2010 March
Lawsuit filed in bitter family fight over Frank Frazetta artwork
"Death Dealer," by Frank Frazetta
In another twist in the growing family feud, three children of famed fantasy and comic artist Frank Frazetta have sued their brother to prevent him from selling or reproducing their father’s artwork and claiming to be his authorized representative.
In the lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Frazetta Properties — now managed by siblings Heidi Grabin, Holly Frazetta Taylor and William Frazetta — accuses Alfonso Frank Frazetta of using his Frazetta Art Gallery website to sell lithographs, books, clothing, jewelry, statues, “so-called Masters Collection” reproductions and other items in violation Frank Frazetta’s trademarks and copyrights.
Alfonso, known as Frank Frazetta Jr., is the son arrested in December after he allegedly used a backhoe to break into his father’s museum in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, to steal 90 paintings worth about $20 million. He’s charged with burglary, criminal trespass and theft.
The incident cast a spotlight on a family fight that reportedly began in July 2009 after the death of Frank Sr.’s wife Eleanor “Ellie” Frazetta, who had long run her husband’s business.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for trademark and copyright infringement, counterfeiting, breach of contract, unjust enrichment and false designation of origin.
In addition to the copyright claims, Frazetta Properties asserts that Frank Jr. is using the trademarked “stylized Frazetta signature” without authorization. It’s noted that while the website offers a service allowing customers to have items signed by the 81-year-old Frazetta for $250, “Mr. Frazetta has not signed any such items for customers since at least July of 2009.”
Frank Jr. also is accused of making unauthorized commercial use of the Death Dealer, and misrepresenting himself as the “authorized representative” of Frank Sr. when a life-size statue of the character was commissioned and erected in September 2009 at Ft. Hood, Texas.
The lawsuit also disputes the authenticity of an agreement that Frank Jr. allegedly made in 2000 with his father and mother that supposedly granted him the authority to represent Frazetta Properties.
But even if the agreement were valid, the plaintiffs allege, it was breached because Frank Sr. hasn’t been paid royalties on any of the sales since July 2009. Further, a Jan. 28, 2010, cease-and-desist letter notified Frank Jr. that he isn’t authorized to sell or license Frank Frazetta original art, prints or related merchandise.
- March 16, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
A closer look at Oni’s Super Pro K.O.!
Super Pro K.O.!
This past weekend at the Emerald City Comicon, Oni Press announced a new graphic novel series that’ll kick off in July called Super Pro K.O.!. Created by Lunar Boy‘s Jarrett Williams, they described it as “Shonen Jump meets high-impact, old school wrastlin’.”
I managed to get my hands on some of the art that Oni shared during their panel, so after the jump you’ll find several pages from the book.
- March 16, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | ‘Sidekicks & Henchmen’ exhibit
Redd Walitzki's Spiral
The Flatcolor Gallery in Seattle is currently running an exhibit called “Sidekicks & Henchmen” that’s “focused on comic book characters outside of the Hollywood movie heroes and villains. Local and national artists are invited to show work inspired by lesser-known comic book characters sidekicks, henchmen, heroes and villains.”
The exhibit features a variety of cartoon and comic book characters, from Batmite and Spiral to the Brown Hornet and Spectreman. Go check out the pieces on their website.
- March 16, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Steve Bissette takes you back to the bad old days
To those who think the recent Christopher Handley case is an anomaly or a recent phenomenon, allow me to direct you to Steve Bissette’s Web site, where he is in the midst of sharing a wealth of archived materials (“hundreds of documents” he says) from the mid-1980s where the growth of more mature mainstream fare like Dark Knight Returns led to some rather disquieting attempts at censorship like when Friendly Frank’s comic store got busted for carrying obscene comics and, and, in turn DC attempted to create a ratings system for the books they carried.
By the mid-1980s, the battle over increasingly adult and sales-worthy content in the wake of the mega-success of The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, among other successes both blockbuster and modest, was creating real problems for some retailers. While it was obvious to the indoctrinated that Frank Miller’s Batman was light years from the comfy all-ages Bob Kane/Bill Finger/Dick Sprang era of Batman, it wasn’t so obvious to the American public.
