Mystery Hoard

Thursday, June 04, 2015

Review: Little Archie #50

Little Archie #50 (November, 1968), by Dexter Taylor, Joe Edwards, et al.

review by BK Munn

My big comic book purchase this week. The Adventures of Little Archie #50. I'm a sucker for Archie Giants and this one just kind of gave off a "Summer" glow. Luckily, Ray Mitchell threw it in when Kara and I bought a mannequin from his store.

I don't normally go for Little Archie. I prefer the mind-numbing antics of Archie and his gang as teenagers (or as teenage cavemen, or as teenage superheroes, or as teenage spies, etc). The Little Archie series to me has always been slightly terrifying. Not only are the children drawn in a hideous style, all with uniform buck teeth, but the very concept, that Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and Reggie have been locked in the same grotesque cyclical relationships since childhood, is very disturbing.

Everytime I sit down to read one of these stories, I try to put aside my prejudices. After all, the Hernandez Brothers are huge fans and some of my favourite Love and Rockets stories are basically built on a Little Archie template. And this issue in particular has a lot to offer. I think most of the stories are by Dexter Taylor, the man who took over on the title from Little Archie's original creator Bob Bolling for most of the 1960s. This is from 1968. Peak period. This is the year of "Sugar Sugar" and the Archie band's pop music breakthrough, so a couple of the stories have Archie and the gang trying to rehearse at the Lodge mansion. As well, there are adventures at the soda shop and in school.

As I get older, I identify more and more with the adults in Archie's world, especially the constantly humiliated Mr. Weatherbee (he ends up in front of the School Board and an auditorium of children in his boxers in one story here) and of course Pop Tate, the owner of the soda shop. Even snobby self-made millionaire Mr. Lodge gets my sympathy here, forever tormented by Little Archie and Little Jughead. In the story in #50, he runs for town council but when Archie mixes up his photo with the mugshot of a crook on a wanted poster, he keeps getting dragged into the police station by every prole in Riverdale until he finds and beats up "Bruiser McTuff" himself. You can kind of see a mid-life wish fulfillment thing going on in many Archie strips. The main characters are so eerily monstrous and unsympathetic (whether children or teenagers) and the put-upon parents, supposedly the moral compasses and bourgeois standard-bearers of the comics universe, often play-act at non-conformist rebellion, whether it's Mr. Lodge taking up prize-fighting and vigilantism, or "The 'Bee" trying out for Ed Sullivan. But of course, regardless of what they are doing in the final panel, all is safely back in its proper place by the first panel of the next story.

Monday, June 01, 2015

Read the First 30 Pages of "Catharsis" by Luz for Free

Charlie Hebdo Cartoonist Documents the Aftermath of the Massacre in New Book of Cartoons

CLICK HERE

"The book is, of course, about how everything changed on Luzier’s birthday. But his confessional volume should have a wider interest. That’s because its subtext is the artist’s secret fear of an unforeseen loss of inspiration.Luz describes it in a little preface.

“One day, drawing left me. The same day as a bunch of good friends. The only difference was that the drawing returned, little by little. Both darker and more light-hearted. With this returning ghost, I talked, cried, laughed and screamed… This book is not a testament, even less is it a comic. It’s the reunion of two friends who almost never met again.”

---from the Comics Journal review , "Catharsis and Charlie" b y Cynthia Rose

Monday, January 20, 2014

Royal Cat Records in Guelph

new vinyl record shop opening!

website

Friday, October 18, 2013

Early Dr. Strange Inspirations

EARLY DOCTOR STRANGE INSPIRATIONS

Peter Wyngarde as Prof. Norman Taylor in Burn, Witch, Burn (1962) looks like Steve Ditko’s Dr. Stephen Strange as seen here in “The Origin of Doctor Strange” (Strange Tales #115, 1963).

I wonder if Ditko saw this movie?

Do you believe?

