.com/ybd4huk) Just as pressing, U.S. media overruns the media of every country on earth, leaving alternatives slim. (Bollywood has broken out!)
.
My observations so far in my life are that although we hunger to see ourselves reflected in what we read and watch, there’s a persistent frustration over our inability to influence the narratives being told about our often-intersecting groups. Many times, when the cry goes out, it’s a cry of: “We’re starving and want to be fed. Why are our only two choices being fed poison or not being fed at all?”
.
The fact remains we can’t just go out and make our own media and get it distributed with any regularity no matter how badly we want it. We often have no choice whether we eat, are made ill, or starve. That’s the limitation of sitting and waiting for the dealer to pitch us our hand. I experience it as a woman and a homosexual and I’m still acutely aware that in many ways people of color are hit even harder in their day to day experiences.
.
BUT.
.
There’s light at the end of this diatribe! I decided that throwing caution to the wind is what credit cards are for and I purchased some X-Factor today. (At Oxford Comics, which, me being new to the town, I was told by my roommate was the only place to shop. So, funny story, the cashier – I think his name was Jerry – was like “Oh, these are Kathy’s husband’s books.”) I am enjoying the hëll out of them. Against my fears, the women are conflicted, richly characterized, fully human and free to be morally ambiguous. There are ethnic characters (M, Rictor and Rhane), and they’re written as individuals rather than stereotypes. Believe me, that’s crazy refreshing, and I haven’t even gotten anywhere near men kissing, yet!
.
The icing on the cake is that the writing’s sharp; the dialog’s so often stunningly funny, and other times it’s well into literary. I love the scene breaks into seemingly overlapping conversations. This book is, in fact, not part of the problem. So, definitely, when I say “There is a problem” I’m not saying “PAD is part of the problem.” This is what I want to read. This is exactly the nature of story I want to read. It reads real, true to life despite all the super-shenanigans, and that’s fantastic. I couldn’t be happier someone is writing it and it’s being published by a mainstream publisher. I can’t wait to get to Shatterstar and Rictor! I’m interested in seeing the creative vision of this narrative unfold, wherever it travels.
.
This is an extremely long way of saying that when it comes to X-Factor, I’m thrilled for it to keep doing what it’s doing. There’s the “Give them what they want” camp of writing and the “Give them what they need” camp, but I the one true camp might be: “Give them what they want, not what they expect.” No work’s perfect on every note, but, so far, X-Factor is authentically strong.
(I’m posting the missing part from last night in smaller pieces, if it lets me, and with nothing new added.)
.
So it’s not that anyone wanted to kill the Black guy, they just wanted a Black guy and the place to put him was in the disposable character.
.
There’s an excellent essay by Alaya Dawn Johnson over on The Angry Black Woman and it’s about the show Supernatural, but is applicable pretty much anywhere: http://tinyurl.com/nxyebm
.
In it and in the comments there’s some great discussion about how, well, yes, there are some reasons – in this case, contract conflicts with multiple actors – that black characters check out from Supernatural, but when you start to notice a trend in their treatment and how they check out perhaps there’s also an inherent problem? I think there’s good points made on both sides. If I didn’t use links, I could talk for another five thousand words, but a strongly related essay is “What kind of card is race?” (http://tinyurl.com/l8c78y)
.
There’s enough intersectionality between queers and other minorities that I think it answers the question of “What kind of card is gay?” At least in the conclusion: “In short, and let us be clear on it: race is not a card. It determines whom the dealer is, and who gets dealt.”
.
I fully understand the need not to be creatively stifled by trying to keep in mind the demands of this group or that group. Before the recession hit, I had gotten out of college with an English Major with a focus in Creative Writing. (Now, I’ve escaped back to school.) I have a lot of friends in the television and publishing industries. (By a lot, I mean seven.) Even though I’m not actively writing for my bread (I’ve been invited into the e-romance sphere; I’m…considering it), issues of creative control are legitimately important to me.
.