In the wake of Frank’s Daredevil, Alan and John and Rick and my Saga of the Swamp Thing, Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg, among other various ‘breaking out’ titles, it was becoming a problem.
But it was the major blockbuster success, sales and press attention The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen rightfully scored that really set off alarm bells. There had been skirmishes of sorts over now long-forgotten singular eruptions — the orgy page in a single chapter of Wendy and Richard Pini’s Elfquest, Warren’s notorious 1984/1994, Eclipse Comics‘ Saber ‘birth’ issue, various Love & Rockets and Fantagraphics issues, Frank Thorne’s increasingly adventurous fusions of female barbarian fantasy and sex, the Miracleman ‘birth’ issue (penciled by Rick Veitch), etc. — and yet to come were Fantagraphics’ Eros line, and much, much more.
Go check the whole thing out, it’s a great walk down history lane. For easy linking purposes, here’s part one, two, three and four. (link via Coleen Doran, who does a little bit of reminiscing herself.)
- March 16, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Chris Mautner
How to write comics …
the title page to an Antony Johnston script
… the Antony Johnston way! After all those aspiring-writer Don’ts from Sara Ryan, Ron Randall and Dylan Meconis we linked to yesterday, I figured a few Dos would be much appreciated. Fortunately, Wasteland and Daredevil writer Antony Johnston has posted a lengthy essay in which he walks us through his writing process, from his first scribbled notes through outlines and pitches to his final polished script.
Johnston’s quick to point out that the best way to write is to find out what works for you and then do that, rather than slavishly aping what someone else does. “But you have to start somewhere,” he accurately notes, and getting a good look at the soup-to-nuts process of a professional writer like Johnston is as good a place as any.
(via Andy Diggle)
- March 16, 2010 @ 08:54 AM by Sean T. Collins
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1
Publishing | Yen Press’ graphic-novel adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight debuts today in bookstores. With its staggering 350,000-copy first printing, the $19.99 hardcover likely will be the bestselling English-language comic this year (if not for some time afterward). But how will “possessive” Twilight fans — the same ones who have helped the YA series sell 53 million copies worldwide — react to artist Young Kim’s rendition of the characters after seeing them brought to life on the big screen? [USA Today]
Comics | Just weeks after Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27 were bought at record prices of $1 million and $1.07 million, respectively, a near-mint copy of Flash Comics #1 has sold for $450,000. The 1940 comic features the first appearance of The Flash and Hawkman. [ArtsBeat]
Conventions | It looks as if Thursday memberships for Comic-Con International could sell out by the end of the day. That will leave only Sunday passes. [Comic-Con International]
- March 16, 2010 @ 08:38 AM by Kevin Melrose
Talking Comics with Tim: Jimmy Palmiotti
Power Girl 12
Much of this Jimmy Palmiotti email interview happened right before Friday’s announcement that Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Amanda Conner are saying goodbye to Power Girl once they finish issue 12. I could have reworked many of the Power Girl questions, but I chose to keep the remainder of Power Girl questions intact, as there’s still a few issues of the run (the focus of the discussion) and Palmiotti (as he always does) gave some great answers. Any interview with Palmiotti has to include his and Gray’s continuing work on Jonah Hex, of course. Finally, Palmiotti often has some creator-owned work set to release, and this time around it’s his and Gray’s collaboration with artist Giancarlo Caracuzzo on Random Acts of Violence, a 72-page graphic novella (published by Image and set to be released on April 28, 2010). I always enjoy the chance to interview Jimmy, and this go around proved no different.
Tim O’Shea: Can you divulge some more details about Power Girl 12 — and from a writer’s standpoint, how enjoyable/bittersweet is it to get to this 12th (and final one for the team) issue, where you get to (as the solicits put it) “All the pieces of the puzzle come together…”? As a creative team did you accomplish a great deal of what you had wanted to do in the 12 issues?
Jimmy Palmiotti: We all knew that issue 12 was going to be Amanda’s last issue on the book for a while but we didn’t know just how much her work and Power Girl became one for us. As we got closer to the deadline to find another artist, Justin and I started really thinking about how it would be next to impossible to find a replacement and even if we did, how it would be difficult to write a book like this for someone else…so we just figured it was time to move on, be a real team and all of us leave the book for the next crew to take on. That said, we know who the new writer is, are excited about who it is and have fed them the scripts and even asked if there was anything we could do with the book to leave it in a place where they need it and so on. Fans of the title will be happy that the book does not skip a beat and will be pretty excited with what the title has in store. Leaving the book is a hard thing to do, especially since we gave it our heart and soul and Amanda , Paul and John put so much into each and every page … but at the same time we look back at the 12 issues and are really proud of the work we have done and how we built on to Power Girl’s legacy.
