News:

Main Menu

COMIC GEEKS Я US

Started by LunarSage, February 29, 2012, 02:57:36 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

rick957

#200
You know what I love about the world of comics? 

... The fact that there's a groundswell of personal outrage among some comics fans over the Before Watchmen comics that are coming out.  There are comics professionals who are taking a public stand and divorcing themselves from DC Comics permanently over the mistreatment of the creators of Watchmen

... The fact that the corporate legislative abuse of Jack Kirby, Jerry Seigel, and Joe Shuster's heirs has inspired at least a few comics fans (check it! hell yeah) to personally swear off all Marvel or DC products derived from the lifes' work of those great craftsmen, including the upcoming Avengers mega-thing.  (It isn't just a movie, is it?  It's a merchandising phenomenon-slash-advertising blitz-slash-multiplatform commercial onslaught.  I can't decide if I want the movie to be any good or not; if it's good, then it creates a kind of justification for the megahype surrounding it, whereas if the movie sucks, then the megahype is revealed as the hollow soul-sucking horror that it truly is ... albeit after-the-fact, when almost no one is still paying attention.)

These phenomena may seem like no big deal to some people, but all you have to do is look closely at any other mass entertainment or arts medium to see just how remarkable these developments really are; I mean, how long has it been since a sizable number of pop-music fans or movie buffs turned against a new release en masse because the businesses involved were screwing over the creative people involved?  I can't even think of an instance, off the top of my head, and this is the kind of thing I pay attention to.

You know what I don't love about the world of comics? 

The fact that many if not most comics fans are still planning on buying some Before Watchmen comics and/or seeing the Avengers movie, no matter how strongly they feel about the ethical conundrums behind each of them.  What does it say about our culture that we're willing to raise ethical concerns as a source of public debate, but we aren't willing to forgo even a fleeting entertainment fix in order to take a personal stand against an injustice perpetrated against someone else?  Even the biggest detractors of Avengers or Before Watchmen seem to concede in advance that both will be commercial successes, no matter what!  Come on, WTF!?!  I don't usually see the point of personal boycotts of commercial products, but I thought that was just because I'm too cynical.  Is anybody out there willing to skip a titillacious new Adam Hughes comic, or skip seeing Scarlett Johansson in black tights, just because of some abstract ethical misgiving?  Of course not!  (Duh!) 

*sighs*  Ohhh, what a world! ...


ColdBloodedJellyDoughnut

I don't pretend to care about some of the politics behind the scenes in comics. I don't care. All that matters is that they don't fuck up my characters. Fucking Damien Wayne... *spits on the ground* I'm not that bothered about Avengers to be honest. Although Hawkeye interests me. I did always like the archers in DC (Speedy, Red Arrow, Green Arrow x2, Merlyn etc). We'll see...
“I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.”
Ernest Hemingway
O/Os**A/As

LunarSage

Just how was Jack Kirby 'screwed over' by Marvel?  His relatives are trying to claim that they should have a right to money from characters that Kirby helped create way back in the day while working for Marvel.  That's ridiculous.  It was written in legal stone that Marvel owned everything the writers created for them.  Trying to get some bank for those characters now is like the grandkids of the guy who built your house to suddenly hold their hands out and demand the money that they're "due" now that the house has increased in value.  What would you do?  You'd laugh at them and tell them to get lost.  The same holds true to Kirby's estate.  He was a very talented artist and writer who I have a tremendous amount of respect for, but he wasn't screwed over in the slightest.  He did a job for the company that he worked for at the time and was paid for his work.  End of story.

  ▫  A.A  ▫  O.O  ▫  Find & Seek   ▫ 

Callie Del Noire

I'm not sure about the characters he created or cocreated (he made a SHIT TON of them though) but Marvel has screwed him on several points, such as pay, medical coverage and such. Part of that it think came from a confrontational element between him and the company. Marvel, and DC, have had a long history of shorting their creative talent.

