MeFi Projects

In the world of superhero comics, everyone is suing everyone else. Relatives of Jerry Siegel (the writer who created Superman) recently won a historic court victory giving them 50% of the copyright in Supie's first appearance. Relatives of Joe Shuster (Siegel's artist partner) are suing for the remaining 50% now. Meanwhile, relatives of Jack Kirby, Marvel Comics' most important founding artist, are using the same lawyer to challenge Marvel over characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man and Thor. Stan Lee, who worked with Kirby in creating all those characters, won his own lucrative victory against the company in 2005. And we've seen other comic book lawsuits from Steve Gerber (over Howard the Duck), Dan DeCarlo (Josie & the Pussycats), Marv Wolfman (Blade), Carmine Infantino (The Flash) and Gary Friedrich (Ghost Rider). It's partly Hollywood money that explains this rash of lawsuits, and partly a quirk of US law which is only now putting all the most valuable superhero characters up for grabs. To learn more, please click the link above.
posted by Paul Slade on Jul 15, 2010 - 3 comments