In fact, the problem I’m having embracing writing romance novels is that they have to end in HEA. Happily Ever After. It’s the reason I can’t put words to paper. And, the worst thing is I’ve been writing a fanfic series that I promised my friends would end, if I get around to ending it, HEA, no matter what. When it’s a publisher mandate, I’m like “I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP.” I embrace an aversion to a restraint of artistic license. (Note to self: Remember you typed this later when higher education fails you and you’re slowly starving.)
.
[Secretly, maybe it’s that I’d have to stop overwriting and I’m too infatuated with adverbs and dialog tags I could reasonably omit and I hate breaking up admirably long sentences with periods.]
They’re discouraged from being inclusive by the very people who complain about lack of inclusion. It’s a problem.
.
It’s true that minorities are reputed for always complaining. It’s true that writing work of interest to minorities can be stepping into a minefield without ever knowing it and there’s definitely massive internet dialog on the subject.
.
I think it’s still safe to say that people can and do overreact. Sometimes people are so used to reacting that a hint of a familiar pattern turns into an unwarranted attack. Sometimes the hapless are torn into without justification. It remains the unfortunate case that those responses are honed on grievances that deserve a reaction. (Google “Racefail.” Spoiler: It contains Fail, and everything else under the sun that could be said about anything.) I don’t think it negates the fact that trends exist and we see the trends because they pattern so many other aspects of our lives. On top of that, it’s so very hard for women and minorities to break into the media industry of the United States. (I.e. the Liar cover controversy: http://tinyurl.com/yelurcn and this entire excellent book http://tinyurl.com/ybd4huk) Just as pressing, U.S. media overruns the media of every country on earth, leaving alternatives slim. (Bollywood has broken out!)
.
My observations so far in my life are that although we hunger to see ourselves reflected in what we read and watch, there’s a persistent frustration over our inability to influence the narratives being told about our often-intersecting groups. Many times, when the cry goes out, it’s a cry of: “We’re starving and want to be fed. Why are our only two choices being fed poison or not being fed at all?”
.
The fact remains we can’t just go out and make our own media and get it distributed with any regularity no matter how badly we want it. We often have no choice whether we eat, are made ill, or starve. That’s the limitation of sitting and waiting for the dealer to pitch us our hand. I experience it as a woman and a homosexual and I’m still acutely aware that in many ways people of color are hit even harder in their day to day experiences.
BUT.
.
There’s light at the end of this diatribe! I decided that throwing caution to the wind is what credit cards are for and I purchased some X-Factor today. (At Oxford Comics, which, me being new to the town, I was told by my roommate was the only place to shop. So, funny story, the cashier – I think his name was Jerry – was like “Oh, these are Kathy’s husband’s books.”) I am enjoying the hëll out of them. Against my fears, the women are conflicted, richly characterized, fully human and free to be morally ambiguous. There are ethnic characters (M, Rictor and Rhane), and they’re written as individuals rather than stereotypes. Believe me, that’s crazy refreshing, and I haven’t even gotten anywhere near men kissing, yet!
.
The icing on the cake is that the writing’s sharp; the dialog’s so often stunningly funny, and other times it’s well into literary. I love the scene breaks into seemingly overlapping conversations. This book is, in fact, not part of the problem. So, definitely, when I say “There is a problem” I’m not saying “PAD is part of the problem.” This is what I want to read. This is exactly the nature of story I want to read. It reads real, true to life despite all the super-shenanigans, and that’s fantastic. I couldn’t be happier someone is writing it and it’s being published by a mainstream publisher. I can’t wait to get to Shatterstar and Rictor! I’m interested in seeing the creative vision of this narrative unfold, wherever it travels.
.
This is an extremely long way of saying that when it comes to X-Factor, I’m thrilled for it to keep doing what it’s doing. There’s the “Give them what they want” camp of writing and the “Give them what they need” camp, but I the one true camp might be: “Give them what they want, not what they expect.” No work’s perfect on every note, but, so far, X-Factor is authentically strong.
