I know this is old news, but people have asked what I think. I've been hesitant to say, really. I just don't know enough to feel like I can offer an well-reasoned opinion. To be completely honest, and this may make me sound like a jerk, but I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, you kind of have to feel like "Well alright, Jerry's family is taken care of. I bet he's some where smiling wide as the ring of a bell." And that's beautiful.Selfishly, I wonder what it means for the future publication of Superman material by DC, who, though not where the idea started, are just as responsible for the success of the character as Jerry and Joe.
So that's how I feel about the Siegel decision. Ill informed and to some folks probably a corporate devil backing jerkass.
1 comments:
It means nothing for the future publication of Superman material by DC. You really should read the series of posts Jeff Trexler is making at newsarama.com for a really thorough examination, but here's how I see it:
The Siegel's copyright and DC's trademarks together make up what we know today as Superman. If the Siegel estate has a financial stake in the future use of Superman, they're more motivated to encourage DC to use that property, not try to shut them down. It would be in everyone's mutual interests. This mess exists today solely because all the different owners of DC over the years failed to see this simple fact. They never even tried to bring the Siegel and Shuster families on board as happy beneficiaries, but instead kept trying to crush them.
That being the case, rather than simply paying a regular ongoing license fee to the Siegel and Shuster estates (as they could agree to do right now) we can now expect DC's owners to spend ten times as much to fight the decision. Eventually they'll lose again, and they'll end up right back where they are now, and eventually they'll have to pay the estates anyway. In the meantime, many lawyers will become wealthy.
But while all this is going on, they'll keep publishing Superman. And once it's over, the Siegel and Shuster estates will license them and only them to publish Superman.
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