He created the Big Mac. And he got not a dime more for doing so than his regular salary as an employee of McDonalds.

And this is not atypical. Credit and compensation are rare beasts in the business world. I've done work for a couple of ad agencies. Know what they DON'T do (or didn't at the time)? Return the artwork.

Marvel, DC (National Periodicals) and all the rest were following a long established business model. "It's the way things have always been done," is not an excuse, of course. I don't think anyone here is saying that it is. But it does EXPLAIN why the Past is different from the Present. At least in comics.

(One inker, notorious for his pursuit of the high paying gigs, is also notorious for the pittance he pays his assistants. When asked why he doesn't more generously share those "big bucks" he's making with those who are helping him do it, guess what he responds? HINT: "It's....done.")

Brings to mind, once again, something Peter Sanderson asked, years ago. What if it was Jack who had stayed, and Stan who'd left? Who, today, would be perceived as "Good Marvel Daddy," and who "Bad Marvel Daddy"?

(We have a view of this scenario, albeit thru a cloudy lens. Siegel and Shuster are canonized as martyrs to the cause of Creator's Rights, portrayed as poor little farm boys who got ripped off by the huge, faceless corporation. On the other hand, Bob Kane got a lawyer to write up the contracts for him, made the big bucks, and within the industry was almost universally reviled as a money-grubbing bastard.*)

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* I'll bet he cried all the way to the bank.

•••

This is an important aspect that too often gets swept under the rug. None of it was secret. No nefarious goings on behind locked doors. Siegel and Shuster knew what they were doing -- making some good 1938 dollars off a character that had been turned down by every newspaper syndicate in the country. Kirby knew what he was doing -- more monster books for a tiny company that barely managed to stay in business.

No one was prescient. Not the artists, and not the publishers. (For proof of that go look at the covers for the first year and a half of ACTION COMICS.)

Sure we all wish it was different. But it wasn't. Given the time, it couldn't have been.

The truth is, Jack Kirby didn't create those comics you love.  Marvel did.  The company did.

People use the term 'creator' and talk as if Stan and Jack were locked in a room talking to each other, and comics sprung from the end of Jack's pencil full-blown like Athena from the forehead of Zeus.  That's myth.

Kirby didn't own a printing press, for one thing.

Marvel paid Stan to write a comic.  They paid Jack to draw a comic.  They paid someone to ink it and someone to letter it and someone to edit the thing into its final form.  Then they paid someone to typeset it and someone to lay out the advertisements and someone to print it.  Then someone bailed them and packaged them and shipped them off to newstands across the country.  All of that was paid for, was done, by Marvel.  And everyone along that entire chain got paid for the work they did on the comic.  How is Marvel not then entitled to recoup their investment from the proceeds and stay in business by being profitable?  If Marvel took no profits, and just split that money up among all the folks who made the comics in addition to what they were already paid they'd go out of business, and you'd have no more comics.

Likewise, if you're one of the millions of folks who liked the Avengers movie...Jack Kirby had nothing to do with that film.  Disney/Marvel paid a director and actors and a best boy and a key grip and craft services and rigging gaffers and cinematographers etc. etc. to the tune of millions of dollars for the work they each put in on the movie and then paid to advertise it and distribute it around the country so you could see it.  Are they then not entitled to the profits from their investment?  Should they have to give all the profits to the people who made it, in addition to the pay they already recieved?  Or give them, for some unknown reason, to Jack Kirby's grandchildren?  If they do that, you have no more movies.

The argument for the Kirby heirs side of this plainly makes no sense in the real, practical world.

The focus on whether the Kirby heirs "deserve" to profit from something they did not create is misplaced.  The law allows ownership of intellectual property to be passed on to heirs.  Whether or not you think it makes sense or is fair, it's what the law allows.

The law also allows transfer of pre-1978 copyrights to be terminated after 56 years.  This doesn't deprive corporations of a fair return on their investments, since at the time the creation originated copyright only lasted 56 years maximum.  

This debate isn't about heirs trying to get money they don't deserve, or a corporation being forced to give up money that rightfully belongs to it.  It's simply about ownership.  The central question is whether Kirby owned the creations and transferred copyright to Marvel, or whether he never owned them and created them under what later became known as "work for hire."  If the former is true, then the heirs are entirely within their legal rights to pursue termination of copyright, regain ownership of the characters, and profit from that ownership via royalties or licensing fees, or whatever other ventures they pursue.  If the latter is true, then they are not entitled to anything.  In this particular case, I think the stronger argument is that Kirby did not transfer copyright and therefore his heirs are not entitled to terminate transfer.  But that's just my opinion, and the court could have decided differently.  Obviously Disney was concerned enough about that possibility that they decided to offer a settlement.