Legal Matters

Aaron Colter at Comics Alliance rounds up the latest news of t-shirt makers ripping off artists for ideas without paying them, including the granddaddy of them all, Todd Goldman, whose idea thievery is notorious -- his huge David and Goliath novelty company has a long, well-documented track record for necoming "majorly inspired" by other artists' ideas and then paying a little hush money when caught. We had a whole bunch of posts about Goldman's past sins up here once, but his lawyer made us take them down. Let's hope AOL has a few more resources to keep this story up, because he's a total ______ and a ________ too.

A little catch-up here on a potentially groundbreaking legal story that we don't have time to completely break out, but basically early Betty Boop cartoons are now in the public domain, despite Fleischer Studios still owning the trademark and licensing out contemporary versions of Betty Boop (which you see all over the place on purses, Ts and so on.)

Hiroko Tabuchi of the NY Times has alengthy piece Japan's recent legislation banning sales of adult material to minors. Along the way there's a lot of "Only in Japan!" stuff:

Last week, retailer Travis Corcoran , owner of the Arlington, Mass. online retailer HeavyInk posted some repulsive comments on his personal blog about the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. We didn't cover them because they were so obviously a sickening play for attention: "1 down, 534 to go." After Bleeding Cool made the connection between Corcoran and the blog (which the retailer has since removed), creators tweeted that they didn't want to be sold at HeavyInk, and Corcoran responded with several rambling, defiant blog posts:

Two young men from LA have pled guilty to selling bogus Comic-Con passes. The two advertised their counterfeit passes on Craigslist and sold them...

As you may have read, a gunman down in Panama City, Florida walked into a school board meeting, sprayed a V for Vendetta symbol on the wall, walked around with a gun, making a lot of statements, started shooting and eventually was shot by a deputy, then killed himself. (Reports differ on this, but the most credible reports are that he used his gun on himself.) This video is pretty unbelievable, especially the part where a woman sneaks behind him and whacks him with her purse. And gets worse from there.

This story has it all, but it's all horrible. 57-year-old Kenneth McClure, owner of Legends Comics & Cards in St Louis, MO was found shot dead in a field yesterday. However, that's just the centerpiece of a circle of lurid crime that is TRU ready. McClure had recently been charged with the statutory rape of a 13 year old girl (which took place in the shop, where he lived in the basement), and had held police in a stand-off at the store when they came to arrest him -- holding a gun to his head for three hours.

After a delay due to a procedural matter, the Superman lawsuit is back on. This case is more complicated than a DC crossover event, but the bottom line is that depositions by the heirs of Siegel and Shuster -- Joanne Siegel, Laura Siegel Larson, Jean Peavy and Mark Peavy -- are now taking place.

There seems to have been a recent rash of comics show crimes, what with a daring theft at NYCC. Alvin Buenaventura reports that two copies of the rare and valuable KRAMERS ERGOT were stolen from his booth at APE. Let's call this one a brazen heist.

Did Zack Snyder get the Superman gig because he's the only director in town who could get the baggage-heavy franchise back in production before 2011? That's what Claude Brodesser-Akner is reporting over at Vulture. And why 2011? It's not because of the Mayan calendar, but rather a deadline of another sort. Based on their filings for copyright reversion (which Warner Bros. has pulled out every trick in the book to stop) the Siegel family will regain control of their half of Superman in 2013, with the Joe Shuster heirs expected to get theirs back soon after. So a movie has to get made before then.

You cannot say that indicted former Illinois governor Rod Bagojevich is not a smart and pragmatic man. Although recently convicted on a single count of federal corruption, Blago, as he is known to fans, had a mistrial on 23 others, so he's still out and about. And what does a pol do while out on bail to feed the family? He takes it to the people, and makes a little spending money by signing autographs at Wizard World Chicago/Chicago Comic-Con. Blago is well aware that cashing in on celebrity is the best follow up to a political fall, and while thwarted in his attempt to appear on 'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!, has been a contestant on The Apprentice. So he's gone where all reality stars go.

If the long, long battle over the rights to Superman were a DC "event" comic, we would be into the colon-bedecked spin-offs by...