Marvel Comics vs Jack Kirby - Could Marvel lose?

In the next few days the US Supreme Court should decide what they are going to do about a legal dispute involving the 1976 Copyright Act, the outcome of which could have an unprecedented impact on creative/entertainment industries. It’s the long running, possibly cosmic, definitely epic battle between the Jack Kirby Estate and Marvel/Disney.

During a career that spanned seven decades Jack Kirby created or co-created so many of the characters that appear on our movie screens, t-shirts, lunchboxes & novelty bathrobes today. Captain America, Thor, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk, the Silver Surfer, Galactus, Black Panther, the Inhumans, New Gods … I could go on all day, Kirby was behind them all. He was the most influential artist in comics history & his properties have made more money over the years than the work of any other single person, alive or dead.

Jack Kirby died in 1994.

Before his death, there was bitterness between Kirby and his former employers. As soon as left Marvel, he tried to sue them for ownership of the characters he'd created, the legal dispute lasted years and ended in Marvel’s favour. He saw others making fortunes from his creations while he felt treated like a hired gun, not given the recognition, respect, or financial reward, that he deserved.

Today, Kirby continues to lack recognition for the work he did, the characters he created and the incredible influence he has on so much of our modern media.

His four children (Barbara J. Kirby, Lisa R. Kirby, Neal L. Kirby, Susan N. Kirby) have tried a few times to take legal action to reclaim some of the copyrights on characters their father created. With the help of intellectual property attorney Marc Toberoff, they filed 45 copyright-termination notices in 2009. Marvel countered with a lawsuit, which all led to the 2011 ruling that the Jack Kirby creations in question were defined as work for hire and not subject to copyright reclamation. In August 2013 the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this decision. Rounds one and two to Marvel. Kirby down but not out.
It is hard to imagine a monopoly like Marvel/Disney ever losing a legal battle, but maybe this time the Kirby Estate have a chance. Why? Because this time round they have the backing of some powerful allies in their corner-

• Bruce Lehman - Former chief adviser to President Bill Clinton on intellectual property rights, he was responsible for significant changes to United States patent laws.
• Ralph Oman - Former U.S. Register of Copyrights and Professorial Lecturer in Intellectual Property and Patent Law
• The Screen Actors Guild American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA)
• The Writers Guild of America (WGA)
• The Directors Guild of America (DGA)
• Marc Toberoff – He’s still here. Attorney specializing in copyright and entertainment litigation. He was the guy who represented Superman’s co-creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster against Warner and DC Comics over the original copyright to Superman. 

Toberoff has tried before for the Kirby Estate a few times over the last decade, with Marvel coming out on top each time, but now it seems like the tide is turning. The Hollywood guilds, unhappy that the 2013 appeal court ruling that favoured Marvel sets a dangerous precedent and could have repercussions across the creative industries, want this case to be heard by the Supreme Court.


If the case gets upheld, potentially Marvel could lose the rights to key characters like the Avengers, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Characters that are the foundation of just about every successful movie they have ever done. Without Jack Kirby characters, the Disney/Marvel superhero franchise falls apart. Even if Guardians of the Galaxy does well, see if you can guess who co-created Groot?

The ruling would also set an interesting precedent, especially for all those artists whose pre-1976 works continue to make a lot of money for companies while they see little revenue from them. Whatever happens, it’s one to watch. Unsurprisingly, I’m rooting for the Kirby kids, if this case gets heard, and if the Kirby kids win, it will rock the foundations of Marvel and Disney in a way that would make their father proud.

To find out more about Jack Kirby visit The Jack Kirby Museum & Research Centre

Car Boot Comics

In a bid to rid my house of decades of accumulated junk, I attempted a car boot sale at the weekend. For the right person, my stall was a treasure trove of old science fiction novels, comicbook memorabilia, Dr Who toys and several misprinted copies of the best-seller “Morris Telford’s Salopian Odyssey”. Correctly printed copies are still available in all good book shops.

I also brought along a small box of comics, mostly DC, mostly of little value, but a nice run of Starman was in there, some Animal Man with Bolland covers, a couple of dog-eared Graphic Novels, even the odd signed issue picked up at conventions over the years. There was a real mixed bag in there, I hadn’t really looked through it properly but I was confident there were no Golden Age gems in there, I’d have been able to smell them.

Sadly there was little interest in the comics until a dark haired boy and what I presumed were his grandparents came over and the boy started rummaging through them with all the enthusiasm of a starving man at an eat-all-you-can buffet. He spent ages looking through them, making a little pile and pestered the cash. I think he bought 5, and he was gone, another happy customer.

