Commentary

Last year a federal court in New York denied the Kirby heirs' attempt to claim the copyright in Spider-Man and other Marvel properties. Why, then, is their lawyer betting the future of the Siegel lawsuit on the same losing arguments?

DC's latest filing in the Siegel case made headlines because of the company's request for a trial. But was that really a surprise? In today's post, we'll look at what the filing reveals about DC's not-so-secret war -- and how the final fate of Superman may be determined by Facebook and the Winklevoss twins.

We've mentioned a few times here a lawsuit for copyright infringement by DC against an outfit called Gotham Garage, which sells replica Batmobiles—based on the '60s Batman TV show in particular—as well as other vehicles based on famed fantasy cars, like the Mach Five. If you were thinking of buying one, better hurry, because a judge has ruled that the Batmobile is subject to copyright.

The past year has seen an unusually large number of Sherlock Holmes adaptations, both in comics and on the screen, but not all Holmeses are created equal. Last night, British viewers got to see the last episode of Season 2 of the BBC's wildly popular starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows starring Robert Downey Junior and Jude Law is still doing well in theaters a month after it opened. So if you're in a Holmesian mood and wondering what to read next, here's run down on the Holmes adaptations which have come out or had new installments in the past year. Varying from inspiredly odd to unreadably awful, don't go to the comic store without reading this first!

ICV2 has their December 2011 Diamond sales estimates up and the downward correction would appear to be continuing. The big debating point here would be DC returnability. IIRC, Diamond's been adjusting the numbers to allow for returns (10%?), but relatively few people believe that retailers are returning that much, when taken across the industry. So anything returnable is probably a little under-reported.

Right. My turn for the annual forward looking column. 2011 saw DC bet the house (and possibly the entire Direct Market) on a massive relaunch -- and win. It also saw the emergence of digital downloads as a multi-platform trend that seems to be gaining momentum. What should we be looking at in 2012?

I look back and recall the interesting events of 2011. What's my choice for the biggest event of 2011? Read and find out!

The increasingly corporate nature of comics has been a continuing topic for the last couple years. Marvel sold to Disney. Warner pulling DC in a bit closer. Trying to maintain quarterly sales figures in a hit-based medium (also known as Events and/or line extension). Forbes has a piece called "The Dumbest Idea In The World: Maximizing Shareholder Value." It's partially a review and partially a response to the book "Fixing the Game:Bubbles, Crashes, and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL." This piece (and the book) contrasts the old Peter Drucker maxim "the only valid purpose of a firm is to create a customer" the current credo of "the singular goal of a company should be to maximize the return to shareholders."

Matthias Wivel is one of a trio of reviewers -- Domingos Isabelinho and Ng Suat Tong are the other two -- known for applying the most stringent possible personal standards to comics in their criticism. Thus, seeing Wivel come to the defense of HABIBI at The Hooded Utilitarian is a bit of a surprise -- but he makes a plausible point. Running down a host of critical beatdowns administered on that site over stereotypes and gender issues, he says that "parts of the comics intelligentsia seem to be developing an unhealthy obsession with ideological readings of comics."

The most revealing development in the Siegel case since I last wrote for The Beat involves a check. Not the check issued to Siegel and Shuster in exchange for the Superman copyright, but one that DC has apparently* not written--payment to the Siegel family for Grant Morrison’s relaunch of Action #1.

In a better world, I would not have learned of Joe Simon's 98th birthday today via Facebook at 8 PM.

My last post explored how continuities between the cover image of Action Comics #1 and subsequent material could give DC a substantial part of the copyright in the original Superman.  One question left unaddressed, however, was the issue of Clark Kent, not to mention other key elements of Superman’s character and mythos appearing in that historic first issue. In this post, let’s take a quick look at that question and the role it could play in bringing this case to an end.