BY JEN VAUGHN – This Friday, ‘Marvel’ will face the ghost of Jack Kirby when professor and attorney Oliver Goodenough squares off against creator rights advocate and cartoonist Steve Bissette.

In case you’ve missed the ruling of the decade, Marvel is now owned by Disney ($4 billion smackers later) and when Kirby’s heirs took them to court for the rights to his work, a federal judge in New York eventually ruled in favor of Disney. Since Kirby’s comics and characters were created as works for hire under the Copyright Act of 1909, Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that the Kirby heirs had no claim to them.

Past and current champion for creator rights and enemy of work-for-hire Bissette will discuss the ethics of such a ruling with attorney Goodenough in an eye-opening talk betwixt two strong-arms of the comics creative world and the contract world. All are welcome at the Vermont Law School (Nina Simon room) to see the VLS professor Oliver Goodenough and The Center for Cartoon Studies professor Steve Bissette table these topics at 2:30pm, Friday October 21st.

Jen Vaughn is a cartoonist, librarian, journalist and more! Read her other articles at the Schulz Library Blog. Read to her before bed, preferably something with dragons.

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