The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the copyright issues surrounding the cartoon Steamboat Willie and Mickey Mouse, in particular recent allegations of an “imprecision” in copyright claims dating back to the character’s first appearance:

Film credits from the 1920s revealed imprecision in copyright claims that some experts say could invalidate Disney’s long-held copyright, though a Disney lawyer dismissed that idea as “frivolous.”

So does this mean I can finally publish my Steamboat Willie II: Electric Bugaloo comic? Not so fast, says one legal expert:

No one expects Disney, which declined interview requests, to surrender Mickey without an all-out legal brawl. And the cost of what has been an academic exercise would soar if moved into a federal courtroom.

“Law and equity might line up on the side of forfeiture,” said Michael J. Madison, associate dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. But “Disney has enough ammunition on its side to dissuade all but the most well-financed competitor, or any but the most committed public-interest advocates, from challenging Mickey.”

Also keep in mind that there’s a difference between copyright and trademark … Jeff Trexler talked a little bit about the differences between the two when discussing the Siegel/Superman case here. You can read the government’s definitions of both, as well as patents, here.

Via.

– Big Shiny Robot has a preview up of SLG’s Pirate Club.

– C.B. Cebulski and the Immonens shares pictures from this past weekend’s Fan Expo Toronto.

– G. Willow Wilson begins her own guerrilla marketing campaign for the recently released Air.

– Congrats to our friend Rick Marshall, who is the new co-editor of MTV’s Splash Page blog.

– A Distant Soil creator Colleen Doran shares a tale about how not to make friends in the comics industry … it ranges from annoying to creepy. And apparently one of the folks involved really doesn’t have a clue.

–BusinessWeek takes a look at Marvel and DC’s recent online comics ventures, and in the process asks retailer James Sime what he thinks. I’m going to guess that this isn’t the answer they were expecting:

But James Sime, owner of the Isotope comic book store in San Francisco, isn’t too worried about the impact of digital comics on his business. He says he believes there’s a great opportunity for comics retailers and publishers to learn from the mistakes of the ailing music industry.

According to ICV2, a trade publisher that monitors the business of comics and pop culture, trade paperbacks (collections of single issues in one book) generated $375 million in 2007 and single issues did $330 million that same year. Although Sime doesn’t think single-issue sales will go away, he envisions a scenario in which they are moved from print to online as promotion for the trade paperback. “I’m all about it,” said Sime. “People are excited about comics. The more people get them into their hands, the more they read them—the Internet is a great facilitator for that.”

Editor’s Note: DC Comics President Paul Levitz returns to Blog@ to discuss how one person made a difference on DC’s sustainability efforts.

by Paul Levitz

Indicia fans will have noticed a new symbol popping up in the fine print of some DC comics in recent weeks, a green emblem proclaiming compliance with the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. (Okay, I concede that it may be overstating things to call anyone an indicia fan, but we know some of our readers pay attention to every aspect of our publications.) It’s a good thing, and a useful example of how one person’s focus on an issue can move a large company.

Alison Gill, DC’s Vice President-Manufacturing, is a woman of strong passions: her love of comics led her from the tiny London offices of Marvel U.K. in the 1980s to running production for Marvel Comics in New York, and then uptown to our digs almost a decade ago. Along the way she had to relegate her passion for soccer and find an American sport that could give her a comparable outlet. It’s only a rumor that she personally ripped the seats out of the Montreal Canadians arena that now decorate her office, but however they got there, it’s evidence of serious hockey fandom. She picked up a husband from her Marvel service (like so many of us who found our spouses at the office), and a pack of friends who gathered recently to toast her birthday in the Village. As our manufacturing has grown steadily more complex, with increasingly varied print formats, more rapid turnaround requirements to keep titles in print, overseas plants put to work on DC Direct and some hardcover titles, and rapid cost escalation of raw materials, she’s had plenty to do. But Alison can always find time to talk about paper.

In the past year, she’s had major victories in improving the karma of our company. After years of investigation, negotiation and experimentation, she was able to switch a number of our kids’ titles to a recycled newsprint paper stock, made from 85% post consumer waste and most of the Vertigo line to a recycled hibrite paper that is made from 40% post-consumer waste. And now, she’s in the process of getting our titles to conform to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, a program that ensures that participating forest harvesters, paper manufacturers, printers and publishers are using paper which comes from forests that are being managed in a sustainable way -that is, harvested and replanted in a way that ensures they will be there for the future, without damage to the forest’s ecological balance (at least as best it’s currently understood). While many people at DC and our parent companies are committed to environmental issues, this progress is largely Alison’s own. She reacted to concerns raised by environmental activists, did the homework, and found the way to move DC to a better standard of behavior. We still have a long way to go, but she’s working on it…

And if you’re the rare, sharp-eyed reader who noticed the two degree brighter stock we had to substitute on our Vertigo titles this month during a supply glitch, you can thank Alison for that. (If you couldn’t tell the difference, thank Alison for that, too-that was the idea.)