Thursday, July 04, 2013

Lingerie in the Comics Pt 2

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Mystery Hoard on Tumblr

So I might be gradually migrating this to tumblr, not that I use either platform very frequently or well.

http://mysteryhoard.tumblr.com/ and Books in the Comic Books

Mystery Hoard on Tumblr

So I might be gradually migrating this to tumblr, not that I use either platform very frequently or well.

http://mysteryhoard.tumblr.com/ and

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

It Was a Golden Age: Cracked, 1958

There Were Giants in Those Days

From the contents page of Cracked #5, October 1958. We see here half of the once-and-future Marvel Bullpen along with the once-and-future Mad Magazine "Usual Gang of Idiots". The creators of Superman, The Human Torch, and The Submariner rubbing elbows with the artists behind Little Annie Fannie and Torchy. And for all that, it still reads like any issue of Cracked from anytime during its 50-odd-year run.

The full list reads as follows.

Editor: Sol Brodsky.

Artists: Carl Burgos, John Severin, Bill McCartney, Joe Maneely, Bill Everett, Syd Shores, Bernard Bailey, Jack Davis, Bill Elder, Al Jaffee, Jerry Behar.

Writers: Paul Laikin, Bill Ward, Jerry Siegal(sic), Carl Memling, Dick Richards, Fernando West, Teddy Bee.

At this early date, John Severin is already the workhorse of the magazine, followed closely in term of pages by Bill Ward (who also appears here as "McCartney," I think). Severin does front and back covers and two strips.

Will Elder subscription ad

And is this a self-portrait of Human-Torch-creator Carl Burgos? Look closely:

Some nice post-EC early Jack Davis in this double-page spread. There is just so much going on here!

Lots of quality stuff here, the knowledge of which is bound to make you popular with the opposite sex.

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Myra Breckinridge is a Marvel Comic Book?

“I’m quite happy with Raquel doing it,” recalls [Myra Breckinridge director Mike] Sarne, who nonetheless screen-tested her. “Because she has a marvelously artificial way of acting. And you could totally believe that she was a sex-change in a mad sort of way …. To me she fitted kind of stylistically into my Pop-art gallery. And Mae [West] fit into that, too; the pose, the walk —‘I’m Pop art, I’m a Marvel comic.” —quoted in ” Myra Breckinridge: Swinging Into Disaster” by Steven Daly, Vanity Fair’s Tales of Hollywood (Penguin, 2008)

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Halifax Hoarder/Heister Has Hefty Hoard of History

Were the RCMP tipped off about this fellow John Mark Tillmann, maybe because he was trying to sell the Gen. Wolfe letter? Very interesting Mystery Hoard of Canadiana, rare print, antiques confiscated in Halifax. Some hilights from the story: a cop with a history degree and a Nova Scotian archivist named Mooseberger:

Suit of armour, Gen. Wolfe letter among stolen items stashed in Halifax home

By Melanie Patten, The Canadian Press

HALIFAX - An evidence tag hangs from the clunky top half of a suit of armour. Next to it is a handwritten letter penned two centuries ago by British Gen. James Wolfe that sits in protective plastic.

They are part of an illicit and eclectic collection of antiques, rare books, historical documents and paintings that the RCMP allege were brazenly stolen from across Atlantic Canada over 20 years and stashed in a suburban Halifax home until last week.

On Friday, the Mounties held a show-and-tell featuring some of the nearly 1,300 items seized from the two-storey home in Fall River, believed to be from universities, libraries, museums, antique dealers and private collections and worth more than $500,000.

There's a spear. A gas mask. A glass lantern. Early editions of Daniel Defoe's 1719 classic "Robinson Crusoe." A fishing net. A model canoe. Paintings depicting centuries-old scenes. A brass telescope.

"There are some items that I would say aren't historically significant, but are of value to the people who owned them," said Sgt. Colin MacLean.

"But the vast majority are antiques, historical items that form parts of collections that just can't be replaced."

The small sampling put on display for reporters ranged from the outlandish to the sentimental.

The suit of armour, which was a prop from a movie, was pinched from an antique dealer in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley.

Another item — a red wooden chair — was snatched from a local senior citizen within the last year.

"It may not be one of the most valuable items here, but as a family heirloom, to be able to return that to this gentleman is very significant to him," said MacLean.

John Mark Tillmann, 51, faces several counts of possession of stolen property and is due in court Feb. 27 for a bail hearing. Police say additional charges are pending. RCMP say their investigation began when officers pulled over a car last July and allegedly found the letter written by Wolfe. The one-of-a-kind note, dated 1758, had disappeared from Dalhousie University's archives years ago.

