Fight! Fight! Fight!: So the other day Comic Book Bin’s Hervé St-Louis wrote an article responding to recent movement in the Who Owns What Where Superman Is Concerned legal battles. Comics Reporter Tom Spurgeon said the editorial was “so wrongheaded it makes my teeth hurt” and counted nine problems with it, and then St-Louis responded to Spurgeon’s response to his essay. St-Louis loses me pretty quickly in his second essay, as he seems to start out arguing that Superman should be public domain, an argument in the opposite direction of the DC doesn’t owe the Siegels anything position taken elsewhere. I also have a hard time wrapping my head around his statement that “The most important people in the comic book industry are the fans,” and not just because everyone knows the most important people in the comic book industry are actually us bloggers. Like, I can kinda almost see what he means from an economic perspective—that is. if no one buys comics, there isn’t an industry—but then, “industry” and “medium” are different things entirely and, more importantly, “fans” can’t be fans without something to be a fan of, and that means a creator has to create something for them first, right? At any rate, back to what I learned to do in grade school whenever I saw a disagreement among my peers: Fight! Fight! Fight! (UPDATE: As you’ll see at the third link, St-Louis’ second essay has been taken down and is currently being reviesed. Sorry; it was still up and thus a more relevant link when I wrote this).
“Richmonder sells rare ‘Archie’ comic to protest character’s wedding”: That’s what the headline to this article says, anyway. I guess that’s a more exciting hook than “Richmonder sells ‘Archie’ comic to make $32,500.” The CBC also has a story on the subject. Far sexier than either story is this one by Rachelle Goguen on her blog Living Between Wednesdays, in which she takes a close look at all the girls in Riverdale Archie chose Veronica over.
“I never knew that a person could actually be bored to tears until I read Josh Neufeld’s new graphic book about Hurricane Katrina”: That’s Newsweek‘s Adam B. Kushner on Neufeld’s A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. Kushner’s assessment of Neufeld’s book isn’t quite as harsh as it sounds—he’s using Maus as a measuring stick, after all. That is a heck of a grabby lead though, isn’t it? (As for the tears, Kushner was actually in tears because he was affected by the content of the book). Regardless of what Kusher has to say about Neufeld’s book though, the peice is well worth a read for what he says about the medium:
One reason the recent spate of graphic novels has produced little memorable work is that, well, comics are really hard to make. Spiegelman spent 13 years on Maus; Neufeld took three for A.D. (which first appeared in a series online). But it’s not just about technical chops. The real problem is a shortage of introspection and metaphorical ingenuity… great graphic novels, a form already much harder to produce, still have to match the achievements of imagination in other disciplines. No wonder there are so few.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say “little memorable work,” but if Kushner’s talking about there being too few Mauses among the explosion of original graphic novels—and comic books and strips created to eventually be graphic novels—well I suppose he has a point. Anyway, please consider giving the piece a read and a think.
“Think back to the original novel. Comic books are the only books shallow enough to go unburned, the only ones people are still allowed to read”: Sarah Boxer points out an interesting irony of the Fahrenheit 451 graphic novel adaptation in this piece for Slate:
As the end time for printed books draws near, Fahrenheit 451, the 1953 novel that envisioned it all, has just been published, again. And this time it reads like a joke—an extended, ironic, illustrated joke. Because this time, Ray Bradbury’s novel about firemen who burn books instead of putting out fires is—oof!—a comic book.
Damn, it was a good weekend for comic book think pieces in the non-comics media…
Speaking of Slate speaking of comics: Here’s Lisa Schmeiser on the curious fact that blockbuster superhero movies never seem to move the dial on the sales of the comic books they’re based on. It would be a lot more interesting a piece if Schmeiser spoke to more people who knew what they were talking about regarding the business end of comics, but then the companies she’s talking about are notoriously tight-lipped about any and all sales data, so there probably wasn’t much more she could have done.