Gay cinema is the best place to find Dead Tragic Queers so RTD doesn’t actually get a pass for being gay.
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And yet, I fail to see how this applies when, in the span of two series, EVERY character in the show had bisexual tendencies at some point or another.
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Ianto, as stated in the story, only had these feelings for Jack, in terms of homosexuality. Yet, Owen and Tosh had the same incidents with others, but nobody screamed “gay hater” when they died. It’s only because Ianto was hooked up with Captain Jack that people jumped over the cliff.
I find it funny that Spider Man is on the list of characters being “reclaimed ” by the Estate. This is the Kirby Estate attempting to rob Steve Ditko(even though Steve claims to not want the dough).
It is going against creator rights. They are simply hoping to get a HUGE settlement to avoid disruption of the Disney deal. Shame on them.
If the court gives it to them, they deserve it. And it won’t go to court for many years, if at all.
the courts are infallible? OJ will be happy to hear that.
Kirby had little to nothing to do with Spider Mans creation…No court can say otherwise.
But, Gene, That’s the point. The court could rule that Kirby DID have a hand in creating Spider-Man, even if only a small percentage. Kirby’s estate might then be awarded a small amount for Spider-Man.
I think his point was that just because the court rules a certain way it does not automatically mean it is the right way. If, for example, the court says that Kirby deserves nothing, nada, zero, I still think it would be right for Marvel to do something to acknowledge his contributions. At the very least it would be a good public relations move.
>And, as that work hasn’t yet passed into the public domain
That’s a part of the problem. Someone here asked when was the last time something passed into that ‘public domain’ and I didn’t note an answer. It think it would be “a long time ago”. And that’s not right. This is a case where “the needs of the few are outweighed by the needs of the many”. Eternal copyright hurts society by effectively eliminating public domain which exists for a reason. All of us either own or have access to a computer. Those machines are put together, in part, by screws. Should we be paying a fraction of a cent for every one of those screws to the great-great-great-great-etc grand kids of the people who originally came up with the idea? Of course not. Why should characters or stories by any different?
>3. “Keep it alive. Copyright should have to be renewed.” He went on to say that if the maximum term is long, the copyright owner should be required to indicate periodically that he wants protection to continue.
When was the last time someone clearly stated they didn’t? Look at the ridiculous lengths Marvel will come up with to protect their characters, even if only having someone mention them in passing such that they are still ‘in use’. Wouldn’t surprise me if they had a computer program with alarms set to print out a character’s name when he was nearing expiry so it wouldn’t slip between the cracks as one author (Gordon R Dickson?)’s copyrights accidentally expired because someone was remiss in applying for extension back in the 70s or so.
I really found Calli K’s discussion fascinating. Reading the links was very thought provoking and brings up a lot of very valid points. PAD mentions Rictor and Shatterstar needing to be updated on the “who cares about the death…” website and there is another update needed. In the “Old Man Logan” storyline (SPOILER ALERT)Wolverine kills all of the X-Men, so that stat about number of straight X-Men killed by him is not zero but actually much higher.
Also I felt the need to say that I found that website quite misleading. While it mentions all of the horrible things done to gay characters it doesn’t stack that next to their straight counterparts. A great many characters have a lot of horrible things happen to them, sometimes they are written with a sensitivity and sometimes they are not. There is really a trend to put these characters throught the ringer and see how bad things can get; that’s not limited to gay, straight, male, female, black, white, or any other distinction.
Is there a lot of room for improvement for the treatment of gay and lesbian characters? Absolutely, but there are some good examples out there (Moondragon and Marlo from PAD’s Hulk run comes to mind) that will hopefully lead to better examples in the future.
Duh! How did I forget to list Strangers in Paradise as an example?
