Will Eisner
Will Eisner’s courtroom drama
Superman vs. Wonderman: Suspicious similarities
If you have a bit of time today, get comfortable and settle in with the transcripts of testimony by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger and Victor Fox in a 1939 court case in which Mr. Fox was accused of copying DC’s new and quite popular character Superman.
Ken Quattro, a.k.a. The Comics Detective, recently got a transcript of the case, and he sets up the story for us: In 1939, shortly after the spectacular success of DC’s Superman, Fox hired Eisner and his partner Jerry Iger to produce a knockoff. DC noticed, and they sued. In Eisner’s account of the story, Iger encouraged him to say he had created the story himself, but rather than perjure himself he told the truth, that Fox had commissioned it.
The transcripts, which make fascinating reading in their own right, don’t bear this version out. Under questioning, Eisner states quite clearly that he had created the tights-clad character himself in January 1938, before Superman appeared in any DC comic, and that Wonderman was actually inspired by another tights-clad character, The Phantom. (The judge gets pretty testy about this whole line of defense, insisting that when the character was created is not relevant; the finished product is what’s important.) As Quattro says, “Contrary to the image of the idealistic young artist risking his financial well-being on principle, it appears he succumbed to the urgings of his partner and their client.”
(Quattro notes something else that isn’t in the transcripts: As an editor, Eisner had reviewed and rejected the proposal for Superman, so he had actually seen it before it was published.)
The testimony provides some interesting sidelights on the way comics are made, and the judge is all over things—at one point, he criticizes Eisner for using pen names.
Wonderman is now in the public domain, and a helpful commenter to the first post points to a site where it can be downloaded.
Via The Beat, where Danny Fingeroth is a bit skeptical in comments.
- July 5, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
"Bayou," from Zuda
Publishing | David Harper gathers reactions from a handful of Zuda creators to the closing of the website and the continuation of select titles through comiXology and the PlayStation Network. Chris Bolton, Sean Kleefeld, Crash Landen and Rich Lovatt have commentary. “From my vantage point,” Kleefeld writes, “the split between DC and Zuda (emotionally and philosophically) was about the same as can be seen between newspaper cartoonists and webcomic creators. There were these old school print guys who, for the life of them, could not wrap their head around free digital comic distribution.” [Zuda Comics]
Publishing | At Anime Expo in Los Angeles, Digital Manga Publishing announced it has acquired 10 new licenses. In addition, Wedding Peach artist Nao Yazawa will create a new series specifically for DMP’s eManga website. [Anime News Network]
- July 2, 2010 @ 08:55 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics Cavalcade: More horror, more Christmas
Motorway from Roswell by Frank Santoro and Bill Boichel
- December 23, 2009 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up
Hate Annual
• Fantagraphics reveals that Peter Bagge has a new Hate Annual lined up to come out next year and shares the cover image. I thought Bagge had completely given up on these, so this is very good news indeed. More Buddy Bradley! Whoo!
• While we’re talking about Fanta, it’s worth noting that Joseph Lambert of Turtle, Keep It Steady fame will be joining the Mome family. In related news, Derek van Gleason posts some teaser images of his ongoing story in that anthology.
• Alan David Doane has published an e-book of his interviews with various cartoonists and comics industry folk, including Charles Burns, Chester Brown, Seth, Dave Sim, Howard Chaykin, Mark Millar and more. You can download a copy of the book here.
• Cinebook, which translates and publishes a number of French comics for the U.S., such as Lucky Luke, has acquired the rights to the XIII series and will start releasing volumes in May of next year, with a book coming out every two months.
• Jeffrey Brown is working on a sequel to his Cat Getting Out of a Bag book. This one will be tentatively called Cat Walks.The first book was also apparently popular enough to warrant a series of tie-in postcards and journals.
• Secret Asian Man cartoonist Tak Toyoshima is moving his strip from a daily to a weekly strip, which was its original incarnation.
• Via Spurgeon: Paul E. Fitzgerald has a book out exploring Will Eisner’s time on PS Magazine.
- September 3, 2009 @ 10:15 AM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | Thierry Martin’s Spirit
Thierry Martin's Spirit
Check out this great cover Thierry Martin did for a French Spirit magazine that’s coming out in 2010. (via the Ephemerist. Yes, again)
- August 24, 2009 @ 09:41 AM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | Mark Waid on the perfect cover
The Spirit #29
Comics writer and BOOM! Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid tells us why Paul Rivoche’s cover for The Spirit #29 is “hands down, the best cover I’ve seen on a comic for a while, maybe all year.” It’s an interesting post about what makes a cover work, from the storytelling elements to the color choices.
- June 15, 2009 @ 09:40 AM by JK Parkin
Talking Comics with Tim: Nate Powell
Swallow Me Whole
Nate Powell‘s Swallow Me Whole is a graphic novel that demands and warrants repeated readings. Released by Top Shelf last year, the publisher describes it as “a love story carried by rolling fog, terminal illness, hallucination, apophenia, insect armies, secrets held, unshakeable faith, and the search for a master pattern to make sense of one’s unraveling.” My thanks to Powell for this email interview and his level of candor.
Tim O’Shea: What motivated you to start self-publishing mini-comics at the age of 14?
Nate Powell: Well, I’d been drawing comics with a few friends for a couple of years already. We had many issues of a comic series mapped out, and a friend’s uncle suggested that we finish up each issue and self-publish it. We didn’t really know what that entailed, but soon discovered a few neglected copy machines around town and in my dad’s office. We made 100 copies of the first comic, and they all sold in about two months; we’d never anticipated recovering our expenses, or anyone actually BUYING the books, to be honest. We just wanted to have a comic too, and found the most accessible way to make them. At this time I was already into the punk subculture and had been exposed to people who made zines and released records in much the same manner, but it was not until a few years later when I started writing zines and putting out records that I saw the inherent connections between these two realms of DIY entrepreneurship.
- June 8, 2009 @ 12:00 PM by Tim O'Shea
Talking Comics with Tim: Greg Sadowski
Supermen!
Editor Greg Sadowski‘s new Fantagraphics book, Supermen! The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941, is a spectacular snapshot of a historical period long before comic book company events, crossovers and alternate covers or universes. As detailed by the publisher: “The enduring cultural phenomenon of comic book heroes was invented in the late 1930s by a talented and hungry group of artists and writers barely out of their teens, flying by the seat of their pants to create something new, exciting, and above all profitable. The iconography and mythology they created flourishes to this day in comic books, video, movies, fine art, advertising, and practically all other media. Supermen! collects the best and the brightest of this first generation, including Jack Cole, Will Eisner, Bill Everett, Lou Fine, Fletcher Hanks, Jack Kirby, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, and Basil Wolverton.” The book sports a foreword by Jonathan Lethem. My thanks to Sadowski for his willingness to discuss his editorial approach on this project and after learning some of what did not make the first volume, I look forward to seeing a second volume down the road as time and other logistics permit. Fantagraphics also offers folks the chance to download an “11-page PDF excerpt (7.4 MB) featuring an entire story by Will Eisner and Lou Fine starring The Flame!”
Tim O’Shea: How did the foreword by Jonathan Lethem come about?
Greg Sadowski: Someone at Fantagraphics approached him, and Jonathan really came thorough – his foreword starts things off beautifully.
- June 1, 2009 @ 02:25 PM by Tim O'Shea