Dalhousie archivist Mike Moosberger said staff realized the letter was missing after completing an inventory in 2009, but no one knew for sure whether it had been stolen or merely misplaced.

Moosberger was reunited with the letter Friday at the RCMP detachment, but said he was upset to see that it had been torn and is missing some writing as a result.

"It's obviously going to impact on the value because it's not a complete letter and it's damaged now," he said.

Similar Wolfe letters have fetched US$18,000 at auction, he said.

When the one-of-a-kind note is eventually returned to Dalhousie, Moosberger said there are no plans to keep it under permanent lock and key.

"It doesn't do anyone any good if we've got this material and it's shuttered away or kept in a safe somewhere, and nobody's going to have access to it. Then it might as well have been destroyed," he said.

"You have to see people using it. You have to see the reaction that you get from researchers when they see the original materials. It's really exciting."

MacLean, a history buff who holds a degree in the subject, said the police investigation was far from over. A couple hundred more items believed to be connected to the same case were found earlier this week in Halifax.

"We believe it's going to take us several months to work through all the exhibits, determine where they came from, locate the victims, the owners," he said.

MacLean said police are also working with authorities in the United States to determine whether some items were sold, including a first edition of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species."

Monday, December 31, 2012

Happy New Year!

from my review of Fanny and Romeo by Yves Pelletier and Pascal Girard.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Whiskers Annual, 1951

Merry Christmas from Cyril Gwyn Price, illustrator of The Whiskers Annual, a comics collection published by the London Daily Graphic in 1951. Price, also known under the pen name 'Gwynne', was was an ex-miner from Wales who became a cartoonist in the 1930s, working for various newspapers and comic weeklies including strips for Illustrated Chips, Comic Cuts, Joker, and Jolly, moving to the Graphic in the 40s and 50s, where his work illustrated Enid Blyton tales.
Here is a great story featuring the charming cast of the Whiskers universe, including some bizarre magical creatures and of course Father Christmas.

introducing Nibby, the baby reindeer:

Friday, October 26, 2012

Hardboiled Comics Critics

"Two privates appeared from nowhere, pale in their uniforms like young ghosts trapped by reality. I got out and followed them across Main and into a magazine shop near the corner. The unlit neon sign of Tom's Cafe was almost directly across the street. Beer on Tap. Steam Beer. Try Our Spaghetti Special. The soldiers were inspecting a rack of comic books with the air of connoisseurs. They selected half a dozen each, paid for them and left. 'Milk sops,' the clerk said. He was a gray-headed man with smeared spectacles. 'They draft them in didees these days. Cradle to grave in one jump. '"
--Ross Macdonald, The Ivory Grin, 1952.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Marvel Boycott Diary: Quick Update On Winning, Losing

As usual, and into the future, the Marvel Boycott continues. Just a quick note, not a real update or anything. I mostly wanted to share this scan from one of my local papers, The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, from last month. The article is a reprinting of James Sturm's boycott article from Slate that was picked up by a number of papers months after it was originally posted online, on the eve of the Avengers movie premiere. The K-W Record is owned by The Toronto Star and I believe the article was first reprinted there. No comment on the article, except to say that I agree with everything in it. My chief joy is the headline, which is the sort of thing I never expected to see in print outside of the comic fan press, nevermind the daily newspaper I used to deliver as a member of my own childhood newsboy legion.

I probably won't be posting Boycott updates here as frequently as I have over the past few months. In many ways, the dialogue started by "Steve Bissette when he made the initial call for action in the wake of the Kirby v Marvel court decision last summer has borne strange and wonderful fruit, and the boycotters have succeeded beyond their imaginings. Sure, Marvel and Disney haven't reversed their stance and suddenly sharing copyrights with the Kirby heirs and other creators, nor has one iota of the billions of dollars The Avengers has made been earmarked for comics creators, but I think the tiny noise we have made has had some positive effect.

First, comics readers and the general public alike have been made aware that all is not perfect in Marvel land. Blog posts, newspaper articles and twitter conversations have made sure that thousands of people discussed the historical injustices perpetrated by Marvel on Jack Kirby and other comics creators in terms of fair payment, copyright, royalties, merchandising, etc. As well, the conversation has expanded to a consideration of the larger comics industry, especially after the news of Before Watchmen and Alan Moore's objections to the continued use of the characters and stories he created.