★Yeah, that interview appeared in Comics Journal, the same ones who talked about Kirby getting separate treatment without mentioning that Kirby’s lawyers requested that treatment. Groth’s personal agenda was all about vilifying Marvel, and Kirby was a perfect vehicle for it. I was at a Kirby panel where Kirby was flanked by TCJ reps, and I *so* wanted to get up and say, “Gary, I’m curious, in your interview with Mr. Kirby, why did you not challenge his recollection of the Hulk’s origins when they were demonstrably at odds with the actual printed story, since the Hulk’s rage=transformation bit wasn’t established until several years later?” But I didn’t.★
Important to note that the he gets angry and turns into the Hulk element of the character was introduced in story not drawn by Kirby but by Ditko. From what I’ve heard it was Ditko’s idea and Stan just ran with it.
★The Kirby claim to Spider-Man stems from the fact that Kirby worked up an origin story for a character called Spider-Man and the assertion that he designed the costume. Well, no. Kirby’s story entitled “Spiderman” (no hyphen) involved a young boy (named Timmy, I believe) discovering a magic ring in the attic that gave him spider powers, and Ditko in fact designed the costume. Memory isn’t always dependable and rights aren’t always clearcut.
.★
According to Joe Simon’s book the Comic Book Makers it’s even less clear cut than that. Apparently Simon created a character called the Silver Spider with CC Beck, (boy named Tim finds a magic ring becomes adult Spider like superhero). Simon didn’t like Beck’s art, so he had Kirby redraw it, same script, same dialogue, different costume, (looking nothing like the Spider-Man we know), and Kirby changed some of the panel layouts but the story was exactly the same. Trying to sell the new character it got renamed SpiderMan (no hyphen), then ultimately the title got changed to The Fly, the costume and parts of the origin were altered to incorporate the fly motif and it was published by Archie and was a mild hit for years. Simon claims that Kirby took the unaltered Silver Spider/Spiderman costume and his script and sold it to Stan as a new character, when the pages started to come in everyone else in the office recognized the character as being totally identical to the origin of the character being published by a competitor that Kirby himself had worked on. That was when Stan took Jáçk øff the book, put Ditko on the book and came up with something else keeping the Spider-man name, (now with a hyphen) and the teenage hero idea and discarding everything else. Ditko wrote an essay in the 80’s that more or less jibs with Simon’s recollection, (the main difference being that in Ditko’s version it was Ditko himself that pointed out to Stan that they were ripping off a character being published by a competitor). Simon’s book even had examples of both Beck’s and Kirby’s art as well as the published Fly Kirby art, it was easy to see that even when the character was called SpiderMan he bore no resemblance to the character Marvel ended up publishing. Bottom line being, as long as Joe Simon and Steve Ditko, (to say nothing of Stan Lee) are alive I think the Kirby heirs might have a hard time proving the claim that Kirby was a sole creator, (or even a co-creator for that matter) of Spider-Man.
That was when Stan took Jáçk øff the book, put Ditko on the book and came up with something else keeping the Spider-man name, (now with a hyphen)
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Interesting. I’ve seen an interview with Stan Lee where he talked about how he came up with the name “Spider-Man” and it didn’t involve any of that. Maybe the years have made him remember wrong, maybe he made the story up, or maybe something else is going on. Whatever happened, what you said about Kirby being dead and Stan still being alive to tell his version goes for the name “Spider-Man” also.
Fascinating thread. All I would like to add is that while we pretty much know Kirby’s estate will claim co-ownership of Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, etc. they can plausibly claim SOME ownership of Spider-Man.
All a decent lawyer would have to argue is that Kirby’s artwork was used for the cover. It is part of comics lore that Kirby originally WAS going to do the art on Spider-Man but after looking at the (now iconic) cover to “Amazing Fantasy” #15 felt the character looked “too heroic and strong” for Peter Parker and so chose Ditko to do the interiors.
So Kirby’s estate could claim that he was in essence, the Fifth Beatle and was screwed by Stan Lee. (I don’t agree with that – I’m saying it’s something they could argue.
More important and relevant, they could argue that Kirby’s “heroic” cover is what caught people’s eye, that it is the iconic image that has been aped countless times (name one Ditko cover that has) AND that since it is what drew people to the book he is atleast partially responsible for the sales success of “Amazing Fantasy” 315, without which there would have been no further appearances of Spider-Man.