On his blog, artist Cameron Stewart shares a very early look at artwork from the upcoming Seaguy 2: Slaves of Mickey Eye. The book is due from Vertigo next year.

GameTrailer.com has video up from the upcoming video game Mortal Kombat vs. the DC Universe, which includes a look at the Joker’s fatality move (if you watch it all the way to the end):

• How could there be so much confusion over who owns the film rights to Watchmen? At the heart of the dust-up between Fox and Warner Bros. is turnaround, a contractual mechanism that comes with all kinds of strings. Michael Cieply tries to untangle them and, in the process, discovers evidence that Warner Bros. may have settled an earlier rights dispute with Paramount — yet another studio that had planned to adapt Watchmen – by handing over the foreign distribution rights. [The New York Times]

• Fox will stream the premiere of J.J. Abrams’ Fringe and the second-season opener of Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles online at the same time they debut on television — but only on college campuses. Students, who are more likely to have computers than TVs in their dorm rooms, will be able to log in to the Fox website to watch. [Variety]

• The fourth volume of NBC’s Heroes – aka the second half of Season 3 — will be titled “Fugitives.” [io9]

• Kristen Bell has joined the voice cast of Warner Bros.’ Astro Boy. [Variety]

• Nicolas Cage will be the death of Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass, apparently. [Collider]

Angelina Jolie is so three weeks ago — at least when it comes to playing Catwoman in the sequel to The Dark Knight.

A British newspaper reports that the next actress to don the catsuit will be — brace yourselves! — Cher. According to “a studio executive,” the 62-year-old singer/actress is director Christopher Nolan’s first choice for the role.

“He wants to her to portray her like a vamp in her twilight years,” the anonymous source tells The Telegraph. “The new Catwoman will be the absolute opposite of Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry’s purring creations.”

What’s more — oh, you knew there’d be more — the newspaper casually confirms Johnny Depp as The Riddler.

So, there you have it: Cher and Johnny Depp will star in the next Batman movie.

Y’know, the one that, as of last weekend, Nolan hadn’t even committed to direct. The one that doesn’t have a script yet. The one that, according to The Telegraph, starts shooting early next year in Vancouver.

I wonder if anyone bothered to run this by Julie Newmar’s “industry friends”?

Halo and Sprocket, Vol. 2: Natural Creatures
Written and Illustrated by Kerry Callen
SLG; $8.95

First thought on receiving a review copy of the book in the mail: Uh oh. I haven’t read Volume 1 yet. I’d better see if I can get that one sent to me so I can review it first.

First thought on reading the letter that accompanied the book: Hmm. It’s been five years since Volume 1 came out. There are probably a lot of folks who haven’t read that one. Maybe I should just dive in and see how it reads to someone new.

First thought five pages into the book: Reads really well, actually.

On the back cover of the book, Randy Lander calls Halo and Sprocket “the perfect sitcom.” With all respect to Lander, I disagree; mostly because that description raises expectations that I don’t know if Halo and Sprocket is trying to meet. I tend to judge comedies on one thing only: how much they make me laugh. And while Halo and Sprocket is cute and charming and insightful, I didn’t find it uproarious or side-splitting. Nor do I think it was intended to be.

Maybe what Lander meant by “sitcom” (I haven’t read his full review) has more to do with the book’s format. It’s not a narrative with a plot; it’s a series of short stories about a young woman who lives with a robot and an angel. More Casper the Friendly Ghost format than Owly, if that distinction makes sense. The stories are all delightful and funny, so yes, “situational comedy” is definitely an appropriate label, but again, you won’t be struggling to breathe from laughing too hard. You’ll be smiling though. Widely.

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Marvel is teaming with renowned animation studio Madhouse to re-envision its super-heroes for four anime series set to premiere in spring 2010 in Japan.

According to Simon Philips, president of Marvel International, the characters will have reimagined origins and new looks to reflect Japanese culture.