The day went on, I sold the hamster cage, the old sci-fi novels, the broken laptop that’s probably got all my Ebay and Paypal passwords on it, the Daleks and a surprising number of items I’d never even seen before that my children will probably be looking for next week. Not much interest in the Morris Telford books though.

Then it happened. The Grandfather and Grandmother from earlier came back. Without the boy this time. Had I sold an unsuitable comic to his grandson? Had that copy of Sexy Zombie Mutant Slavegirl I thought I’d thrown away found it’s way into the box and he’d come back to chastise me like a modern day Fredric Wertham? No. He’d got home and his Grandson had sat straight down and started devouring the comics, getting very excited about them, telling his Grandad after reading the first couple that he wished he’d bought some more.

So, and this is the moment of awesomeness,  the Grandparents had left him at their house, and without telling him driven back to me at the Car Boot sale to buy the whole box. The whole box. To give to him as a surprise. I gave them it for a few quid, it was an act of generosity and fantastic Grandparenting that deserved to be facilitated.

I wish I’d noticed which 5 comics the kid bought, but it was good to see someone getting genuinely excited about comics, and great to help someone start what could be a lifetime’s obsession. Maybe in 30 years he’ll sell them on to some other kid….. I hope so.

If you have a house full of comics you never read – Share them. Give them to kids you know, donate them to your local library and make sure they don’t just rot away in your attic. Just think about what a kick YOU would have got as a kid if someone gave you a whole box of comics.

Was Star Wars based on Jack Kirby’s Fourth World?

There are, it has to be said, some striking similarities between the two. New Gods #1 was published in 1971, Star Wars came out 6 years and 3 months later in 1977. Here’s a  few facts – 

The FOURTH WORLD is a space opera, a Greek tragedy played out among the stars with epic scope, an overshadowing war caused by previous events, complicated families & lots of zooming around in space.

STAR WARS is a completely different space opera, a Greek tragedy played out among the stars with epic scope, an overshadowing war caused by previous events, complicated families & lots of zooming around in space.

The FOURTH  WORLD has “The Source” a mysterious almost religious energy. Characters use the Source to draw power from.

STAR WARS has the completely different “The Force” a mysterious almost religious energy. Characters “Use the Force” to draw power.

The FOURTH WORLD has a  hero, Orion, who is accompanied by a happy-go-lucky, reckless companion called Lightray and trained by Highfather, an old man with incredible powers.

STAR WARS  has a completely different hero, Luke, who is accompanied by a happy-go-lucky, reckless companion called Han Solo and trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi, an old man with incredible powers.

FOURTH WORLD’s main villain is Darkseid (pronounced Dark Side) whose real son was brought up by one of the good guys.

STAR WARS main villain is the completely different Darth Vader (who uses the Dark Side) whose real son was brought up by one of the good guys.

The FOURTH WORLD has Apokolips, an incredibly oppressive planet-sized regime watched over by hordes of masked soldiers. Basically it looks like a planetoid with big circles on the surface.

STAR WARS has the completely different Death Star, an incredibly oppressive planet-sized regime watched over by hordes of masked soldiers. Basically it looks like a completely different planetoid with completely different big circles on the surface.

The FOURTH WORLD has “Mother Box” an electronic device that communicates by making “ping ping” noises.

STAR WARS has the completely different R2-D2 a robot that communicates by making ping ping, beep & whistle noises.

Jack Kirby’s the FOURTH WORLD has great character names like Mark Moonrider,

STAR WARS has completely different great character names like…. Luke Skywalker.

I could go on. Was Star Wars based on Jack Kirby’s Fourth World? 

Kirby says - Don’t ask! Decide for yourself! May the Source be with you.

For more info, see a video of me talking about this at a BettaKultcha event.


....and to the person who commented saying Orion looks nothing like Luke, you were looking at a drawing of him with his helmet on. Here's Orion without his helmet next to a photo of Luke, you decide....

The Thin Black Line – Perspectives on Vince Colletta

The tired Colletta clichés are – “you either love him or hate him”, “he polarizes opinion”. You hate him for ignoring Kirby’s pencils and leaving out stuff or you love him for his fine feathered work on Thor, you hate him for not caring enough about the art and employing “assistants”, or you love him for the letter he wrote to Marvel when Jim Shooter left.

