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Kevin Brown
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| Posted: 26 September 2014 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | 1
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Steve De Young wrote:
| Jack Kirby's heirs, as near as I can tell, have never done any work, or invested any money, in any of these characters, therefore they are entitled to no money whatsoever generated by them. |
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No they did not, but they did continue a fight that began in the early 90's by Jack and Roz. So I say that is was more about honoring their parents' wishes to not give up than it was about the money....
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Andrew W. Farago
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| Posted: 26 September 2014 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | 2
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The Hollywood reporter. Spider-Man was one of the characters that was part of the lawsuit.
Legal maneuvering on the part of the Kirby's lawyer, I guess. I don't know anyone in comics who's taken the Spider-Man claim seriously, and wasn't aware that had been tacked onto the lawsuit.
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Andrew W. Farago
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| Posted: 26 September 2014 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | 3
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Marvel negotiated the merchandising deals, the cartoon deals, the movie deals, the toy deals, etc. without which no one would have heard of any of these characters. They put their money on the line to publish the comics and put these characters forward. They took all of the risks, they're entitled to at least a large portion of the reward.
And none of these characters would exist without Jack Kirby. By the time they were in great position to exploit these characters, he'd established them as characters who could carry billion-dollar film franchises.
Why speak in these hypothetical "what if" scenarios, anyway? Under the vague pre-1976 work for hire laws, Kirby made characters that he never formally signed away to Marvel, and he refused to sign contracts later that would have given them official and complete ownership of what he'd created. He wanted to share in the increasingly vast wealth generated by his characters, and he wanted to provide for his family. It takes some serious misreading of all of this to turn the Kirbys into the villains of this story.
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Robert Bradley
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| Posted: 26 September 2014 at 7:44pm | IP Logged | 4
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And yet the Kirby heirs claims were rejected in court on two different occasions.
And while these characters wouldn't exist without Kirby they wouldn't exist without Marvel either. Their financial backing and Lee's scripting and editing were also important in developing the characters. Kirby's track record outside of his work for Marvel (Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, the X-Men, Thor, the Black Panther, the Silver Surfer, the Inhumans, Nick Fury, Henry Pym) is much more successful than his work outside of it (the Fourth World, the Boy Commandos, Mister Miracle, New Gods, Manhunter, the Newsboy Legion, Challengers of the Unknown, Kamandi, OMAC, the Demon, Fighting American).
What made Marvel so successful in the '60s were the Lee/Kirby and Lee/Ditko characters along with the work by people like Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Dan DeCarlo, Wally Wood, Bill Everett, John Romita, Werner Roth, Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, Jack Keller, John Severin, Joe Sinnott, Dan Adkins, Frank Giacoia, Stan Goldberg, Marie Severin, John Buscema and Jim Steranko.
There were a lot of talented people developing these characters.
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 26 September 2014 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | 5
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No they did not, but they did continue a fight that began in the early 90's by Jack and Roz. So I say that is was more about honoring their parents' wishes to not give up than it was about the money....••• Awwwwwwww........
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 26 September 2014 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | 6
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I struggle with what "creator" means in the context of corporate characters. The character of Groot in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY has very little to do with Kirby's "Groot, the Monster of Planet X" other than being an alien tree monster named Groot. Would people think the Kirby estate more entitled to the rights of the character in the movie than Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, who created the more heroic Groot for their comic run?••• Creation -- in the sense that there was NOTHING, but now there is SOMETHING -- rarely occurs in comics. What passes for "creation" is usually more a case of extrapolation. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single case of pure creation in American superhero comics.
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Steve De Young
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| Posted: 26 September 2014 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | 7
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And none of these characters would exist without Jack Kirby. By the time they were in great position to exploit these characters, he'd established them as characters who could carry billion-dollar film franchises.
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No, Jack Kirby did not 'establish' the characters. He was the first one to the draw them. They were 'established' in a series of comic books that were, in part, the work of Jack Kirby. Work for which Jack Kirby was paid under a contract to which he agreed.
Second, Jack Kirby did not 'make these characters who could carry billion-dollar film franchises'. Jack Kirby came up with ideas for superheroes. Some of them took, some of them didn't. But the difference between Captain America and Mister Miracle, or between the Thing and Moon Boy, isn't the work that Jack put into them. At least, I wouldn't accuse him of phoning everything in after his early years at Marvel. Maybe you would.
As all comic book writers and artists do, Jack Kirby introduced and visually designed characters. Some of those characters really caught fire with the public. Others didn't. The difference wasn't the love, care, and digilience Jack put into his work. That was the same for all of his work. The difference was in how the public received them.
