Legal Matters

This is practically all kibbles and legal bits, but that seems to be where things are going.

DC has cited its changes and additions to the Super-verse as grounds for reducing the Siegel heirs’s share of Superman material produced since 1999. A recent Variety article takes this even further, reporting thatNeil Gaiman’s success in winning co-ownership of Medieval Spawn provides legal precedent for giving DC complete ownership of the contemporary Superman, limiting the Siegels’ interest to the far less lucrative 1938 version of the character. Does DC have strong legal grounds for splitting Superman between The Man of Tomorrow and The Man of Yesterday? Click below to see if Gaiman v. McFarlane is legal kryptonite for creators' rights--or whether that's just another misconceived retcon.

Imagine traveling to another country and having your comic books and electronic devices seized. Then, you're arrested because of the books you read. This may seem like a horror story, but for one comics reader, it's come true.

-- Thus begins the story of one traveler. We make a lot of jokes about the US/Canadian border but as tales of the comics that were seized on the way to TCAF make clear, Canadaisn take their ideological border security seriously.

Judging from the images released so far, it would appear that the relaunched versions of Superman and Superboy will be different from previous versions. Superman will no longer be wearing red shorts over his blue tights, and his belt, boots and S-symbol have also undergone notable alterations. Somewhat more dramatically, Superboy is sporting a black shirt and pants, a black-and-white S-shield mini-cape attached to his back, and a stylized red S-shield tattoo. It also appears that both characters will have significant changes in their continuity, most notably Superman’s age and his relationship with Lois Lane. This changes in the Superman costume are in themselves not likely to provide a solid foundation for erasing the Siegel heirs' ownership interest. However, the costume changes and other shifts in continuity are consistent with DC's arguments for limiting what the Siegels now own.  

The owner of a book imprint called ibooks is suing Apple over the trademark.

Perhaps it's only fitting that double identity has been a central issue in the never-ending battle over the Superman copyright. As longtime readers of my posts may recall, the relation between the original and contemporary versions of Superman has been central to the Siegel lawsuits from the beginning. To set the stage for the posts that follow, let's take a quick review of how the multiple versions of Superman have played a role in the Siegel lawsuits.

In these end times, we'll likely see more of this kind of thing; a lone vigilante, striking out for justice, armed with a baton, a can of chemical irritant Freeze Plus P, and lead-lined gloves, until suffocating government interference shut him down. It all went down in Petoskey, MI where Mark Wayne Williams, 31, was peacefully minding his own business, climbing a building dressed as The Batman.

Some stories you just don't want to write up. Connecticut-based cartoonist Josue Rivera, who works under the pen name Justiniano, has been arrested and charged with first degree possession of child pornography after a thumb drive he supplied to a funeral home was found to have images of child porn on it.

Canadians seem like a peaceful, tolerant folk, but they have a record of seizing a lot of material at the border, including, this week, several copies of the comics anthology BLACK EYE. Editor Ryan Standfest has a complete account in the link. Basically cartoonist Tom Neely was carrying five copies of the book across the border, when the books were seized. Neely writes:

Just when things looked all lovey dovey on the convention front, Kiel Phegley reports that Canadian convention organizer Hobby Star has filed a lawsuit against Reed Pop and Zuffa LLC, owner of the UFC over the use of the term "Fan Expo," which Hobby Star claims to have trademarked. Reed and the UFC, the hugely popular mixed martial arts organization, have been putting on a series of "UFC Fan Expo" events in conjunction with their fight shows. However, Hobby Star puts on the Fan Expo Canada every year, generally considered the third biggest comic-con-type show in North America. The suit probably only covers the Canadian use of the term Fan Expo, however:

As we predicted last week, the Rob Granito team is attempting to get their second act rolling with a round of tell-all interviews. You may recall (it was all so long ago and little noted) that Granito is a person of dubious artistic skill who has been going around to comics shows for 15 years selling copied art that he's passed off as his own. Now, Comics Cube reports a letter is making the rounds:

Joanne Siegel, widow of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and the model for Lois Lane, died on February 12th at age 93 after spending most of her adult life helping her husband fight legal battle to get adequately compensated for creating the first and best known superhero of them all. Before she died, she wrote a letter to Time Warner chairman Jeff Bewkes, asking for some civility. Nikki Finke has printed this letter and we're taking the liberty of reprinting it because the topic is so germane to the matters we cover here.