Let's talk about Jack Kirby

yeah, disappointing altho I suppose it's better than a ruling in favor of Marvel (imo)

I'd guess the billions being made off those movies pretty much made it a good investment to make right and end this business risk. It's kind of sad it took Marvel (and others) making a few billion dollars off those Kirby characters in movies for it to happen, but better late than never.

Marvel was pretty short sided with Jack Kirby in the early 70 when they ran him out the door, but the comic industry of that time was pretty similar to the recording industry in that it was greasy as you could get. If they would have made Jack Kirby some type of limited partner back then, they would have ended up owning a ton more properties.

If we use the super hero multiple Earth's analogy, I kind of hope there is one out there where Jack Kirby got to do everything he ever wanted and made a ton of cash. I read his Marvel and DC comics and wonder how cool it would it be to have Kirby be able to have the Fantastic Four and Thor be able to interact with the Fourth World characters. The story ideas that could have happened are kind of endless.

I have to assume marvel made an eight figure payment + court costs to pacify the family; resolving this probably makes funding for future films much easier to secure
/talking out of my ass would be curious to hear from anyone who is close enough to the case to share better informed opinions

Evanier: "If you're coming to this page in search of details and commentary, you've come to the wrong place. I will be saying nothing about it other that I am real, real happy. And I'm sure Jack and his wife Roz, if they're watching this from wherever they are, are real, real, real happy."

So yeah, way into eight figures.

to make evanier happy on that level, i'd have to think so.

Lol yup

resolving this probably makes funding for future films much easier to secure

how will poor Disney scrape together pennies for their next low-budget Avengers flick

aw, you know that's not what i mean. They're moving hundreds of millions of dollars in financing against potential return of films that won't be on screen until 2018; removing any potential variables that could give a bank even the slightest pause has gotta be considered a major priority. without that leverage, i can't imagine this suit ending the same way; i assume marvel would just tie it up in litigation for another decade and roll the dice.

Kurt Busiek laying it down on the background to the ruling.

Bah, let's try that again

That rings true.

Interesting post, thanks

Yeah, thanks for the link. That's the most lucid summation of the situation I've read.

anyone know what's up with vol 2 of the fourth world omnibus? been on a bit of a kirby kick recently so i picked up the other three for reasonable prices but vol 2 is going for crazy money everywhere. did dc only print six copies or something?

I was obsessively monitoring the used prices on Amazon until I found a copy that was less insanely-priced than has become the norm. But still insanely-priced.

I don't know why this happens and it drives me nuts (currently fighting the fight with one of the Peanuts slipcase collections that's going for like $400 even though both of the individual books are still in print). Like, no one is going to pay $200 for this collection of old and rare comics that you can purchase individually for <$200, so just stop it.

Might be because vol 2 is the best/has the most famous stories in it (eg the Pact etc.)?

Been super entertained by the Kirby Thors lately - it goes without saying, but they are *crazed*.

Also - I have to admit, outside of Fantastic Four, I tend to skip the dialogue and just look at the pretty pictures for Kirby stuff. Am I missing anything?

Also - this is a nice collection of stuff - especially this

mark evanier's kirby book has a bunch of lovely reproductions of little-seen-but-amazing work like that 'galactic head' painting.

I'm always weirded out by things like this too. Like, if the entire series is OOP why just that one... but it happens surprisingly often, like perhaps there was a lower print run of a certain volume or something.

At least it's a fairly safe bet the omnibuses (or at least the material within) will be reprinted at some point...

Spirit Archive #14 is the same way. I hate that shit.

dying at this:
http://40.media.tumblr.com/f239068e19bc3498e0cf50ddfd9398ac/tumblr_mtc7tcaAnw1qzoglfo3_500.jpg

There were single Dungeon collections (almost pocket size, <100 pages) going for two to three hundred quid last year.

Just grabbed Evanier's Kirby book online for cheap, on a whim after reading Bizzaro G's post. Thanks!

I stupidly sold all of my Abnett & Lanning cosmic Marvel trades a couple years back when I was broke, and they naturally all skyrocketed in price around the time that Guardians of the Galaxy came out because Marvel is ridiculously awful at taking full advantage of their successes. Thankfully, they've slowly been catching up with new reprints, and an omnibus of Annihilation: Conquest (the storyline that introduced the new Guardians) will be coming out next summer (one year after the film was released...).

what's up with these new Marvel reprints (Epics? I think they're called?) I saw one for Kirby-era Silver Surfer stuff and one for Kirby-era Thor and they looked pretty nice, full color, etc.

this spread
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/2/27500/952073-new_gods__v1__3___page_5.jpg

got me thinking about artists reproducing/referencing other panels - is this one of the most reproduced panels ever or what? Close homages to it appear in Swamp Thing:
http://files1.comics.org//img/gcd/covers_by_id/16/w200/16032.jpg?5767558948402809120

in this issue of the New Gods revival:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lu9YYYF_A2s/VLRg9pdfQDI/AAAAAAABG3k/dXEOxn0WLJI/s1600/newgods18-08.jpg

and iirc it also shows up in one of Morrison's JLA issues(?)

what other iconic panels have received this treatment, where it seems like the artists just get a kick out of replicating the original?

well swamp thing link is broken and I can't find a scan of it but that's supposed to be the double-page spread from no. 62

Veitch has knowingly (and subconsciously, via Rare Bit Fiends) copped Kirby a number of times, but he does it really well imo.

Veitch named his son Kirby.

A comics historian of my acquaintance once told me that this the most-swiped comics image of all time:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/35/3a/d9/353ad94bbfc5d0a0974bc89ebf946f9c.jpg

Certain Marvel artists were definitely told to copy Kirby's work as closely as possible

yeah I'm more interested in the wholesale swiping of images/panels, esp if it was done as an obvious homage (less interested in things like Giffen getting caught out for swiping Munoz and Sampayo for ex.). Obviously artists ape styles all the time, but that's not what I was getting at.

I've never seen that Triton thing, would love to see some examples of where that got reproduced - it certainly doesn't look that spectacular to me

similar to how Spider-Man's first cover appearance and Action Comics #1 or Fantastic Four #1 have been endlessly referenced, but in the context of panels

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/uncanny-x-men-132-pic1-wolverine.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/60/172675035_1eeb365615_o.jpg

i'm sure there are lots of others but i'm blanking right now

other homages to the byrne panel I mean

ooh good call

yeah def

I think Superman holding somebody dead has got to be the most homaged image ever. DC did that so many times as well as other publishers.

https://nicfoley.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/homage-overkill-crisis-on-infinite-earths-7/
http://comiccoverage.typepad.com/comic_coverage/2007/04/comic_book_cove.html
Some of them aren't homages but there has been overkill for sure. I've seen more ones they haven't included.

cover images are a different thing

famous interior homaged as a cover:

http://geek-news.mtv.com//wp-content/uploads/geek/2013/02/spiderman-no-more-romita-a.jpg
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/0/77/121024-129520-homage-covers.jpg

feel like covers lend themselves more to homage as they're subject more to a grab-reader's-attention-w-a-gimmick dynamic, whereas interior art single panel homages are more like fan service, or more the artists just enjoying themselves

xp

xps interesting that there are so many Pieta refs long before that Crisis cover came out anyway....

Also quite a few monsters carrying women. In the John Landis monster book there is a list of movie monsters that carried women like that.

I guess there's something attractive/arresting about that setup

In the case of the crying Superman I think it looks increasingly ridiculous somehow when you have that sort of emotional outburst repeated in that way.

Kinda reminds me of the manly tears trope in stuff like Fist Of The Northstar and Crying Freeman that Paranoia Agent parodied.

heh