Jack chose to work for Marvel and DC. That had benefits and drawbacks. One of the benefits was that if he came up with ideas and those ideas flopped, it was the company that lost money, and he still got his pay rate. One of the drawbacks was that if he came up with ideas that really caught fire, he still only got his pay rate, at least until the next time his contract came up for negotiation, in which case he could have asked for more money in light of his success.
Marvel was doing the gambling. They gambled and doubled down many times on Jack Kirby's talent. Sometimes they scored big, sometimes they lost. But either way, Jack got paid for the work he did.
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Robert Cosgrove
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| Posted: 26 September 2014 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | 8
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"Jack Kirby's heirs, as near as I can tell, have never done any work, or invested any money, in any of these characters, therefore they are entitled to no money whatsoever generated by them."
I take it then, you will refuse any money or property that comes to you from your parents' estate?
You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own law.
Regardless of whether you happen to like it or not, Jack Kirby was entitled to a legal determination of his rights, and if appropriate, damages. Upon his death, those rights vested in his estate. Marvel/Disney was entitled to contest the estate's claims, and to litigate them. They were also entitled to settle them. I think we can assume that the "vast fortune" of the Kirby estate didn't exactly intimidate Disney to the point that it believed it couldn't afford to continue. Rather, they concluded that there was some prospect, even if short of a likelihood, that the Kirby estate might win, with disastrous consequences not only for their Marvel properties, but possibly others. Therefore, it was in their financial interest to settle with the Kirby estate, and they did so.
Edited by Robert Cosgrove on 26 September 2014 at 8:34pm
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Robert Bradley
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| Posted: 26 September 2014 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | 9
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I don't begrudge the Kirby heirs from asking for what they think they deserve, I just don't happen to agree with them.
Still, I don't think it's going to hurt anybody if Disney cuts them a check, gives them some reprint royalties and put "Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby" in the appropriate books.
I'd just like to see similar deals for the Ditko and the Everett, Burgos, and Heck estates. They deserve the same treatment.
Edited by Robert Bradley on 26 September 2014 at 8:56pm
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Paul Simpson Simpson
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| Posted: 26 September 2014 at 10:27pm | IP Logged | 10
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I don't know anyone in comics who's taken the Spider-Man claim seriously, and wasn't aware that had been tacked onto the lawsuit.******************** It's not comic fans I really care about. When a mainstream publication writes in it's article that Kirby created Spider-Man it is telling people who have never read a comic,but seen the movies,a falsehood.This is a real problem.More people will read that Hollywood Reporter article than any comic printed this month.They all now believe Kirby created Spider-Man,not Ditko and Lee. +++++++++++++ No they did not, but they did continue a fight that began in the early 90's by Jack and Roz. So I say that is was more about honoring their parents' wishes to not give up than it was about the money.... ******************* It's always about the money. Especially when they say it isn't.
Edited by Paul Simpson Simpson on 26 September 2014 at 10:39pm
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Stephen Robinson
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| Posted: 26 September 2014 at 10:31pm | IP Logged | 11
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ROBERT: Still, I don't think it's going to hurt anybody if Disney cuts
them a check, gives them some reprint royalties and put "Created by
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby" in the appropriate books.
SER: My understanding is that corporations' fiduciary responsibility is to
maximize shareholder profits, so unless they can demonstrate that all
the generous things mentioned would generate more revenue, it might
arguably be illegal for them do basically give away money when they're
not obligated to do so.
It is arguably especially the case in the Kirby case when the heirs aren't
also talent the company might want to placate. I could justify raining
money on John Romita for Spider-Man if I could tell my shareholders
this was so I could keep his son happy and continuing to work at
Marvel.
Regarding Siegel and Shuster, I think it's not entirely accurate to look at
decades of film and TV shows, for example, as evidence of a fortune
they were cheated out of. Do we even know if they would have made
those same initial deals, especially without connections, that resulted in
Superman becoming a household name.
Let's say I sold you a plot of land for $1. I might have made a stupid
sale, but that doesn't mean you swindled me. And if you then built the
next Disney World on that land, I haven't been robbed of all the money
earned from the enterprise.
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Stephen Robinson
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| Posted: 26 September 2014 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | 12
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ROBERT WHITE: I don't give people a pass for unethical behavior,
regardless of the time period. They knew what they were doing was
wrong. Are you telling me that those thugs who basically stole
Superman from Seigel and Shuster should get some kind of ethical
pass because they lived a scant 75 years ago?
SER: Is there any evidence that the people who bought Superman from
Siegel and Shuster honestly believed they were robbing kids of a
fortune generated from movies and TV (the latter didn't even exist at
the time)? Did anyone at Marvel possibly imagine the billions of dollars
from the Marvel Cinematic Universe when they assigned Kirby to THE
AVENGERS?
I disagree with assigning retroactive malice If it's not there.
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Topic Closed)