The estate can argue that because of that, he is entitled to at least A FIFTH of what Lee got – which is millions. Not half, a third or a quarter.
Hëll, with three more movies guaranteed, ANY percentage would be lucrative for the Kirby Estate – as long as they can prove jack Kirby was at least partially responsible for the Web-Head’s success.
It will DEFINITELY be interesting to see how they argue and negotiate this.
I obviously meant to type #15 instead of 315 in the preceding post
There’s actually a lot of problems with that “Who Cares” list besides Rictor and Shatterstar being out of date. Ice is no longer dead (but was she a lesbian? That’s news to me, as she’s currently in love with Guy Gardner). Yes, Bloke and Phat from X-Statix were killed… along with every other member of the team. Karma (as far as I know) wasn’t even written as a lesbian until long after all those horrible things happened to her. Obsidian is not gay because he was molested as a child (Marc Andreyko is gay, and he’s the one who made the character gay… the writer also failed to mention Obsidian’s boyfriend and the very open, matter-of-fact way their relationship is written). The list goes on and on. And why is it a bad thing to have gay villains? The Brain and Monsieur Mallah are two of the greatest characters in all of comics!
I’m not a fan of this sort of prejudice pigeonholing in general. People who write these sorts of articles seem to want us to believe that bad things never happen to straight, white, American males. It’s like anything else: you find only what you’re looking for. If you’re looking that hard for homophobia or any sort of ill-treatment of gays in comics, of course you’re going to find it. But the positive treatment of gay characters in comics has actually exceeded my expectations, and, considering the small percentage of human beings who are gay, I’d say that yes, it is a fair representation.
Ice was never a lesbian. She is being confused with Icemaiden (Sigrid Nansen), a bisexual woman. Nansen was the first Icemaiden, and a member of the Global Guardians, but she retired and Tora Olafsdotter, who comic fans know better as “Ice” – joined the Global Guardians as the new Icemaiden. After the second Icemaiden left the Global Guardians to join the JLI alongside the Green Flame (Beatriz da Costa), the pair changed their code-names to “Fire” and “Ice.”
Ice’s death at the hands of the Overmaster brought Icemaiden out of retirement, and she soon joined the Justice League alongeside Fire, and expressed feelings for her.
Of course, Icemaiden’s fate ended up being not that much better then Ice’s at its worst – she ended up being skinned alive in “JSA Classified” so Dolores Winters could steal her powers.
I don’t mind them having money, if i’m not wrog Stan Lee got his faira share of money a few years back and considering the millions made by the characters why not? But ownership GOD NO! The Marvel Universe is something as a whole. if you start splitting the characters between different owners (and therefore, publishers) you just terminate a 48 years-old storyline that started with FF#1. These people should show some respect for fans and for the MU as a collective work of art! Look at what happened with Superboy: DC seems to have resolved it by naming him differently but that’s already a whole mess! What happens if Marvel cannot use its main characters anymore? Besides that opens a new door: if every one start claiming ownership of the characters he/she created then you don’t have work for hire anymore and you end up with no shared universes left. We could end-up with Jim Lee sueing DC for ownership of the WildStorm Universe after he actually SOLD it to them loool!
Actually this could end-up with the USA becoming like France: here, the law actually forbids anyone to sell or buy intellectual property. You can “rent” a copyright to a publisher/movie studio for a certain number of years, but what you created is your own property forever weither you want it or not. That’s a different culture, but i don’t think it would make sense to apply this in the USA where collective work that are corporate properties such as Star Trek, Marvel, DC and so many others are a tradition. The collective energy that’s put in these corporate properties, while sometimes allowing disasters for the sake of easy money, often allow great writers to work together and produce an astonishing level of quality that we hardly have here in France (at least when it comes to comics and TV series).
Minor point — kryptonite may have first appeared on radio, but it’s not clear that the idea originated there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_K-Metal_from_Krypton
It’s also useful to note that there is a factor in contract law that there is a limited window for things like breach of contract to be challenged.
