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Posts: 1754
Mar 22 10 11:56 AM
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ReviveTheRedRaven wrote: Well then, I musk ask (without taking things too personally), was Jack Kirby completely stupid in the ways of the business at that time? Did he not realize that what he created would belong to Marvel? If he was ignorant going in, I could understand the case for saying these characters belong with his descendants, but I'd wager he knew that his material would belong to Marvel. Kirby knew as much as any other artist of the era could have and likely MUCH more. Remember, in cooperation with his then partner Joe Simon (though it appears to me that Simon alone was responsible for creating Cap), Jack was involved with a "profit sharing" deal with Martin Goodman over Captain America in 1940. Oddly, the two thought Martin (Martin do something under-handed, the hell you say!) was lying to them about sales and not sharing profits. This is cited by Simon as one of the reasons they jumped ship to DC in 1941. In other words, even an idiot, based upon that experience would known not to have trusted Goodman or anything else not in writing and prepared by a darn good lawyer-- one working for Jack, not Goodman..The two then paired with Prize Comics to launch the romance genre in the late 40's to much commercial success. (IMS, Simon said he and Kirby were sharing 50 grand an issue of Young Romance, etc. Even if that's an inaccurate number and maybe represents the profits from the entire year, that's one hell of a lot of money in 1949! Yeah, Kirby knew about profits available in his industry. The duo THEN formed their own company so Kirby knew about what art cost, production costs, profit margins, etc. in the industry were (OR SHOULD HAVE). Of course this is the era when Jack used original art to help dry the newly mopped floors of their offices. Apparently in Kirby's company original art wasn't returned to artists or even retained and had no value whatsoever. But, later, of course, he'd insist all original art was iconic and the birth right of any artist who drew, inked, lettered, erased the extra lines or leaned on it. But not when he was running HIS company; then it was a drying agent, to be used, crumpled up, and thrown away.Kirby also was aware of the limited market for his talent. He never during this period managed to successfully expand his art's market, say in advertising where the money dwarfed that in comics or elsewhere. And, he alienated his one steady safe job in the latter 50's by not paying monies due Jack Schiff from a joint venture they were in -- Sky Masters. Schiff, an editor at DC, sued him, won easily, and the DC editors naturally united to blackball Kirby from DC. Suddenly there were no Green Arrow and no Challengers of the Unknown pages to work on and Jack was on the street.That left Kirby with the hope of working at Marvel, Charlton, Harvey, Archie, and the few small companies still hanging on. Since this occurred not long after the comic crash brought on by Wertham there were scores, if not hundreds of former comic book artists in the same situation. The only ones willing to go with him were Harvey and, to an extent, Marvel. His Harvey work apparently didn't sell but, luckily for him, Joe Manlely's death left an opening at Marvel that Kirby filled. A couple of years later he suddenly became a creating genius and gave birth to the entire Marvel superhero line without the aid of anybody else or so his ultra fans would have us believe. When they claim "The Living Eraser" (or it's Black Cat Mystery predecessor) as an example of Kirby's originality you know they aren't aware that Jack borrowed from others too.He knew EXACTLY what he was doing in the sixties, he didn't like it, but he couldn't go anywhere else and Goodman, champion of the American Way, squeezed him. If ANYONE should have known to get legal help based upon their life's lessons it was Jack. I don't think Kirby was stupid. I think he just didn't have the stomach to stand up to Goodman because he didn't think he had any options. Feeding family came first. And he was desperate. Frankly, though I'll aways wonder what the heck he did with the big money he made in the romance comics, while at DC the first time, or other times of huge financial success -- that should have hired a lot of lawyers. I trust Evanier's book will tell us that. Maybe he shared his money from those successes with his parents, siblings, uncles, etc.I repeat, it's an unjustified lawsuit to gain a settlement by embarrassiing the "evil" Disney monster. I hope it takes centuries. Lawyers have to feed their families and need job security too. And once it's over, their heirs can sue the biggest corporate pockets for their fathers contributions to the law that helped Disney save its characters.
Well then, I musk ask (without taking things too personally), was Jack Kirby completely stupid in the ways of the business at that time? Did he not realize that what he created would belong to Marvel? If he was ignorant going in, I could understand the case for saying these characters belong with his descendants, but I'd wager he knew that his material would belong to Marvel.
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