Latest news of Kirby vs. Marvel Comics..

[johnmiic]

^^^ They'll get a new lawyer or they'll figure it out. It was Stephen E. Bissette's observations-not mine.

[hedrap]

Sorry man, Bissette's argument wouldn't fly.

Has anyone actually read the judgment? All 50 pages? I did. It's not that complicated.

It wasn't just Lee. Romita and Roy Thomas backed everything up. Lee doesn't claim he created every iota and that the artists had zero input. It explains the Marvel Method in the clearest way I've read. Simply, Lee had a variety of ideas in some form and he and the creative team, in whatever size, hashed it out. He then edited the final product which had to have his and Goodman's approval before publishing. Both sides agreed to that.

Both sides also agreed Kirby did nothing on spec and that everything he turned out was only after he was given an assignment.

The reason Kirby can't win is because his work occurred nowhere near the work-for-hire change that came about in '76. Even if he held out until '76 for the rules change, the best it could have done is get his artwork back and maybe some royalties on FF, Hulk and X-Men, (Cap is a totally different issue). Copyright ownership was never realistic.

Also, the summary does a great job of highlighting Romita's relationship with Goodman, which was just as long as Kirby's and something you never hear about in detail. The difference was Romita showed an amazing loyalty and Jack didn't. I'm not faulting Kirby, but when you compare the two, it becomes easy to understand why Romita has been consistently pushed as "The Marvel Guy" over Jack. What it shows is if Jack didn't go along with Simon, he would have ended up running Timely/Atlas/Marvel by some point. So when Simon bailed altogether, you can see how the regret and resent made Jack turn on Joe during that lawsuit.

It's weird to me, because Kirby has gotten what he wanted, which was to be recognized as the designer of the modern superhero aesthetic. Its his family and Toberoff, looking at the Marvel money, that want something else.

...and Evanier as an expert is officially buried by the judge. The summary is brutal to his image.