I'm all for musicians getting the rights back to their music. Their music was the same when the musician originated the song as it is after a record label owned it for decades. The intellectual property that is Superman is a completely different story altogether, however. It is difficult to find any similarity between the Superman today, and the one of the late 30s and 40s. For instance, (and thanks to the TV shows like Smallville, and many popular animated series, the following require very little explanation):
Lana Lang, Pete Ross, Krypto, Chloe Sullivan are all post Siegel and Shuster. All the storyline impacting team ups, like Batman/Superman (World's Finest), The legion of Superheroes, the frakkin' Justice League! And finally, ALL the villains. ALL of them, not just Lex Luther, save a very tiny few that are hardly worth mentioning are not and never have been the property of the Siegel or Shuster estate. Superman himself might not have changed that much but almost every storyline specific event, character, and association that defines the look and feel of the character known as Superman did not originate with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
Finally, if Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were alive today, I would have a lot more sympathy. The original creators would at least be justified in furthering the Superman property in a direction they may have originally intended, but their heirs? Creativity and love for one's own accomplishments isn't passed down to heirs like nuemonic memory. The heirs didn't spend countless hours, or years sculpting a character through all the good and bad times, (The late 80's were very dark for Superman). And the heirs definately didn't win the The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award!
Screw the heirs.
Thank you,
Ron Morris
Re: Well of course!
Ok, but what if instead of a house, it's a hollowed out elephant's pancreas?
Superman heirs are up in the night.
I'm all for musicians getting the rights back to their music. Their music was the same when the musician originated the song as it is after a record label owned it for decades. The intellectual property that is Superman is a completely different story altogether, however. It is difficult to find any similarity between the Superman today, and the one of the late 30s and 40s. For instance, (and thanks to the TV shows like Smallville, and many popular animated series, the following require very little explanation):
Lana Lang, Pete Ross, Krypto, Chloe Sullivan are all post Siegel and Shuster. All the storyline impacting team ups, like Batman/Superman (World's Finest), The legion of Superheroes, the frakkin' Justice League! And finally, ALL the villains. ALL of them, not just Lex Luther, save a very tiny few that are hardly worth mentioning are not and never have been the property of the Siegel or Shuster estate. Superman himself might not have changed that much but almost every storyline specific event, character, and association that defines the look and feel of the character known as Superman did not originate with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
Finally, if Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were alive today, I would have a lot more sympathy. The original creators would at least be justified in furthering the Superman property in a direction they may have originally intended, but their heirs? Creativity and love for one's own accomplishments isn't passed down to heirs like nuemonic memory. The heirs didn't spend countless hours, or years sculpting a character through all the good and bad times, (The late 80's were very dark for Superman). And the heirs definately didn't win the The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award!
Screw the heirs.
Thank you,
Ron Morris
Sacred Ink Blot Tests?!
Ok.. EVERYONE with a website should upload the original ink blot tests. AHHAHhahahah I'm going to put it them on my Facebook too. Everyone join in!