The only person who should make any money off of characters that they created are the creators themselves. Why would their kids and/or grandchildren be paid anything for that?? I've never understood that line of thought.

When you get right down to it, all the creators were adults who signed contracts and understood what they were doing. In the case of Superman, the character was sold outright to the company. Case closed.

It seems to me that its usually the estates of the creators who keep demanding money from the companies that they feel they are entitled to. It comes across as, "My grandfather created (insert character name) and I want to be paid money for it!" That's essentially a cash grab.

I'm surprised to see you take this stance, considering that you're a proponent of royalties from original artwork even when a royalty agreement wasn't arranged before the original piece was sold.

"If the work continues to generate income, why shouldn't the original creator of the piece be entitled to a portion of that income? How is this any different from an actor receiving royalties from a movie? No further work is done, yet each time the movie makes money, the actor gets a piece of it. Peggy Lee famously sued Disney (and WON!!) for additional royalties based on "new media" that did not exist when she did the original work.*

Once a piece of artwork is sold, it becomes a commodity, just like a movie. And just like a movie, it can continue to generate income. Dave Cockrum died in near poverty, while pages and covers from his X-MEN run continued to rise to astronomical prices. You really, really, really, really feel Dave was not deserving of even a tiny portion of that? Not even scraps from the table?"

THREAD: Original art pricing, page 2

"You don't think artists should get a piece of subsequent sales. We're all clear on that. Let 'em starve in the gutter. Fuck 'em. They got their pittance up front and that's all they deserve.

Now go away."

THREAD: Original art pricing, page 3

Why do you feel this situation is different?

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I'm surprised to see you take this stance, considering that you're a proponent of royalties from original artwork even when a royalty agreement wasn't arranged before the original piece was sold.

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No, I am not.

I have said on many occasions that I think resale of artwork should generate income for the creator of the artwork. I have not once, in any of the instances where this has come up, said this should be instituted RETROACTIVELY.

If you're going to hang on my every word, you might want to pay attention to what the words SAY.

One of the things I sometimes find troubling is that the Constitution of the United States protects individuals from retroactive laws, but corporations have no such protection.

Thus, if tomorrow it becomes illegal to wear a red sweater, you cannot be arrested for wearing a red sweater last week.

But if a corporation manufactures red sweaters, and tomorrow a law is passed requiring royalties be payed to the people who run the knitting machines, workers who ran the machines decades ago can make claims.

I first became aware of this when a former neighbor, then a corporate VP, found himself battling the government over newly passed legislation that affected things his corporation had done decades before, which were completely legal when they were done!*

Track that if you can! A company had done normal business procedures which were completely legal (and, contextually, not even "immoral"), but decades later the government had decided to make those things illegal, and the company was being called to task for what they had done!

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* To complicate matters, it wasn't even his corporation that had done those things back when they were legal. It was a company his corporation had bought. The extra insanity was that these changed laws, thru retroactive enforcement, were forcing the company my friend worked for to spend millions of dollars and, as a result, having to shut down the factories they had bought, even tho they were no longer doing the things now deemed illegal, thus devastating the local economy!

Whenever we hear about "creator's rights" -- a concept I fully support -- we seem almost never to hear about what I have dubbed "creator's wrongs". I coined this term back when Steve Gerber was suing Marvel for the rights to Howard the Duck. If he won, I asked, would he turn back some of the money he was paid to cover any losses Marvel might have incurred from publishing OMEGA THE UNKNOWN?

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I was amused, reading the recent SHOWCASE edition of TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED, to find a Jack Kirby illustrated story in which some Native Americans find Thor's hammer lying in the desert. Altho Thor himself, when he turns up, has almost nothing on common with the Marvel version, the hammer is identical.

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Then, once again, WHY DIDN'T HE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT? Why was Mainline run the same as every other company?

Sure, if Kirby had organized Mainline along more "modern" lines, he would have been a voice crying in the wilderness, but at least years later he would have been able to point to that and say "I tried!" instead of "Why should these rules apply to ME?"

Dikto had far more to do with putting Marvel on the map, yet he has remained silent, EXCEPT WHEN KIRBY HAS TRIED TO STEAL HIS CREDIT. Ditko may be angry, he may be bitter, he may spend his every waking hour cursing a cruel Fate -- but he keeps it to himself. He made the same deal, and he honors it.

That is a position I can respect.