Second, the boycott has led some people to think about their place in the system and how they want that system to look. Creators and fans have reevaluated their approach to working for Marvel and DC and buying the product from Marvel and DC. Fan favourite creators have seen shifts in their readership based on how they approach these questions. We have actually had discussions about ethics and morals in comics and some people have actually changed their behaviours based on those (ongoing) discussions!

By these standards I feel that the boycott has been a success. The whole enterprise has something of a quixotic feel to it and maybe most of those involved didn't even dream that a handful of disorganized, disillusioned and angry comic book fans could have an effect on the policies or profits of one of the largest entertainment corporations in the world, but students of boycotts will tell you that the process of calling for big changes often leads to important little changes in consciousness and action.

That being said, I don't intend to stop calling for big changes. And I don't plan on buying Marvel or DC comics anytime soon, either.

Until next time, please remember to Boycott Marvel!

Previous:

Cartoonist Seth on the Marvel Boycott

Should We Boycott Marvel?

The Jack Kirby Petition at change.org

Friday, June 01, 2012

Mystery Hoard: Herman

Posted a note about the passing of cartoonist Jim Unger the other day and later was talking with a group of friends about the "Herman legacy" when one suggested that any nostalgia we might feel for early period Unger cartoons will easily be satiated by walking into any thrift store on the planet where the Herman treasuries could surely be found in abundance. Sure enough, six hours later I wandered into just such a store and stumbled upon the Mystery Hoard you see gingerly clutched in my hot little hands in this photo. Of course, I didn't buy the things since everyone knows that 98% of all Herman books have spent the bulk of their existence in people's bathrooms and are the greatest repositories of mildew, feces, and E. Coli bacteria known to man, outside of the executive boardrooms of Marvel and DC Comics.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Marvel Boycott Diary: Jumping Ship

The Marvel Boycott continues. If you are just joining us, the Boycott started after Steve Bissette's reaction to Marvel's victory against the Kirby family's lawsuit. Fans were upset that Marvel and its owner Disney wouldn't even try to settle with the family of Jack Kirby, the man responsible for designing most of Marvel's greatest characters (including The Avengers) and for co-writing and drawing many of their original adventures back in the 1960s. Here is all the latest news about the Marvel Boycott:

Item! The Jack Kirby petition at change.org is still going strong. The petition is called "Marvel Entertainment: Give credit and royalties to Jack Kirby and his family" and simply asks Marvel to properly credit Kirby as the creator and co-creator of all the stories and characters he had a hand in while working for Marvel, and to pay royalties for their use. Please check it out. Over 1,500 people have already signed the petition!!

Item! Classy: Comic book artist, painter and writer Alex Ross is interviewed by journalist Elliott Serrano for one of his hometown papers the Chicago Redeye about The Avengers movie and Jack Kirby's legacy:

ES: What do you think of the argument that Marvel Entertainment owes the estate of Jack Kirby for his contributions to creating these characters?

AR: Keep in mind that Kirby’s family does not receive anything for participation in all these countless characters of his creation or co-creation with Stan Lee making their way into films, merchandise, and other media. Whatever deal they worked out with Stan Lee, they never did with him. By right, with each one of these new projects that still hales back to the work and ideas of Jack’s, there should be some kind of honorable compensation for how much it’s benefiting the company today.

Item! One of the biggest stories to come out of the Marvel Boycott was the news that cartoonist Roger Langridge has publicly stated he will quit working for Marvel as a result of the Kirby controversy and the company's general treatment of creators and creator rights. Langridge was interviewed by Michael Cavna at the Washington Post about his decision and the background. (Cavna has also issued a modest proposal at the Washington Post suggesting that Disney should gift a settlement to the Kirby estate.) Langridge is very articulate about his decision to stop working for Marvel:

I was always something of a tourist at Marvel to begin with. Writing for Marvel was not something I ever set out to achieve; I came up through the alternative comics publishers like Fantagraphics and by self-publishing my own work, so doing the odd thing here and there for Marvel always felt like a crazy detour in terms of where I wanted my career to go. As a result, I wasn’t that hard to convince to jump off.

