Back home again! Last night’s well-regulated machine developed some ghosts today as the Con returns to its less desirable standard. I’m not currently complaining. I’m simply happy to be queued up in a line where at least 50% of con staff tell me I belong.
I have no idea where the line goes. There’s nothing at the end but a huge oven in the shape of Little Lulu. “Why is Joe laughing at us?” I hear the girl in the queue next to me ask her friends. “He’s the one standing out there and he’s not in line.” But as Zenmaster Levitz says, the journey is more important than the destination. I see Dave Sim next to Lulu; perhaps we get a free Cerebus before going in.
Ann arrived in high spirits despite her dihydrogen monoxide binge the night before. She offered to let me cut in, but I was a little worried about the mob reaction. “Just take your place,” that’s my motto this morning. “Don’t rock the Lulu.”
Today we have Donna Barr and Donnapalooza.
Some punks in the queue on my other side have discovered a use for the flimsy con bags. Fill them full of air and jump on them and they make passable explosive noises.
Lulu’s mouth has opened and the announcer says to go right in. If we run, jog, or otherwise exercise we will have our badges pulled and we won’t get the Cerebus plush toy.
After dropping the day’s Negative Space and Nik Scott fliers off at the flier table, I make my way to the self-publishing ghetto first. It isn’t quite the same without Jim Drew’s music. That boy really knew how to play the blues.
I’m an old, old man. Only an hour into the con and already I’m taking a break. Sitting at the Café Express with the latest Artbabe. I’d point you to samples on the web but she hasn’t got any. She even has a scanner. She just doesn’t have an excuse. But “I just can’t get into the web.”
I don’t know that I have the credentials for criticism, so I’ll start with Donna Barr’s opening yesterday on meeting Artbabe author Jessica Abel: “Normally I say this when I don’t have anything else good to say, but your production values are great!” Donna presumably holds back more in real life than she does on the comic page.
Mine is signed by Jessica and has her, capitalist pig-dog that she is, waving an American flag. Artbabe is not about Artbabe, she claims, though of course you can get Artbabe posters and T-shirts and no doubt soon the Artbabe commemorative ivory statue. The stories are stories. They’re what you would expect to find from someone like Ethan Canin, or in The Atlantic. I’m not sure how she managed it, but “Jack London” in the latest issue is about me. She just changed the name to protect the innocent, I’m sure of it.
Besides Artbabe, you can see short works by Jessica in the Action Girl anthology series. That part is up to you.
Comics and the Law
Beware the writers of stuff, for they have lawyers!
The panelists: Louise Nemschoff, copyright lawyer representing Moebius, Bacchalo, and Roy Thomas; Chuck Valauskas, trademark lawyer representing Todd McFarlane in Hollywood; and Dave Olbrich, jack of all trades and currently talent rep for Brian Augustine and Mark Waid.
The theme: “Superheroes need protection, too.” And they aren’t talking about seventy-five cent condoms in restaurant bathrooms.
There are three basic kinds of “intellectual property:” patents, marks, and copyrights. Except for certain ornamental aspects, patents don’t apply to comics. Trademarks (and service marks) and copyrights do.
There’s money in them thar hills, which probably explains the presence of lawyers. In the period from 1987 to 1994, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles generated five billion dollars. That’s a lot of Xeric grants.
Copyrights protect you from having your work stolen (copied). Trademarks technically protect the consumer from fraud and misrepresentation. If twelve monkeys write Hamlet at random, none of them are violating the others’ copyrights. Nothing has been copied.
Independent generation of marks, however, isn’t “a defense”, because marks protect the consumer from confusion in the marketplace. It’s that in the marketplace that presumably keeps the patent office from outlawing Legion comics.
Anything that can be used to identify your work in the marketplace can be a mark. Sounds can be marks, and Chuck believes that distinctive sounds will become important trademarks on the Internet.
It costs $245 to register a trademark, and they don’t recommend you do it on your own. It costs $20 to register a copyright, which is much simpler. Call 202-707-9100, leave your name and address, and ask for copyright form VA (visual arts). When you receive the form, make photocopies, use the copies, and keep the original.
You don’t need to register a copyright, but you can’t sue till you do. And if you didn’t have the copyright registered at the time of the infringement, you can’t collect attorneys’ fees from the infringing party. Being able to collect attorneys fees makes it much more likely that your attorney is going to get paid, which makes it much more likely that your attorney has an incentive to win your case.
“Work for hire” has traditionally been a hot button in the comics industry. In order to qualify as a “work for hire”, a work must meet three criteria in its creation:
- It must be specially commissioned by the company.
- It must be a newspaper, magazine, or other collective work.
- The parties must sign a statement to the effect that it is a work for hire.
The courts are currently split on whether or not the signatures must be gathered before or after payment for the work.
When signing a contract, always get a second set of eyes to take a look before you sign. Get the best set of eyes you can afford, but get them. Another person will read from a different perspective than your own. Contracts aren’t there to build a good relationship. Contracts exist to control who gets what when a good relationship goes bad. Expect the other party to interpret to their advantage whenever creative interpretation is possible.