“It will create an entire parallel universe for Marvel,” he tells The New York Times.

Founded in 1972, Madhouse has been involved in the production of such works as Death Note, Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, Paprika, The Animatrix, Batman: Gotham Knight, and the Hellboy animated features.

Vulture has a preview of Guy Delisle’s upcoming graphic novel Burma Chronicles. The book will be available from Drawn and Quarterly in September.

With HarperCollins collecting all of Scott McCloud’s black-and-white Zot! comics into one gigantic 576-page phone book, the New York Daily News interviews the creator about his career in comics, Zot!, and his early ambitions to be a chess champion:

DN: What path did you take once you made your decision to become a comic creator?
SM: Well, I was actually a creature of obsession. Before comics, I’d spent three years just trying to be the youngest world chess champion. That didn’t work out. Before that I was really obsessed with a bunch of other things — politics for about a year microbiology before that, the space program — I had these obsessions and I was always drawing the whole time. It wasn’t until I discovered comics that I actually began to approach drawing as a possible career. Before that, it was just something that I did. My dad was an engineer and so I had this picture of science and technology and pursuits of the mind as being more impressive than artistic pursuits, which I saw a as kind of frivolous.

This is an actual exhibit.

Gaze upon his works ye mighty and be utterly floored.

The Washington Post has a big feature by “lifelong Prose Guy” Bob Thompson on the realization that hey, comics are really growing in popularity these days. Investigating the matter further, he talks to Francoise Mouly and Adrian Tomine, and attends a lecture by Scott McCloud:

Now McCloud is taking audience questions, and here comes one that seems aimed in my direction.

What about those still-numerous naysayers, he is asked, who resist the idea that books filled with word balloons should be taken as seriously as pure prose? Isn’t there a way to educate those annoying old fogies — perhaps through some kind of “adult literacy campaign for comics”?

Sounds good to me. After all, isn’t education what I’m here for?

McCloud offers a different perspective. Some people will never get it, he says.

“And it’s okay. They’ll die.”

Thompson also teamed up with Mome artist Jonathan Bennet on a series of accompanying comic strips, (I like how Francoise Mouly looks like a Dick Tracy villain). If all that’s not enough, Doug Wolk does a review round-up of some recent titles (hat tip: Bill Kartalopoulos).

In this week’s Cup O’ Joe, Marvel chief Joe Quesada and the Hero Initiative’s Jim McLauchlin talk about, among other subjects, Quesada’s tenure and whether or not he’ll leave the position “feet first”:

JM: So let’s do a little bit of retrospective here. You’ve been editor in chief at Marvel for…going on nine years now, right? You must have learned something in that interim! What’s the one greatest lesson you’ve learned?

JQ: It’s actually eight years, I’ll be starting my ninth soon. I’m sure there are plenty of people surprised about that, me included.

There have been many lessons that I’ve learned over that time. How could I not? Patience is perhaps the most important one, and the rest are too countless to list.

JM: Now you’ve mentioned in the past that with the obvious exception of Stan Lee, the job of Marvel editor in chief…usually doesn’t treat you well at the end. Most everyone leaves the position feet-first. Is that gonna be the eventual case with you?

JQ: As I said, no one is more surprised by the fact that I’ve been here this long more than me. Some may consider this a bit bleak, but I’ve always made it a point to come to work assuming that any given day could be my last. You can’t take stuff like that for granted and it helps keep me on my toes. This has nothing to do nor should it reflect in any way on Marvel, as the company has been great to me. It’s just the way that I like to approach things. I did the same during my freelance days, I may be an artist who is considered “hot” this year, perhaps next year not so much. I’ve seen too many people and have heard too many stories of folks in comics or the entertainment industry taking their station way too seriously and too much for granted. I don’t want to ever be that way. Being EIC of Marvel is an honor and a great job to have, and while there are no guarantees, what is a certainty is that I won’t be EIC forever. When that day comes, whether it be of my own volition or Marvel’s, I don’t ever want to have it come as an earth-shattering surprise.

Anything can happen in the world of business. To think that it can’t happen to you is just foolish and presumptuous.

So, the simple answer, who knows?

They also share some of John Romita Jr.’s art from his upcoming Amazing Spider-Man run, Mike Deodato Jr.’s from the Wolverine: Roar one-shot and the cover to X-Force #9, which features the return of Domino (pictured above).

– Marvel.com has a Q&A up with Zak Krefting of Shaba Games, the outfit working on their upcoming Spider-Man: Web of Shadows video game.