Let’s just say the last 3 issues are going to be remembered as the best in the run and we couldn’t be happier with all the support we have been given by our editors Brian and Mike and the rest of the D.C. crew. it was a dream gig on all levels. I don’t think I ever laughed as hard or had more fun on any title.
- March 15, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by Tim O'Shea
Invincible says, ‘I’m a member of the Guardians of the Globe’
Guardians of the Globe teaser
Image Comics sent over a familiar-looking teaser image today. Although they offered no explanation beyond what’s in the above image, it appears that this is the start of a teaser campaign for either Invincible or a brand-new team book spinning out of its pages featuring the Guardians of the Globe. I kinda hope it’s the latter. Hopefully tomorrow’s image will offer a few more clues.
- March 15, 2010 @ 03:30 PM by JK Parkin
How NOT to write comics
Sara Ryan has advice for you
Attention, aspiring comics writers and weary comics artists: Sara Ryan and friends are about to make your lives much easier. On her blog, Ryan and a few of her comics-making chums are offering advice for writers on what not to do when writing comics scripts for others to draw.
Ryan — who’s currently wrapping up the script for her upcoming DC/Vertigo graphic novel Bad Houses — kicked things off by reminding us that it’s awfully hard to have a character do more than one thing per panel, even though it comes naturally to us to rattle off several actions in the course of a sentence.
Next up is Supergirl artist Ron Randall, who among other things notes that telling an artist to “impress me” with a particularly memorable scene or sequence is a roundabout way of insinuating that he or she otherwise isn’t all that impressive. And finally (for now), Family Man‘s Dylan Meconis offers seven tips, warning against everything from the overuse of film jargon to telling rather than showing to the dreaded words “Have fun with this!”
Given Ryan’s links to the seemingly ever-growing Periscope Studio, this could end up being quite a long-running recurring feature, so check back often!
(Via Hope Larson)
- March 15, 2010 @ 03:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Valentino, Champagne cover Hannigan’s DC Sampler #1
DC Sampler cover + Valentino's homage
So earlier today I posted about the Hero Initiative’s benefit party for Ed Hannigan at WonderCon, and the auctions they’re holding to raise money for the ailing artist.
One of the pieces they’re auctioning off is a “homage” piece that Jim Valentino and Keith Champagne drew based on Hannigan’s cover to a promo book that DC put out in 1983, called DC Sampler #1. I believe this was a free item — or at least was really, really cheap — that you could get from your local comic shop. It previewed the company’s publishing plans for the coming year, with pages dedicated to Amethyst, Omega Men, Arion, Arak, Firestorm and several other DC titles at the time.
The new version, however, isn’t a one-for-one homage … the duo took the same basic layout and replaced the DC characters with ones from Marvel, as you can see in the above image. The characters in the new piece are even in the same poses as their DC counterparts (with the exception of Spider-Man, who Valentino and Champagne added to the big tower-like structure in the middle). It looks like they had a lot of fun with it.
- March 15, 2010 @ 02:30 PM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Harvey Kurtzman’s Sesame Street cartoons
Drawing for Kurtzman's 'Boat' cartoon
I had no idea Mad founder Harvey Kurtzman ever did any work for Sesame Street, but lo and behold animator Michael Sporn has the images to prove it. (via Cartoon Brew, which also has a YouTube video of the finished cartoon)
- March 15, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Your video of the day: A new Adele Blanc-Sec trailer
Luc Besson’s latest movie, based on the series of graphic novels by French artist Jacques Tardi, seems to be gearing up for its big release. Man, those actors looked like they stepped right out of one of Tardi’s pages don’t they? Props to the makeup crew. (via)
- March 15, 2010 @ 01:30 PM by Chris Mautner
Strangeways: The Thirsty – page 123
Long trip back from Seattle plus time change plus bad news = grouchy author. Do not poke grouchy author. Just read pages instead.