I certainly started out in the anti-Colletta camp, a few years ago I even took a side swipe at Vinnie on a BBC blog I wrote –

“I met a man called Hans today. Hans looks like Jack Kirby drew him. He has a large head, a brow overhang that juts way over his eyebrows leaving his eyes in permanent shade, a thickset square jaw, wide mouth and hands like industrial shovels. He must have been inked by Vince Coletta though as his left thumb is missing.”

Now, as well as learning to spell his name correctly, I’ve learned to appreciate him slightly more, but I’d actually say I still agree with all those opinions above to some extent, deleting-bad, Thor-good, assistants-bad, funny letter-good, so I approached the book with mixed feelings and an open mind.

It’s quite a slim volume, you’ll easily finish it in a couple of sittings, and there’s not really a massive amount of biographical detail, some interesting quotes from his family I hadn't seen before, lots of online stuff I had seen before. Art examples, and decent panel comparisons, most pages have an example panel or two, examples good and bad from across the span of his career, so giving a fair and rounded view, which I liked. Not a hatchet job that just laughed at his lazy deleting, or a love letter that ignored the negatives, it was balanced by examples of his work that showed he could be great when he had time, and gave some insights into why he often didn’t have time.

The book is split up more or less chronologically, covering stages in his career. The early chapters and the ones covering his time as art director for DC probably interested me most, nothing really new in the Kirby section, and this is a personal bias, but I would have loved to see a more detailed breakdown of what exactly happened between him and Kirby, it’s covered, but I wanted nitty gritty detail.

The titbits of information from actress and model ladyfriends are fascinating, as are the quotes from his family and insights into how his massive mortgage overshadowed his life. His family mafia connections one generation removed that he played up, and the affection with which just about everyone who worked with him has.

If you’re expecting a biography, this isn’t it, if you’re expecting a thick coffee-table book devoted to Colletta art, this isn’t it either, but neither of those things exist, so this is the best you’ll get for now, it’s a collection of anecdotes collected via phone, email, and from online forums, peppered liberally with art examples. That’s not a criticism of the research, nothing wrong with getting your source material from phones calls and emails, the title of the book isn’t misleading, it’s exactly what this is – people’s perspectives on Colletta. I’d just have liked to see more personal information on the man himself, more biographical details we don’t know, more photos from his life, more pages. In saying that though, even a hardened comic lover who has spent the last 40 years obsessing over Colletta’s inks will find something in here to enjoy, and it’s a great springboard to use as a way to open up a fresh debate with any Coletta hating/loving friends you have.

Most disappointing omission is Jim Shooter, he declined to comment on the book because he felt it would not give Colletta a fair shout, he was wrong, it does, and it left me with a renewed admiration for the man. The best bits, like the letter he wrote to Marvel and most of the Kirby panel comparisons, I'd already seen, so that probably lessened my enjoyment, still well worth reading though, I'd recommend it. An absolute must buy if you’re a Colletta fan, but also highly recommended if you’re not, maybe you’ll learn to appreciate Vinnie for what he was, the most prolific inker of all time, the man who discovered Frank Miller, a complicated man who met his deadlines even if it meant staying up all night in the poolhouse, working till he dropped, because of that he cut corners and despite that produced some work that was outstanding.

Should you buy it? You know what Kirby said –“Don’t ask.” It's available now from TwoMorrows publishing.

Comic Lettering, Logos and Titles

The very latest Infinite Timelines commission has been posted on ComicArtFans! This is Infinite Timelines: Primetime Paradox Chapter 11, just one of literally hundreds of commissions the incomparable Aidan “Re-Legion” Lacy has posted. MC Wyman pencilled and inked this one, I did logos, titles and added the lightening background.

If you need any comicbook lettering, logos, titles or digital manipulation, get in touch. Price depends on the volume and complexity of the job. I’ll have availability to take on larger projects from 31^st July 2014.

Plenty of examples of my work can be found by searching under Russell Payne or Russ Payne on the Comicartfans website.

How many Jack Kirby characters in Captain America : The Winter Soldier?

Captain America was created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby way back in the 1940s, but the movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier contains much more Kirby content than just Cap, it is absolutely chock full to the gills of Jack Kirby ideas, concepts and characters. It positively reeks of Kirby. Here’s a breakdown…..

BATROC

Early on the character who leads the pirates is a French mercenary called Batroc. In the comics he’s known as Batroc the Leaper, a French mercenary created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in the sixties, master of French kick boxing. Kirby very kindly storyboarded the sequence for the movie decades before it was filmed.