Marvel’s shabby treatment of its founding creators, particularly Jack Kirby, has been a bone of contention for a lot of people since the 1980s, at least, so that underlying sense of discomfort was always there. It was the legal decision against the heirs of Jack Kirby last year that was the thing that made me think, “You know, I probably shouldn’t be doing this.” (Note: Marvel tells Comic Riffs it can’t comment on matters involving Jack Kirby due to ongoing litigation.) The cartoonist Steve Bissette wrote a very articulate and passionate blogpost that was widely circulated at the time of that ruling, and I read it and nodded my head and thought: Yeah, it’s probably time to get out. I didn’t make a big noise about it at the time because the thing I’d just written for Marvel, “John Carter: A Princess of Mars,” hadn’t yet come out, and I didn’t think it was fair to drag my collaborator on that book, Filipe Andrade, down with me if there was a backlash. I didn’t feel it was my place to make that decision for him.

A few months later, there was the business with Marvel taking down Gary Friedrich over his selling of Ghost Rider prints at conventions, which I felt Marvel/Disney dealt with in a much more heavy-handed way than they had to, essentially crushing the guy’s only source of income. At that point I mentioned to my wife, “You know, I really don’t want to do business with these people,” and she very matter-of-factly said: “Well, don’t. You’ve got plenty of work without them.” To her eternal credit.

Item! Of course, bestselling novelist and comics writer Chris Roberson was the first big name to publicly quit working for a major comics company over the issue of creator rights. His interview with Tim Hodler of the Comics Journal covers his reasons for quitting and the backlash from the fan community, as well as some interesting points about Kirby, Alan Moore, and the movement away from Dc and Marvel:

if DC and Marvel were to grandfather their current equity deals back to 1938 that they would obviate the need for the lawsuits that many of the creators and their estates continue to bring and that also they would have a public relations bonanza on their hands because they would be able to show how they were taking care of the people that made these characters that people cherish now. In much the same way that Time Warner settled with Siegel and Shuster in the ’70s so they could trot them out for the premiere of the Superman movie. How great would it be if Time Warner could point to how they were helping pay for Tony DeZuniga’s hospital bills while they were promoting the Jonah Hex film, or whatever the case may be. I think if they took better care of the people who created the characters that other hands now service, that would do a great deal to engender fonder feelings on my part.

One other thing I would add is that if DC and Marvel did retroactively grant the creator-equity deals to their former creators, we wouldn’t need a Hero Initiative now, because those guys would be getting money. It would reduce the profits a miniscule amount for the larger corporations, but it would take care of entire generations of now dying old men and women who have gone on to see their creations continue to generate revenue they or their children don’t have any part of.

Item! One of the more touching things I've heard recently is listening to cartoonist and publisher Zak Sally talking to Robin McConnell on the Inkstuds podcast (around the 50-minute mark) about explaining Jack Kirby and the Avengers movie to his 6-year-old son and how his son understands the injustice of the situation better than some adult comic book fans. Sally has written a longer response to the issue on his own blog and his comments are worth reprinting here:

"actually, over the course of writing this, i think i DO have an answer– not THE answer, but an idea anyway: it’s somewhat presumptive on my part, and it is NOT what “should” happen, but it falls under the category of “the least you could do”.

i think Marvel comics should pay for the Jack Kirby Museum. they should fund the thing in its entirety, right now– and not a temporary, pop-up (which would still be awesome), but a permanent, brick and mortar space. what is that– 10, 20 million bucks to do it right? that’s a drop in the bucket. and all profit from the museum in perpetuity could go to the Kirby estate.

and there’s where the presumption comes on my part– what SHOULD happen is that Kirby is given some credit on all his creations and a commensurate slice of the action. but i don’t think that’s going to happen; do you? so, this would be a simple, classy way to honor the man and his contribution, without endangering their precious legal status as “creators” of the work in question (and, again, as i write this– all of you who are yelling about “well, they did it under a work-for hire contract”, which, yes, is legally binding– what you are then saying is that THE CORPORATION IS THE CREATOR OF THE WORK AND CHARACTERS, both morally and legally. that, effectively, NO ONE CREATED the stuff, just this amorphous, profit yielding, non-human entity. you’re ok with that, as an ongoing and seemingly perpetual situation? HAVE FUN.)"