Well I didn’t expect to see that name in an article headlined “Kinky is commonplace at annual fetish convention”: George Perez was at Fetish Con in Tampa this past week. Not on a panel about orange-skinned alien fetishes or anything, just as a con-goer. “It’s wonderful to meet these free-spirited people,” he told the Tampa Tribune, ” Everyone here is accepted for whatever their kinky bend is.” Hmm, what’s Perez’s kinky bend? I’m going to guess crowds. Extremely detailed crowds.
Kerry Callen hearts Tigra: Callen, the creator of the delightful Halo and Sprocket, is a Tigra fan, and he’s got some blog posts to prove it. This Sunday he posted a six-page Tigra strip he submitted to Marvel in the early ’90s, and, speaking of Callen and Tigra, here’s his cover of the cover to Marvel Chillers #3 for the blog Covered last month.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:59 am
St-Louis also made the classy move of deleting all of the comments to his original essay, which were running decidedly against his thesis. Now his editors have made him retract his response to Spurgeon, which was filled with complaining that Tom was abusing his awesome power in a fascist, merciless, cult-of-creators-rights attempt to silence the voices of the fans.
Basically it’s what popcorn was invented for.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:36 am
“Hmm, what’s Perez’s kinky bend? I’m going to guess crowds. Extremely detailed crowds.”
Funniest thing I have read all week!
August 17th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Its odd that Tom Spurgeon actually gave coverage to the article, at all. Its obvious that Spurgeon surfs comicbookbin, linking to their umpteen reviews on his blog, but still, really? I hope next time, there’s no next time.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Perez’s kink is women’s wrestling videos. I know I read it first here on Newsarama a couple of years ago.
I don’t know if he has any others.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:09 am
I remember George Perez mentioning being familiar with the fetish-community back when he did Sachs & Violens. IIRC, he used some (professional) models he knew personally as the basis for some of the characters. Anyhow, it’s a cool quirk for an awesome artist to have (puts all those sweat-drenched Scarlet Witch faces in perspective too).
August 17th, 2009 at 11:26 am
“Hmm, what’s Perez’s kinky bend?”
The article (and several other reports) say that he was there specifically for the superhero catfight videos, of which there are a lot of available. (long pause) So I hear.
The fact that the Siegel/Schuster families will have some say in how the character is used in any future projects strikes me as the one reason that DC/WB legal will have the most problem with the decision. I can forsee a scenario where some member(s) of that coalition will use that point to slow or stop any project they like should they decide they aren’t receiving a sizable enough piece of the diamond-shaped pie.
I’m well past the point of arguing or caring if the grandchildren of Joe ‘n’ Jerry really warrant any ownership of the character by now. Surely Joe ‘n’ Jerry didn’t receive a sliver of what they could/should have received over the years, and surely DC/WB lowballed the settlements numerous times in an attempt to save themselves some money short term. This is seventy years of both sides making poor choices, and the only reason it’s become such a boondoggle as it has are because so many emotions are involved. If this was a case over the patent for Dacron, no one would care. But the fact that some believe that this is all a plot to take Superman away, everybody’s a bad guy.
There’s already a decision that (to summarize) if a Superman film isn’t in the offing in the next couple years (2012 I believe?), the Siegels have the rights to pull the film rights and shop them around for a better deal. I can forsee Warner Brothers slapping together a sub-par project in that timeframe just to retain the rights, resulting in the property being in even a worse place than it is now. Maybe not as sub-par as the legendary Corman Fantastic Four film, but done for the same reasons.
I can totally see DC/WB (likely more WB) doing a number of these penny wise pound foolish moves to keep the Siegels out of the loop, which will only result in another suit somewhere down the line.
I still maintain that the best thing they can do moving forwards is to come to a massive settlement with the Siegel and Schuster clans/reps (with or without future royalty payments) in exchange for clear title to the characters. This needs ending, and an amenable ending, so they all don’t go through it again when some other member of the family decides they’re still being taken adventage of, or just plain “‘taint enough”.