Art by Gervasio and Jok. Written by Matt Maxwell
Back Wednesday. Hopefully less grouchy, but wouldn’t bet on it.
- March 15, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Matt Maxwell
Kirby heirs sue Marvel and Disney for stake in characters, profits [Updated]
The Avengers #4
The children of legendary artist Jack Kirby have sued Marvel and Disney to terminate copyrights to, and receive a share of profits from, characters created or co-created by their father.
The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, follows the 45 copyright-termination notices sent in September to Marvel, new owner Disney, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and others who have made films and other forms of entertainment based on characters that Kirby co-created. Marvel responded in early January with a lawsuit asserting that Kirby’s work for the company was “for hire,” and asked that a judge invalidate the claims of the heirs.
In the Kirby lawsuit, attorney Marc Toberoff lays out the characters and comic books at the heart of the family’s claims: properties created or co-created by Jack Kirby between 1958 and 1963, including the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man, Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, The Avengers, Nick Fury and Ant-Man. (The extent of Kirby’s involvement in the creation of Spider-Man is the subject of much debate.)
Under U.S. copyright law, authors or their heirs and estates may file to regain copyrights, or partial copyrights, at a certain period of time after the original transfer of rights. However, if the property is determined to be “work made for hire,” the copyright would belong to the company that commissioned it.
Marvel argues that the company’s editors determined which titles Kirby and other creators worked on, “and always retained full editorial control.”
However, the family’s lawsuit asserts that Jack Kirby wasn’t an employee but rather a free-lancer who “authored or co-authored” numerous stories that Marvel and its predecessors then purchased and published. That echoes the earlier response to Marvel’s January lawsuit. The plaintiffs claim it wasn’t until May 1972 that Kirby assigned his copyrights to the properties to Magazine Management Co., then the parent company of Marvel Comics, for “additional compensation.”
Lisa Kirby, serving as trustee for the Rosalind Kirby Trust, also alleges that Marvel didn’t return all of Jack Kirby’s original artwork in its possession — a bitter dispute that goes back decades — despite its claims to the contrary. The company’s alleged efforts to conceal the art are characterized as “willful, wanton, malicious, and oppressive, and justify the awarding of exemplary and punitive damages.”
The plaintiffs also seek damages under the Lanham Act, claiming that Kirby wasn’t properly identified as co-creator of the original works in the advertising and promotion of the movies The Incredible Hulk and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (the latter presumably because of the X-Men, Professor X, Scott Summers and the Blob, not Wolverine). The lawsuit contends the omissions amount to “false or misleading descriptions or representations of fact in interstate commerce,” prohibited by the Lanham Act, and cause injury to the interests of the Kirby estate. The plaintiffs assert they’re entitled to “up to three times the damages they sustained and will sustain” because of the omissions, but don’t give an actual figure.
The Kirby lawsuit doesn’t state how much money the family believes it’s owed in total but, as The Hollywood Reporter‘s Eriq Gardner notes, “any termination of copyrights could be worth tens of millions of dollars, if not more.”
Developing …
- March 15, 2010 @ 12:43 PM by Kevin Melrose
Bendis comments on end of Spider-Woman
At this weekend’s Emerald City Comicon, Brian Michael Bendis said that this week’s Spider-Woman #7 would be the last issue of the series. Over on his message board forum, he shares a few more details on why the book is ending:
Spider-Woman #7
alex did the work of 24 issues just to make this story. it was a lot of concentrated spider-woman for one man. i got to come and go to other projects. this was all he was doing, day in and day out. when we got to 7, he needed a break. i didn’t want to go on with it without him.
meanwhile, we’ve been deving our new icon book for two years. its something different. something bold. it’s time to do that. if you love our work, you’ll love it. it will be announced in chicago.
this was not a matter of sales or interest. we were number one on itunes for weeks.
thank you for digging her as much as i . she will be in every issue of avengers. and when the dust clears marvel has told us to consider returning to it and we might.
After an Origin limited series in 2005, Spider-Woman returned to her own ongoing series last fall, along with a “motion comic” on iTunes. Her previous ongoing last 50 issues before being canceled in 1983.
- March 15, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by JK Parkin