Item! Finally, writing for Detroit's Metro Times, journalist W. Kim Heron ponders the Marvel Boycott and has some choice words about Jack Kirby:

"if you’re touched by The Avengers, or any of the cavalcade of Marvel movies, you owe it to yourself to learn who this Kirby guy was. The Marvel industrial-promotional complex certainly won’t tell you."

Until next time, please remember to Boycott Marvel!

Previous:

Cartoonist Seth on the Marvel Boycott

Should We Boycott Marvel?

The Jack Kirby Petition at change.org

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Jack Kirby Petition Reaches 1,500 Signatures

Congratulations to everyone who has participated in this petition. I'm really quite happy with the response it has generated! 1,500 was the original goal of the petition --something attainable to demonstrate that there was wider support for the idea that comic book creators like Jack Kirby should be justly compensated for their creations by Disney and Marvel. And while there has been zero response from the corporation, the discussion of creator rights in the fan community and in the general media (Wall Street Journal, Slate, ESPN, AOL) since Steve Bissette first called for a boycott of Marvel last summer has been extremely gratifying. Here's hoping the petition will continue to play a role in that discussion and that people will continue to use it as a forum to stand and be counted. Jennifer Starkman from Canada was the 1500th person to sign the petition. Thanks to Jennifer and thanks the 1,499 other people who have so far taken the time to sign the petition, to comment and to share it. The petition will remain open...

Jack Kirby is one of the most important and influential artists in the history of U.S. comic books and popular culture. Along with writers Joe Simon, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby created the characters and stories on which Marvel Comics has built a very successful business over the past 60 years. Kirby created or co-created Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, The X-Men, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, and many more. For his efforts, Kirby was paid a few dollars a page and never shared in the billions of dollars in profits his characters have made in various media, including print, film, and video games. We strongly urge Marvel Entertainment and its owner Disney to acknowledge Jack Kirby's authorship and primary role in the creation of these characters. As well, we urge Marvel to pay Kirby's family royalties or other just compensation for the use of these characters and stories. Until such a time as Marvel can make things right with Kirby's legacy and Kirby's family and heirs, we may refuse to purchase any Marvel product, including comic books, movies, toys, or games. We ask Marvel, Disney, and its shareholders to act ethically and morally in this situation, just as their characters would.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Marvel Boycott Diary: Jack Kirby Co-Created The Avengers

The Marvel Boycott continues. If you are just joining us, the Boycott started after Steve Bissette's reaction to Marvel's victory against the Kirby family's lawsuit. Fans were upset that Marvel and its owner Disney wouldn't even try to settle with the family of Jack Kirby, the man responsible for designing most of Marvel's greatest characters and for co-writing and drawing many of their original adventures back in the 1960s.

Item! The Jack Kirby petition at change.org is still going strong. The petition is called "Marvel Entertainment: Give credit and royalties to Jack Kirby and his family" and simply asks Marvel to properly credit Kirby as the creator and co-creator of all the stories and characters he had a hand in while working for Marvel, and to pay royalties for their use. Please check it out. 1,475 people have already signed the petition!!

Item! In the wake of the Avengers movie success, some large media organizations have begun to pay closer attention to Kirby and how he has been left out in the cold by Marvel/Disney. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Bruce Bennett, entitled "Fighting to Rescue the Lost Avenger", notes that things may be changing:

"With so many of Kirby's creations now firmly embedded in the popular consciousness, one might assume his contributions to the canon would be widely known. Yet few outside the Comic-Con velvet rope know his name. Even a shared screen credit with Mr. Lee and Captain America co-creator Joe Simon did not prevent CNN.com from attributing success of the The Avengers to 'the imagination of one man—Stan Lee' on Monday. But sky-rocketing auction prices and a new museum in his honor are signaling that Jack Kirby may finally have arrived. Randolph Hoppe, the director of the Hoboken-based nonprofit Jack Kirby Museum, said the man born Jacob Kurtzburg in 1917 remains 'one of the most underappreciated geniuses of the 20th century.'"

