Marvel ordered to pay Stan Lee

[guy incognito]

Story (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=638&ncid=638&e=1&u=/nm/20050119/en_nm/media_marvel_dc)

:thumbsup: Good for Stan. He's now entitled to ten percent of whatever profits the Spider-Man movies make.

Now, if only a similar cut would find its way to Steve Ditko's mailbox...

[Ryan]

Story (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=638&ncid=638&e=1&u=/nm/20050119/en_nm/media_marvel_dc)

:thumbsup: Good for Stan. He's now entitled to ten percent of whatever profits the Spider-Man movies make.

Now, if only a similar cut would find its way to Steve Ditko's mailbox...

Good for him. And what are the profits? Gotta be like $100 mil. at least.

Stan will be a very rich man (If he isn't already).

[GuyDon]

:thumbsup: Good for Stan.

[Lord Hawthorne]

Lucky he lived so long. Is Steve Ditko still alive?

[TSmithPage]

Ditko's still around, but has always lived a Syd Barrett type of hermit existence. i.e., he doesn't do much in the way of interviews and pretty much keeps to himself. He surfaced at DC for a brief period in the 80s, but I haven't seen anything from him in quite awhile. As I understand it, he hasn't talked to Stan Lee since he quit Spider-Man in the 60s, pissed off at the editorial direction the title was taking at the time.

[indy mike]

Of course, with creative accounting those movies might never make a profit...

[jpm-boston]

Stan Lee is a god. Good for him he deserves every cent.

[RDK]

Great news for Stan! And it's about time. But remember, this is 10% of Marvel's profits - not of the overall movie's profits. Still a big chunk though. Wonder if Fox will cough up for the X-Men and FF films...

[fjhuerta]

Marvel said they would appeal, so... will Stan ever see one cent out of Spider-man?

I also remember Mad Magazine stressing that it's virtually impossible for any movie to turn a profit. I didn't understand the joke at the time... until I noticed that, indeed, it's quite strange to see such a thing. Why is that???

[czeskleba]

As I understand it, he hasn't talked to Stan Lee since he quit Spider-Man in the 60s, pissed off at the editorial direction the title was taking at the time.

Ditko actually quit talking to Stan several months *before* he quit Spider-Man. The last few months of their collaboration were done without speaking. Ditko plotted and drew, and Stan added the dialogue. Stan has always professed to not really know what the animosity was about, and Ditko has never flat out said in any of the few interviews he's given. Some theorize that Ditko disagreed with the idea of revealing the Green Goblin to be Norman Osborn.

It's important to note that Stan's lawsuit had nothing to do with the fact that he was co-creator of Spider-Man, so it certainly doesn't establish any sort of legal precedent that Ditko is also entitled to money. Stan's lawsuit was simply based on a contract he and Marvel signed in 1998 which entitled him to profit participation. He was suing to have the contract enforced... his status as Spider-Man's co-creator had no real bearing on it.

[househippie]

Ditko actually quit talking to Stan several months *before* he quit Spider-Man. The last few months of their collaboration were done without speaking. Ditko plotted and drew, and Stan added the dialogue. Stan has always professed to not really know what the animosity was about, and Ditko has never flat out said in any of the few interviews he's given. Some theorize that Ditko disagreed with the idea of revealing the Green Goblin to be Norman Osborn.

It's important to note that Stan's lawsuit had nothing to do with the fact that he was co-creator of Spider-Man, so it certainly doesn't establish any sort of legal precedent that Ditko is also entitled to money. Stan's lawsuit was simply based on a contract he and Marvel signed in 1998 which entitled him to profit participation. He was suing to have the contract enforced... his status as Spider-Man's co-creator had no real bearing on it.
That's a shame, because artists such as Steve Ditko and others in his time were really exploited. I read that Marvel held much of Jack Kirby's original artwork and wouldn't give it back to him. Kirby wasn't arguing for character rights, he just wanted back the actual art he had created, but now that's left for his estate to settle. :sigh:

[czeskleba]

That's a shame, because artists such as Steve Ditko and others in his time were really exploited. I read that Marvel held much of Jack Kirby's original artwork and wouldn't give it back to him. Kirby wasn't arguing for character rights, he just wanted back the actual art he had created, but now that's left for his estate to settle. :sigh:

The case with Kirby's art is tragic. Prior to the late 70's, nobody got back their original art ever. In the late 70's/early 80's Marvel and DC started returning original art to creators, but in Kirby's case Marvel demanded that he sign a special document disavowing all claims to ownership of the characters he'd created, before they would return his art. No one else was asked to sign a similar document, Kirby was specifically targeted because he was the one who had co-created virtually all of Marvel's characters, and they were fearful he might sue them someday for ownership. Eventually a settlement was reached, but by that time Marvel then reported that the majority of Kirby's classic art from the 60's had been "lost" (meaning employee theft, most likely). So Kirby only got back a handful of his pages from that era. Especially sad considering how much a 60's Kirby page goes for at auction these days.