If you’ve done jobs for someone, and they pay you less than what was agreed upon, and you accept that payment without making any effort to get the rest of your money, you don’t get to come back a couple of years later and get the rest of your money in court. Your inaction effectively rewrites the contract under the new terms. Same thing goes for a contract you sign while drunk. Normally that would be voidable, but if you sober up, are aware of the contract upon sobering up, and then come back 6 months later and try to get out of the contract, you’ll be out of luck. The expectation is that if you objected to the contract once you were in an enforceable state, i.e. sober, you’d challenge the contract immediately or within some reasonable amount of time. Outside that reasonable windows means you’ve given tacit approval to the new terms, and agreement is one basic requirement for any contract, verbal or otherwise.
If Jack didn’t try to assert his rights, whatever they were, over the characters back years ago, and his heirs have made no effort to do so for decades until now, they’re going to have a serious tough row to hoe getting a court to award them rights.
We can certainly say Marvel wouldn’t be where it is without Kirby’s creations, but admittedly Kirby’s creations wouldn’t be the valuable commodities they are today without the huge investment that Marvel, not Kirby, has made in promoting those characters to the public.
Jeff–
Near as I can tell, the Kirby heirs are NOT asking a court to overturn ANY existing contract. They are not pointing at a nice tangible piece of paper, with terms and conditions spelled out in black-and-white and with Jack Kirby’s signature at the bottom, and then complaining that Jack didn’t know what he was doing when he signed it; nor are they charging that such a contract has already been breached by the other side because Marvel failed to live up to some of its obligations as spelled out in a signed agreement.
The whole problem appears to be that there never was a signed contract in the first place!
Back in the Silver Age, Jack Kirby would draw a new comic book story and carry it over to Marvel’s offices, and Stan Lee would look it over, and then he would arrange for Jack Kirby to get a check. (I don’t know if Stan signed the check himself, right then and there, or just delegated that to a company bookkeeper, or what. It doesn’t really matter.) Afterwards, Stan — and thus Marvel as a corporate entity — believed Marvel had full control of what to do with that artwork and the characters in it for the foreseeable future.
I think EVERYBODY agrees on what I just said in the previous paragraph.
The key question is: legally speaking, was Jack Kirby doing “work-for-hire” in each and every case, as he started drawing a new story with new characters in it, so that Marvel owned the copyright on everything he drew for them from the moment he finished drawing it?
If not, then Kirby was the original owner of his own works, and then copyright would TRANSFER to Marvel each time he carried another stack of pages over to Stan’s office and said, for instance, “Here’s the story for the first issue of ‘Fantastic Four,’ Stan!” and collected his paycheck in exchange for his artwork.
Marvel’s position seems to be that Jack Kirby “knew” he was doing work-for-hire, plain and simple, all the time and never owned any copyrights on anything he drew for Marvel, not for as much as five minutes! But as far as I know, Marvel can’t show that he ever signed any agreement to that effect.
The Kirby heirs disagree. They feel Jack sold his ownership rights to each stack of artwork when he handed it in and collected his check — but since there was no clear work-for-hire contract, he owned his own creations by default as the “original owner of the copyright” when he was working on those pages at home. The Kirby heirs freely admit that each time Jack handed in a story and got paid, the copyright ended up in the hands of Marvel for the next 56 years, so there was no point in Jack trying to exercise “rights” over those characters before the 56 years was getting close to running out in each case.
If neither side has any contract to show exactly what sort of working relationship Jack thought he had with Marvel, and exactly what rights he was or wasn’t selling to Marvel whenever Stan Lee authorized a new paycheck for him, then a court will have to decide who gets the benefit of the doubt in a case where NOBODY has a written contract to show what was “really” going on at the time. I have no idea what the relevant laws say (or said in the timeframe of the late 50s and early 60s) about “assuming” there was (or wasn’t) a legally binding work-for-hire contract in a case where nobody ever botherd to sign a written agreement at the time!