Item! Elsewhere, the Marvel version of reality, as presented by surviving Kirby collaborator and Marvel spokesperson Stan Lee, has come under fire from a website owned by Disney. Writing for the ESPN sports site Grantland, journalist Alex Pappademas quizzed Stan the Man about the recent controversy and asks Stan, who still gets paid about $1.25 million per year from Marvel, about creator rights:

I ask him if he feels, in general, that the comic-book industry has been fair to comic-book creators. "I don't know," Stan says. "I haven't had reason to think about it that much." Five-second pause. "I think, if somebody creates something, and it becomes highly successful, whoever is reaping the rewards should let the person [who] created it share in it, certainly. But so much of it is — it goes beyond creating. A lot of people put something together, and nobody really knows who created it, they're just working on it, y'know? But little by little, the artists and the writers now are a different breed than they were, and most of them, if they create anything new, they insist that they be part owners of it. Because they know what happened to Siegel and Shuster, and to me, and to people like that. I don't think it's a problem anymore. They make much more money than they used to make, when I was there. Proportionately. "Everybody thought that I was the only one that was getting paid off, but I never received any royalties from the characters. I made a good living, because I was the editor, the art director, and the head writer. So I got a nice salary. That was all I got. I was a salaried guy. But it was a good salary. And I was happy."

Item! Instead of boycotting The Avengers, alot of people are going to see it, and then donating some money, usually the price of the movie ticket, to a charity like the Hero Initiative, which helps out older comics creators with healthcare emergencies, and The Kirby Museum, which exists to educate the world about the life and work of King Kirby. These are both great charities and I would urge boycotters to donate to them as well. They do great work and you can send a message by mentioning that you are donating in memory of Jack or as part of the boycott. Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has found out that $3000 in donations have already been made in reaction to the Avengers controversy. Ultimately, I feel that the fans shouldn't have to resort to charity to support ailing creators and things like a museum for one of the greatest comics creators ever. Ultimately, these creators should receive fair compensation and royalties for their creations so that they can spend their golden years in peace and good health, and share their legacies with the world.

Until next time, please remember to Boycott Marvel!

Previous:

Should We Boycott Marvel?

Cartoonist Seth on the Marvel Boycott

The Jack Kirby Petition at change.org

Friday, April 27, 2012

7 Things Journalists Should Know When Writing About the Avengers Movie

1. The Avengers were created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in 1963.

Although the characters in the comic book had appeared elsewhere, they were first brought together as a team in the The Avengers #1, published by Marvel Comics. Stan Lee, cousin of Marvel's publisher, was the salaried editor and senior writer at the company, while Kirby worked as a freelancer, being paid a flat rate for every page of art that was published. Although the exact division of labour is not known, Lee and Kirby shared co-plotting duties, with Kirby drawing the story in comics form, and Lee adding dialogue from Kirby's notes afterword.

2. Neither Lee or Kirby ever received any royalties or copyrights for their creations or stories.

The Avengers comic book series has been almost continuously published by Marvel for close to 50 years. The original stories by Kirby and Lee have been reprinted in different comics and books hundreds of times, and there have been spin-offs, foreign translations, toys, videogames, and animated cartoons, but not one cent of the millions of dollars collected by Marvel has gone to paying royalties to the original creators.

3. Jack Kirby died in 1994 without ever receiving royalties for the Avengers or any of the other characters or stories he co-created while working for Marvel, including Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, The Hulk, Nick Fury, The X-Men, The Fantastic Four, and many others.

4. Stan Lee has continued to work as a spokesman for Marvel and currently earns a million dollars per year from the company and is credited as an Executive Producer on the Avengers movie.

While acting in this capacity, Lee testified in court that he was the sole creator of the Marvel characters and that Kirby acted only on Lee's instructions in illustrating the stories.

5. The family of Jack Kirby is currently engaged in a lawsuit with Marvel Entertainment and its owner Disney for control of the copyrights of the characters and stories Kirby had a hand in creating, including The Avengers.

6. Although Kirby is mentioned in the closing credits of The Avengers, and although the basic plot of the film follows the original Avengers comic book, Kirby receives no story credit and his heirs do not receive any compensation for the use of the characters.

7. Over the last year there has been a growing backlash against Marvel and The Avengers movie, with many fans and comic book creators lobbying for a change in Marvel's policy towards crediting and compensating Jack Kirby.

Comic book artists Stephen Bissette and James Sturm have urged a boycott of the Avengers film and so far 1,400 people have signed a petition on change.org asking Marvel to pay royalties to the family.