They are sort of like recording companies in that manner.

rick957

#204
QuoteI don't pretend to care about some of the politics behind the scenes in comics. I don't care. All that matters is that they don't fuck up my characters.

I care about some stuff and don't care about others.  *shrugs*  The characters don't create themselves or write themselves, whether it's done well or poorly, so it makes sense to me to care about the people who are responsible for the characters.

QuoteJust how was Jack Kirby 'screwed over' by Marvel?  His relatives are trying to claim that they should have a right to money from characters that Kirby helped create way back in the day while working for Marvel.  That's ridiculous.  ...  He did a job for the company that he worked for at the time and was paid for his work.  End of story.

QuoteMarvel, and DC, have had a long history of shorting their creative talent.

Yep.  Same or worse for all the other big comics companies, ex. Archie.

As to what Kirby's heirs do or don't deserve, I find it believable that they may have no legal grounds for complaint, but as someone else pointed out, there's a big difference between what kind of treatment is legal and what is ethical or moral.  Corporations are often willing to shortchange employees in order to make a profit -- I've been on the receiving end of that sort of thing personally, on a very small scale, so I have some idea of how shitty it feels.

The thing about Kirby (and Seigel/Shuster) is the ridiculous discrepancy between the financial compensation he received for his work and the financial rewards reaped by others from his work.  Think of all the money made by anyone ever from Marvel Comics properties -- we're talking billions of dollars, and not one red cent of that would have been made without Kirby.  (Were Stan and Ditko equally important?  Absolutely not, not even close, even though both made huge, important contributions.)

IMO, the real estate appreciation example isn't appropriate in this case because the scale is completely different.

It's something like this:  imagine if you sold someone a comic book from your collection for $1, and they turned around and immediately sold it for $100,000,000; then you asked them to give you another $20, just out of simple gratitude and human decency, and instead they told you to fuck off.  That's really the kind of scale we're talking about.  What if somebody did that to your dad?  Would you be a little pissed?  Personally, I'd be more upset over the mistreatment if it happened to my parent than if it happened to me.

LunarSage

Meh.  I disagree.  Scale is irrelevant in terms of analogies in this case.  Kirby was paid to do his job.  Marvel was never under any obligation to give him a percentage of their profits... ever.  It's not even a matter of ethics.  It's just how jobs work.  You design some software as a Microsoft employee.  Are you then entitled to a share of the profits made by selling said software?  No.  As soon as you created the product as an employee of Microsoft, you lose all rights to it.  It belongs to the company now.  If you had created the product yourself without the support of said company and wanted to market it on your own, that's a different story... but Kirby was just an employee.

  ▫  A.A  ▫  O.O  ▫  Find & Seek   ▫ 

Chris Brady

Lunar sage nails it.  Kirby did his job, got payed for it.  End of discussion.

And seriously the more I hear about Alan Moore, the more (no pun intended, but laughter accepted) I think he's a dangerous nutcase, and I have issues with what his perceived slights are.  Again, though, he did a job got paid for it, and it's done.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Rinzler

Quote from: Chris Brady on April 27, 2012, 05:32:05 PM
Lunar sage nails it.  Kirby did his job, got payed for it.  End of discussion.

And seriously the more I hear about Alan Moore, the more (no pun intended, but laughter accepted) I think he's a dangerous nutcase, and I have issues with what his perceived slights are.  Again, though, he did a job got paid for it, and it's done.

Dangerous in what sense? I admit, Moore is many, many other things - and I'm inclined to agree a little with the 'nutcase' bit - but he's never struck me as being dangerous. If anything, he's always come across as fairly peace-loving, old hippy that he is.

rick957

#208
Quote... Kirby was just an employee.

Actually, I was under the impression that Kirby was even less than an employee, or at least, less than a full-time or contracted employee; his services were engaged on a freelance basis only for most of his career.  But I think I get what you're saying anyway.