Curt Swan Tribute
Hey! That’s tyg up there! And joined by Dan Jurgens, Roger Stern, and Mark Waid.
Long before there were credits, Dan Jurgens and Roger Stern knew Curt Swan as “the good artist” on Superman. They recognized when someone else was filling in.
Curt’s art was friendly. Dan found that comparatively, “Kirby’s stuff looked a little threatening to me.” Mark Waid agreed: “Curt’s Superman became my best friend. I know he’s not real, but he’s just as real to me as the kids who would bully me.”
After Dan had been working for DC for a while, one of the editors came up and said, “We need some Superman work done. Can you draw Superman?”
“No,” he replied, “only Curt Swan can draw Superman.”
Tom Bierbaum came up from the audience. Curt, he said, regarded himself as a workhorse. “When they need it done fast, bring it to Curt.”
Curt was originally from Minneapolis. One time during a local convention Dan and some friends got his family together and convinced the mayor to proclaim “Curt Swan Day”. After going out to dinner they took Curt bowling. “At that time Curt was seventy-one years old and he kicked everybody’s ass.” Like many artists of his generation he was surprised and gratified by the appreciation he received from the fans.
Mark Waid says that Paul Levitz once did the figures and reported that more people were introduced to comics by Swan art than any other artist who ever lived. Back then comics sold in the millions, and Superman was on top.
“To me,” said Roger, “he’ll always be ‘the good Superman artist’.”
Donna Barr Marathon
With an hour to kill before the Donna Barr reading and spotlight double feature, I head back to the display area. On the way:
Due to technical difficulties, the Virtual Comics Panel has been moved to room 14.
And watching the multi-screen video in the DC area as it switched from Kingdom Come to Lois and Clark: “This show gets better and better all the time—Lois and Clark… It’s still for girls, though.”
Donna Barr can’t let her first novel rest. She’s flogging a dead horse. To prove it she’s got it right there on the table.
In the book, Stinz is human. “I just drew him like a horse because I wanted to.”
After the reading, discussion flies to the four corners of the Earth in typical Barrian fashion.
When the Peach musical completed, there were numerous cast parties. No one wanted to invite anyone else.
Where would Stinz be classified in the library? Fantasy? Historical fantasy? What about the Desert Peach? Romance? Historical fiction?
Neither. Both are classified along with Superman as “comic books”.
A young man with the Aliens Technical Manual under his arm is proud that he collects quality books to lock into his vault. He knows they’re quality books because they’re black and white.
Oddball Comics
The hour before Scott Shaw!’s annual presentation gives me just enough time to collect my notes and read my comics. Megan Kelso is all over comics, in Action Girl, Coffee World, and her own Girl Hero. The worst thing about an anthology today is that they aren’t any bigger than normal single story books. The people you want to read more of have to share space with the people you don’t care about. I find myself agreeing with Kurt Busiek that we need to return to the big, fat, magazine-priced anthology comics.
Scott Shaw! Has renamed his presentation “Oddball” comics. It sounds so much cozier than “Esoteric” comics. When he was a kid his parents called his comics “funny books”. “Mom! They’re not funny!”
Now he prefers to call them funny books. It robs them of their power to be pretentious.
I had to take these notes in the dark, so detailed info such as issue, character, and issue number aren’t recorded. Tyg, extra credit for figuring out which comics these refer to:
- “Giant Communists are now officially a genre.”
- “They’re supposed to be trees my ass!”
- “What if the FF were all Jewish cartoonists?”
- “To think that anybody was going to buy this book is just incredible… of course, I did.”
- “This cover has more story than your typical Image book.”
At the after hours party I see people looking at the program schedule like it’s a pinup. Worse, I’m one of them.
Thursday Grab Bag 1996
Please note that I know nothing about any of these people, events, or organizations other than that someone somewhere was able to create a flier and get it on the convention table. I put two fliers on the convention table myself. It ain’t rocket science.
- Looking for a super way to evangelize your nation?
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USA Christian Comic Book Training Course is a four day retreat for missionaries, ministers and any Christian. Learn to “increase evangelism by improving Christian use of the world’s most widely read literature—comic books.”
“Instructors will cover… creating credible Christian comics for specific cultures.”
Only $50 includes room and meals. E-mail [c--hl--n] at [xc.org] to get your calling started.
- Sisters of Mercy Mark Williams, ’96
Two blood-spattered women with resizeable breasts eat swoord like they are corn on the cob. Bonus: the swords have batwing hilts.
- Too Much Coffee Man Statue
A bargain at $145 plus $5 shipping and handling. Contact Alternative Studios, 119 Kildare Road, Garden City, NY 11530-2501. Checks payable to Brian Claus, NY state residents add 8.25%.
- Chassis!, Adam Hughes
Get Racey! “A fiery redhead in a man’s world, Chassis takes on a retro-40s future.”
- Links
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- Tromaville
- King Roach: The True Master Race