– The Daily Cross Hatch interviews Swallow Me Whole author Nick Powell.

– The Walrus chats up Seth.

– Dick Locher will soon draw his 10,000th cartoon.

– Here’s a video of Chip Kidd talking about his upcoming Bat-Manga book.

– Speaking of videos, here’s Cold Heat Video Special #1, courtesy of Frank Santoro.

– Oh, and then there’s this.

– Electric Politics talks to Robert Crumb.

– The L.A. Times spoke with Act-i-vate creators Joe Infurnari and Molly Crabapple at Comic-Con.

– How to make a stained-glass Spidey.

– Apparently women in England want to be like Willow.

– Henry Jenkins talks to two Comic-Con “newbies” who attended for the first time this year.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

Well, back on August 13 Robert Kirkman spoke his mind and it struck a nerve in some circles. Bossman Parkin covered some of the reaction in an August 15 post, but given that feedback continued on into this week, I thought I’d snag some further feedback. Plus, as always, other folks offered up items worth quoting.

“I haven’t commented on Robert Kirkman’s video screed on creator ownership for two reasons: [1] The pro-creators’ rights argument isn’t exactly news to most Journal readers, and [2] the notion that a bevy of original works, presumably genre works, that don’t star Wolverine or Batman are going to set the Direct Market on fire, change the buying habits of the Wednesday Crowd or even provide sustainable incomes in the majority of cases is just insane on the face of it. (Kirkman: There’s a reason that most alt-comics types — you know, the folks who’ve been putting their money where your mouth is for two decades? — have been quietly abandoning the DM ship for the past few years.)”
-Dirk Deppey, TCJ.com online editor, pussyfooting (yea, I’m kidding) around what he really thinks of Kirkman’s take.

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Editor’s note: Newsarama contributor and Olympics fan Seth Robison wraps up his series of “tangentially Olympic-related” comics and pop culture moments. You can read more from Seth on the Olympics at his blog Off The Podium.

By Seth Robison

In reality, success and happiness are unfortunately linked to fame and popularity, giving rise to so-called “stage mothers,” parents who relentlessly push their children into careers in entertainment (i.e. following the American Idol auditions around the country) or athletics (been to a Little League baseball game lately?) in order to achieve the former though the latter. However, in a universe like the one that runs though the books of DC Comics, there is another way to make your child’s name last forever: being a superhero.

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Final Crisis tie-in Legion of 3 Worlds #1 came out this week. Most of the reviews that I found were overwhelmingly positive, but there were still some nay-sayers.

Scott Cederland enjoyed the issue with only a bit of disappointment:

While the title is Legion of 3 Worlds, it’s obvious after this issue that there’s only going to be one Legion really focused on–the current Johns written Legion. The other Legions are relegated to single images on the last pages of this book. Personally, I’m kind of surprised at the joy I have at seeing the Zero Hour Legion pictured again. Both Johns’s Legion and the current Shooter-written Legion are so morose, heavy and self important that it’s great to see a Legion that used to actually look and act like kids. What can I say, I like seeing Andromeda in costume again.

If there’s any great disappointment in Legion of 3 Worlds it’s that the creators didn’t really pull out any surprises during the book, other than a promising last panel that hopefully defines the nature of the miniseries. Everything leading up to those last panels are fairly standard and what you would expect out of this book. In Johns’s Legion story in Action Comics, there was a fun sense of discovery or maybe even rediscovery as he introduced the Legion, familiar yet long missing characters. In this new book, there are few surprises or discoveries amid a collection of now familiar characters and familiar art.

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Warner Bros. has confirmed long-running rumors that it will reboot the Superman movie franchise.

Jeff Robinov, Warner Bros. Pictures Group President, tells The Wall Street Journal that the Man of Steel will be reintroduced on the big screen without regard to 2006′s Superman Returns.

“Superman didn’t quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to,” Robinov says. “It didn’t position the character the way he needed to be positioned. … Had Superman worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009.”

There’s no mention whether Superman Returns director Bryan Singer will be part of the reboot. Earlier this week, Variety‘s Anne Thompson reported “that it is a priority at the studio to find the right direction and if Bryan Singer is willing to do that, fine, but if he gets in the way, he may not stay on the project.”

Taking a page from Marvel, Warner Bros. has reversed its earlier position of using the now-stalled Justice League of America as a launching pad for other DC properties. Instead, it will focus on solo features to build toward a multicharacter film.

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