NICK FURY

Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury gets a lot of screen time in Winter Soldier. In the comics, the original Nick Fury character started as Sgt Fury in World War II, only becoming an Agent of Shield in his later years. The Samuel L. Jackson version of Fury owes more to the Marvel Ultimate Universe Nick Fury, and Jim Sterenko was responsible for moulding many of the aspects of the Shield Nick Fury character, but still, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee first created the character in the sixties, the name, the story, the eyepatch.

THE HOWLING COMMANDOS

When Steve Rogers visits the museum in the movie,  the tour guide mentions the Howling Commandos, and there’s a large backdrop showing characters from the first film that Cap helped save from the Red Skull – all these characters – “Dum Dum” Dougan, “Izzy” Cohen, “Pinky” Pinkerton and the others, all created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee.

SHARON CARTER

Remember the nurse who lived across the hall and turned out to be a Shield agent? This was Sharon Carter, Agent 13, in the comics she went on to become Steve Rogers girlfriend, among other things, she originally appeared in 1966, created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee.

ARNIM ZOLA

When Cap visits the army base he was first trained at and finds the underground SHIELD complex where Arnim Zola’s brain pattern has been downloaded onto magnetic tape and he speaks to Cap via an indistinct green face on a  monitor? The movie only hints at it, but in the comics Arnim Zola is a face on a screen that is embedded on the stomach of a character who has a CCTV camera for a head, a classic Kirby creation. Arnim Zola - created by Jack Kirby.

PEGGY CARTER

The old lady Cap visits, his love interest form the first film, Peggy Carter (in the comics she was related to Sharon, originally her sister, then her aunt, comic families are complicated),she is not surprisingly, a character created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee.

JASPER STILWELL

Remember the bald guy they rescue from the ship? He says “Shield don’t negotiate” and then later on turns out to be working for Hyrda. That’s Jasper Stilwell, another Kirby/Lee creation.

SHIELD & HYDRA

The bad guys in this movie? It’s HYDRA again, an evil organisation that infiltrates SHIELD. HYDRA – created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. SHIELD? Created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee.

BARON STRUCKER, SCARLET WITCH, QUICKSILVER

In the first end credits sequence we see a man with a monocle, almost certainly Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, another Kirby/Lee character, and the big reveal is the  twins in the prison cells, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, both Kirby characters.

THE WINTER SOLDIER

If all these aren’t enough to show that the whole movie is Kirby character driven - last of all, the character in the title of the movie – The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), who to be fair isn’t actually in the movie that much, is I hope you know by now, Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s best friend in the first movie Captain America:The First Avenger and his teenage sidekick in the comics. Bucky Barnes was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and first appeared in Captain America #1.

Joe Simon & Stan Lee played their part of course, and Steve Epting and Ed Brubaker gave us a lot of the story that is Winter Soldier, but Kirby first created all these characters, their personalities, their costumes, their stories, their abilities, so many of these in the movie are straight from Jack Kirby’s head. Without Jack Kirby Captain America:The Winter Soldier would not exist.

Captain America, Nick Fury, Bucky Barnes, Agent 13, Batroc, the Howling Commandos, HYDRA, SHIELD, Baron Strucker, Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, Arnim Zola, Peggy Carter, despite all of these, Jack Kirby’s name is hidden away in the middle of the end credits.....

“based on the comic by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby”

In a slightly smaller font than anyone else. Such a shame Marvel/Disney can’t give proper recognition to the creative powerhouse whose ideas are the foundation on which the “House of Ideas” is built.

If you want to know more about upcoming movies featuring Jack Kirby characters, look up Jack Kirby on IMDB, currently 68 movies listed, many of them (Ant-Man, Silver Surfer, Nick Fury, Fantastic Four) still on their way. The box office belongs to Kirby, makes you wonder why he isn’t given more recognition……

Did I miss any significant Kirby characters in Winter Soldier? Let me know in the comments!

Comics Will Break Your Heart

Stan Lee was interviewed again recently by that well respected highbrow journal Playboy and yet again, like so many articles over the years, he was down as the “creator” not “co-creator” of an impressive list of superheroes- The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, Spider-Man, The Hulk, The Avengers etc. etc.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Lee didn’t create these characters on his own, some would argue the lions share of creation belonged to artists like Jack Kirby, who would come up with the costumes, ideas, plots and sometimes dialogue of the comics Stan “wrote”.