The problem is that no one at Marvel or DC could have anticipated the long-term financial windfall that would result from Kirby's work, or Seigel and Shuster's.  The work agreements were made under the assumption that the financial returns would be modest, if there were any profits made at all.  The outsized, runaway success of the creative properties took the companies and the creators by total surprise, and neither side made provisions in advance to set up a fair distribution of such ginormous profits.

It's pretty standard, I think, for parties to request renegotiations of work agreements when the resulting profits are much larger than the parties expected when the original agreement was made.  In the Kirby and S/S cases, the profits weren't just large, they were mega-lottery sized, and they kept growing and growing and growing, with no end to the growth in sight, even all these years later.

I think it is a question of ethics, meaning simply that it's a question of fairness:  if you create something that becomes profitable beyond your or anyone else's wildest expectations, is it fair for you to expect a significant chunk of the profits, more than you would have gotten if the payout had been normal-sized? 

In the U.S., we assume that in those rare instances where someone's idea turns the whole world upside-down, the people who benefit financially from that idea will renegotiate if necessary so that all the parties that have a reasonable claim to the profits get a reasonable share.  Our legal system exists to guarantee an equitable outcome for both employees and employers in cases where one tries to rape the other or otherwise withhold reasonable compensation.

What's "reasonable" in the Kirby or S/S cases?  Obviously, people disagree strongly about that.  What I find distressing and somewhat befuddling is the impulse on the part of many comics fans to side with the faceless, unfeeling, abstract corporations in these cases, rather than with the individual human beings who have reasonable-sounding grievances.

However, it is nice to hear those fans' viewpoints defended and explained, frankly, because I don't hold those views, but I would very much like to understand why others do.

(Similarly, I find it very hard to understand why anyone who knows what it's like to care about something you've created would fail to sympathize with Alan Moore.  Whatever you think about his sanity or lack thereof, his ethics are beyond unimpeachable, from what I can tell; I mean, according to several outside observers, the guy has legitimate grounds to bring a giant lawsuit against DC/Warner Bros. for breach of contract, yet he has chosen not to do that for personal reasons.  In other words, this is a man who is willing to turn his back on millions of dollars for the sake of his abstract principles, and he's done so on more than one occasion.  I don't know if I could stand to do the same, in his shoes, but I certainly respect and admire him for doing it.)

Cold Heritage

Quote from: Chris Brady on April 27, 2012, 05:32:05 PM
And seriously the more I hear about Alan Moore, the more (no pun intended, but laughter accepted) I think he's a dangerous nutcase, and I have issues with what his perceived slights are.  Again, though, he did a job got paid for it, and it's done.

Just because he signed a legally binding contract doesn't mean he has to be bound by it like a normal person.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

Chris Brady

Artists and music execs would love to have you think otherwise.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Chris Brady on April 27, 2012, 05:32:05 PM
Lunar sage nails it.  Kirby did his job, got payed for it.  End of discussion.
.

What about the fact that the publishers didn't keep their end of the agreement up?  Like music studios, the have quite happily dicked over their talent for decades over royalties and promised services like medical care. Someone estimated the record industry had screwed their talent out of something like a few hundred million in pension and medical bennies. DC and Marvel are small change compared to that but they have dicked over a lot of their Golden and Silver artists.

Filipino artist Tony DeZuniga, original artist for Jonah Hex is currently suffering from cancer and is short on medical care. 

VoluptuousVixen

Young justice Season 2. WTF? A five year jump. its like when DC jumped in the comics in the One Year later.
We get a animated WonderGirl, FInally!!!! I never preferd Donna im so glad its Cassie.
Does anyone ellse watch this wonderful cartoon. i need to talk about it!!!!!!!!!!!

Cold Heritage

I liked Glorious Godfrey.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: loislanekent on April 29, 2012, 11:17:00 AM
Young justice Season 2. WTF? A five year jump. its like when DC jumped in the comics in the One Year later.
We get a animated WonderGirl, FInally!!!! I never preferd Donna im so glad its Cassie.
Does anyone ellse watch this wonderful cartoon. i need to talk about it!!!!!!!!!!!

