Briefly: Marvel Comics is finally giving legendary comics creator Jack Kirby credit for helping create characters like the Fantastic Four, the Hulk and the X-Men. This week’s new comics include a line mentioning Kirby, which comes after a recent legal settlement ended years of estrangement between Marvel and the artist’s heirs.
Marvel Comics Is Finally Giving Jack Kirby Credit
Comments
6 responses to “Marvel Comics Is Finally Giving Jack Kirby Credit”
Kirby was a (new) God.
I’m not sure what happened. I mean I’m sure that there are older comics which acknowledge him… Jack “The King” Kirby was thrown around a lot, and I guess at some point in the past with legal issues, the company changing hands, and when money came into play, he was distanced from the company? I would have thought that the stance on intellectual property is kind of simple though… if you create it while under the employ of a company, for that company, it’s the company’s? Unless there’s some contract stating otherwise? Like if you’re working for Apple and you help make the new iPhone, it’s all theirs and not yours… you get a paycheck. Don’t like it? Make it on your own time. Of course the laws would probably have been different decades ago but yeah. I still only vaguely know Jack Kirby’s art… mostly the iconic zany science stuff with weird pipes going everywhere.
i think you’re talking about ownership, they were only looking for credit for the creation of those characters. it would be the same if apple refused to acknowledge jonathan ives for designing the iphone.
Yes I was. But there’s a difference between ownership/rights and simply acknowledging creation credit, and from what I suspected and now semi-confirmed; the heirs(a person legally entitled to the property or rank of another on that person’s death) were after the rights. The credit thing was just put on hold while the rights issue was sorted out.
http://deadline.com/2014/05/marvel-jack-kirby-rights-lawsuit-supreme-court-decision-near-724520/
I guess the difference is that the heirs actually settled out of court… so they presumably did get significant monetary value from challenging Marvel. Doesn’t hurt to try!
Good news.
Sadly, Bill Finger still remains probably the most ripped of creator in comics history. http://www.comicvine.com/bill-finger/4040-43591/
Bob Kane was apparently a massive tool.
You basically wouldn’t have any Arkham games (or they’d be unrecognisable) if not for all the aspects of the Bat-universe he created or helped to create e.g. Batcave, Batmobile, Bat-everything, Gotham, most of the major villains, Robin.