Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a Court Summons!
Joanne Siegel, widow of Jerry Siegel, one-half of the creative force behind the birth of Superman in 1938, has just compared Time Warner to the Gestapo. Well, she actually did so in a May 2002 letter written to Richard Parsons, then CEO of the newly-merged AOL-Time Warner, but the contents of that letter have recently come to light in the midst of two lawsuits against the media conglomerate over the rights to Superman himself.
Joanne Siegel, who was the original model for the first representation of Miss Lois Lane, has called Time Warner "greedy", claiming they have no qualms about stealing from her and her daughter: "Just like the Gestapo, your company wants to strip us naked of our legal rights... Is that the reputation you want?"
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman back in 1938, shaping the character out of concepts as varied as Nietzsche's "übermensch" ideal and the exaggerated cartoon violence of Popeye the Sailor; the two sold the rights to their character not long after. In 1999, however, the copyrights for the figure were terminated, and the Siegels claim they should get half of all Superman-related revenue since then: that's nine years worth of money generated by DC comic books, a WB television show, a number of animated series, and a big-budget feature film.
A ruling on Wednesday has already given half of the ownership to the rights of Superman to the Siegels, so there's no telling what may happen to the beloved character in the near future; by the end of the court proceedings, there may be profound effects on Superman comic books, movies, TV shows, and any kind of marketing that involves the Man of Steel.
kid_ampersand
Posted to Comics on 30 March 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: joanne siegel, lawsuit, superman
Boy Meets Hero by Chayne Avery and Russell Garcia
ahhhhhhhhahhhhHHHHAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Ummm... Huh.
I hope the family is only interested in $. And not you know, futzing about with the character, Superman has too many cooks as it is.
(I also wonder if this applies to any character making it's debut in a superman book or just those directly connected to Seigel.)
Smells like a total GRAB for the CASH ! "the two sold the rights to their character not long after." that right there should be the end of it.