The really interesting snippet though was picked up on by the Comic Alliance website where Lee says-

“There was never a time when it just said ‘by Stan Lee.’  It was always ‘by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’ or ‘by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.’  I made sure their names were always as big as mine.  As far as what they were paid, I had nothing to do with that.  They were hired as freelance artists, and they worked as freelance artists.  At some point they apparently felt they should be getting more money.  Fine, it was up to them to talk to the publisher.  It had nothing to do with me.  I would have liked to have gotten more money too.  And twice, not once, I offered a job to Jack Kirby.  I said to him, ‘Jack, why don’t you work for Marvel with me?’  I was the art director at the time.  I said, ‘You be the art director.  I’ll just be the editor and head writer, and you’ll have that security.’ He wouldn’t do it.  He didn’t want a staff job.  With him, as with Ditko, I don’t see where they were unfairly treated.  Jack was a great guy and so is Steve.  I’m sorry anybody feels there’s any acrimony.  I loved them both.”

Stan tells us “it had nothing to do with me”. He washes his hands of the matter, he was a hired hand, so were they, both battling against some faceless corporation. The little guys, trying their best to make good. Good for you Stan. Excelsior.

OK. So what Kirby got paid had “nothing to do” with Stan? Stan was in a position to offer Kirby a job. Not once, apparently, but twice. Yet his position in the company meant he had “nothing to do” with how Kirby was treated or what he got paid. Kirby built the Marvel universe from the ground up, you’d think maybe he deserved a little recognition for this, sure he got paid as a “work for hire”, but the work for hire he did was the backbone of the entire company, and he was treated like another disposable employee.

Stan is “sorry anybody feels there’s any acrimony.” There was acrimony, Kirby felt bitter at the way he was treated, his family still feel that bitterness, and they heard firsthand from their dad how he felt. Kirby continues to not get media recognition for having co-created the vast majority of superhero characters that are the stars of so many recent and upcoming Marvel/Disney films.

Lee says he loved Ditko and Kirby. Of course he did, they made him a lot of money by feeding him year upon year of ideas that he still makes a living from while the Kirby kids resort to trying to sue Marvel as the Kirby estate doesn’t see a cent of the billions of dollars Kirby characters have made over the years.

Maybe Stan believes everything he says in this article, he just doesn’t get why Kirby and Ditko felt aggrieved at the way they were treated. Maybe he’s incapable of imagining how it feels to see other people make a fortune from your creations and art, from merchandise and action figures based on your designs and ideas. Maybe he’s just Stan Lee and he imagines everyone else thinks like Stan Lee and can swallow their pride and take the money.

It’s such a shame. When I was a boy Stan Lee could do no wrong, he created the best club on earth, he used long words that all started with the same letter, he was cool. I wish it had been like it was portrayed in the FF anuual when Stan and Jack tried to crash the wedding, two pals, no animosity, watching each others backs. 

I wish he’d be cool again and make a stand for Kirby, he could speak out and say his buddies Jack and Steve don’t get enough recognition; he could make sure he isn’t credited as the “creator” of Captain America when he had nothing to do with his original creation, or the “artist” on Thor when he just filled in the speech balloons, he could refuse to appear in Marvel films until a CGI Jack stands next to him. Instead Stan Lee, one of the world’s finest self promoters, the smiling survivor, continues to do what he does best, promote Stan Lee. Jack turned down the art director job, I did all I could, it's nothing to do with me.

I don’t want to be down on Stan though, he has done so many amazing things in his life, he brought me a lot of joy as a kid, without Stan we wouldn’t have had the Marvel Universe as we know it today, I’m glad he’s alive and enjoying life, I just wish he’d try to understand why there still is acrimony and take a stand to even the scales. It’s not too late. Jack died 20 years ago, but Stan is still here, if he lost that “It had nothing to do with me” attitude he’d be able to redeem himself in the eyes of comic book history and not be the guy who spent the last years of his life promoting himself over the men whose shoulders he stood on.

Kirby said “comics will break your heart.” It’s such a shame that the greatest creative force we’ve ever seen in comics was paid in heartbreak instead of dollars, but we’re left with a legacy of characters and ideas that still burn as bright as they ever did. As Stan says “Jack was a great guy”. If Stan won’t, then make sure you let people know Jack Kirby existed, use social media (#jackkirby), use conversation, be crazy and use an actual pen, let them know he did such astounding things, that it wasn’t just Stan that created these modern myths.

It’s the last, best thing we can do now.