Huh? I thought what I was seeing on demand was the 2nd season.. with the resolution of who was gaming the league and YJ.

Cold Heritage

Nope, YJ just took more than a year to have all 26 episodes of its first season get aired.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Cold Heritage on April 29, 2012, 04:12:04 PM
Nope, YJ just took more than a year to have all 26 episodes of its first season get aired.

Eeek..when did season 2 start?

Cold Heritage

Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.

ColdBloodedJellyDoughnut

*coughs* Young Justice is a pile of tripe, in my opinion.

I like the Avengers though. But I totally think that Hulk's place as #10 needs to be changed. Hulk definitely showed intelligence and self-awareness. Hulk and Hawkeye stole the show, however much Iron Man tried to dominate it. Poor Capt. got a little bit lost.
“I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.”
Ernest Hemingway
O/Os**A/As

rick957

#219
I just went to look a word up at Thesaurus.com and ran smack-dab into a fucking advertisement for the Avengers movie, and not even my widely-used Firefox ad filter AdBlock Plus kept me from seeing it.

Not only that, but the ad used the JACK KIRBY cover art from Marvel Comics' Avengers number 4, cover-dated March of 19-fucking-64, in which the Golden Age Captain America came roaring back from his frozen Antartic grave, to thrill Silver Age fans once again, and all other comics fans since. 

Aargh!  I'm filled with equal parts anger and amusement ... inspiration and revulsion. 

That's pop culture for ya, kid!  :)

LunarSage

Quote from: rick957 on May 03, 2012, 02:49:08 PM
I just went to look a word up at Thesaurus.com and ran smack-dab into a fucking advertisement for the Avengers movie, and not even my widely-used Firefox ad filter AdBlock Plus kept me from seeing it.

Not only that, but the ad used the JACK KIRBY cover art from Marvel Comics' Avengers number 4, cover-dated March of 19-fucking-64, in which the Golden Age Captain America came roaring back from his frozen Antartic grave, to thrill Silver Age fans once again, and all other comics fans since. 

Aargh!  I'm filled with equal parts anger and amusement ... inspiration and revulsion. 

That's pop culture for ya, kid!  :)

*Has that very issue signed by Stan Lee!*  ;D

  ▫  A.A  ▫  O.O  ▫  Find & Seek   ▫ 

rick957

*jaw drops to the fucking floor*

That is a joke, right?  It's a reprint maybe?  C'mon now ... :)

Rinzler

Quote from: LunarSage on May 03, 2012, 02:52:28 PM
*Has that very issue signed by Stan Lee!*  ;D

Oh.
My.
God.

You've done the right thing and built a shrine for it, right?

Do you accept pilgrims?

LunarSage

#223


It's real, alright.  It's only in 3.0 condition but it's an original.  I bought it on Ebay a couple years back (when I had extra money from my birthday that year) in anticipation of meeting Stan Lee at the Emerald City Comicon in Seattle.  Stan was awesome. 

I said "it's an honor to meet you, sir" and he said with a smile "well it's an honor to be met".  :-)

I hope to someday get it framed but I have to wait because a good framing job is -pricey-.

I also have a 9.0 condition X-Men #244 (first appearance of my favorite X-Men character, Jubilee) that was signed by Marc Silvestri, my favorite comic artist of all time.  That one I did get framed since this picture.



Quote from: DeMalachine on May 03, 2012, 02:58:09 PM
Oh.
My.
God.

You've done the right thing and built a shrine for it, right?

Do you accept pilgrims?

Heh it's hanging on my wall along with my other works of art. 

That'd be a long pilgrimage, though.   ;)

  ▫  A.A  ▫  O.O  ▫  Find & Seek   ▫ 

Callie Del Noire

The neatest thing I had sign was the Mage series by matt Wagner. But someone stole part of the collect. Somewhere out there is a fat boy I am going to kill some day. You've been warned D. Watson.