General Category > Comic Related Discussion
Jack Kirby's copyrights and Steve Ditko's departure from Marvel Comics
JVJ (RIP):
Interesting cultural slant, John,
Last fall I was speaking with Jean-Claude Mazieres, a French comic book artist of nearly 50 years (he and Jean Giraud with instrumental in the design of The Fifth Element). He told me that an important Belgian original art collector had recently sold his entire collection at auction. Some of the art was work done by Jean-Claude back in the 1970s. The French law requires that a small percentage (he didn't say how much) of the realized sale price is given to the artist, so he had just received a windfall because his work is highly collectible.
I don't know if the monies would be awarded to his estate if he had died, but I LOVE the notion that artists in this culture are presumed to have a vested interest in their work and continue to benefit from the value that accrues from a long and successful career.
Vive la France,
Peace, Jim (|:{>
Yoc:
Nice calm and informative posts josemas.
Thanks!
Fascinating Jim. Thanks for sharing that as well.
:)
John C:
I actually have a bone to pick with a lot of copyright law that's crept onto this side of the Atlantic, Jim (like basing the copyright term of ephemera on the lifespan of utter unknowns) and this just adds to the pile. I mean, it sounds nice on the surface, but it's basically saying that artists get money long after they've put in the work (and get paid again and again, potentially), while the guy who fixes potholes or invents a new way to fuel cars gets his salary, maybe a bonus, and a pat on the head, to be forgotten.
If the artist gets a cut of every painting resale, why not the company who produced the paints? Why not the oil company (or walnut/linseed farmer, I guess) that provided the medium for the oil? We all know why: Because everything would be too expensive if we priced it that way.
But somehow, we can idolize an artist and demand such payments without every thinking of demanding it for ourselves, and certainly turning a blind eye to everyone who enabled the art.
I think it's well past time I walk away from this topic. It seems I'm more angering people (not you, Jim) than engaging in conversation, and that's a waste of everybody's time.
Drusilla lives!:
I'll just add one last thing.
I was considering this the other day... when Kirby and Ditko joined up with Atlas in those waning days of the 1950s, Atlas was indeed on the rocks. Basically, it was a completely renewed company by the time Kirby, Ditko and Lee hit their stride with the new superhero titles. And IMO if one is to draw a correct analogy with the workings of the computer software industry, the conditions of Atlas-Marvel at that time was more akin to a modern day software startup. If Atlas was a software company today and it brought in two high profile creative talents like Kirby and Ditko, I'm sure they would be offered not only a salary, but stock options as well. Why? Well, it's obvious. The stock options work as a method of recapturing "a cut" of future profits for these creative efforts.
Did Kirby get such a deal? No, not at all. So by this loose modern analogy I'd say yes, Kirby's family deserves to be compensated for loss of income/profits.
Of course I'm not even sure stock options as a form of compensation for key people was even a concept back then, and besides Atlas was privately held at the time. But Kirby could have at least been offered a small percentage of the comic book business... in other words, he could have been made a silent partner in the company... which IMO would have amounted to about the same thing as a stock options offering. But neither he nor Ditko (or Lee for that matter, as far as I know) were... yet they did pretty much rebuild Goodman's comic book business for him (IMO).
KevinP:
--- Quote from: John C on March 22, 2011, 06:05:56 AM ---But...why isn't his "equitable reward" the paycheck he received?
If, as the article says, they were promised residuals, if the work took off, then they deserved them.
--- End quote ---
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version