Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Happy birthday, Will Eisner!



Above: Comics legend and teacher, Will Eisner. William Erwin "Will" Eisner was born on March 6, 1917.

Will Eisner was always a wealth of information. Many members of P.I.C. were once students in Will’s ‘Sequential Art' class at the School of Visual Arts.



Above photo: Original artwork from Will Eisner’s A CONTRACT WITH GOD. This piece was part of the School of Visual Arts’ Ink Plots exhibit. The photo was taken during the exhibit's reception on October 14th 2010 by Miguel Martinez Joffre.

"I think comic books are far more than two mutants trashing each other." -Will Eisner (September 1986)

"I feel the same as the other winners ... proud and pleased by the approval of my peers. Of course I'm embarrassed at winning an award that has my name on it. But it will not stop me from continuing to produce the very best I can do. Perhaps I ought to change my name." -Will Eisner (who won a 2002 Eisner Award for "Best Graphic Album" for his THE NAME OF THE GAME)

"That’s one of the main struggles in this medium, anyway, is the struggle for sovereignty over storytelling and art. I believe this is a language. I think of it as a literary form. Comics is literature." -Will Eisner (from an interview in HERO GETS GIRL! By TwoMorrows Publishing)

"(SHOP TALK interviews) reinforced the feeling I always had about the fact that this (comics) is a valid literary form and also a valid field to be in. And when you talk to guys like Joe Kubert and Jack Kirby- as simple a guy as he was- you got the feeling that you were part of group of giants. That’s exactly what they were." -Will Eisner (on his new book, SHOP TALK, 2001)



Above photo: Original artwork from Will Eisner’s THE SPIRIT.

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Friday, March 2, 2012

Another letter from Dave Sim...

Today, my mailbox gave me a new package from Dave Sim. Normally, I wouldn’t post a letter such as this. It really has nothing to do with Creator’s Rights. However, the message is a good one, especially when I see all manner of foul language commonly used on the Internet. Anyway, Dave was referring (in part) to Frank Miller’s thoughts on the "Occupy" movement.

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Thursday, March 1, 2012

Steve Bissette talks about Marvel/Disney, Jack Kirby, and THE AVENGERS film...



Above photo: Kirby toughness… comics legend, Jack Kirby. (I swiped this photo from Bleeding Cool. Thanks, Rich.)

The great Steve Bissette talks about Creator’s Rights, Work-for-hire, Marvel/Disney, Jack Kirby, and THE AVENGERS film in "Marvel/Disney v Kirby: Do Avengers Avenge… Or Not?":

DC Comics, Paul Levitz, and Jenette Kahn started working out ways to work royalty shares with Kirby while he was still alive (using Super Friends as the initial vehicle).

Marvel hasn’t. Marvel has repeatedly demonstrated, from the late 1960s to today, that they’re not even remotely interested in "working out ways" to resolve this.

Fine. It’s their business.

And they’re getting no more of mine.

For me, it’s simple: the judgment of 2011 was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Do what you want; I’ve had it with Marvel as a consumer at this point.

I won’t be seeing The Avengers movie. I will encourage others to avoid it, if and as I can.

The thought of sitting through another bloated multi-million dollar-budgeted charade about how "it’s right to fight for justice" when Marvel/Disney can’t cough up the equivalent of, say, one day’s shooting budget for catering or grips to toss a bone to Jack’s heirs—well, that act of enduring that film isn’t at all attractive or appealing to me any longer on any level.

THE AVENGERS? It’s a sham.


And…

Work-for-hire does not, ipso facto, mean a creator or co-creator benefits not at all from their creations earning (in this case) billions for the parent corporation. I earn royalties on Swamp Thing to this day. Every quarter, they show up. I earn more royalties for John Constantine, Hellblazer; when the movie option yielded a movie, we each banked a $45,000 check from our fraction of a percent of our co-creator shares.

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