Blood for the Baron!

Ross SC wrote:stan lee is dead to me!

Frank Miller wrote:It's been a year now since Jack Kirby died. after all our eulogies, after all our dedications, after all our tears and tributes, it's important that we don't just sit back and fool ourselves into thinking we've paid back the debt we owe our greatest and most generous artists. We haven't done squat.

All the eulogies in the world wouldn't mean nearly as much to Jack as would a ton or two of much-deserved justice for his wife and heirs. They were the object of his deepest love, and I have no doubt that it pained him to his last that all of his creations and all the millions of dollars his genius talent brought to publishers have not properly benefited Kirby's estate.

We all continue to benefit from what Jack gave us. Marvel Comics continues to strip-mine the man's work, as shamelessly and belligerently as ever. And still nothing is paid back to the source of it all. So don't sigh and get all squishy about how much you enjoyed those old Kirby comics. Don't even claim that you love them. You haven't got the right. Not if you aren't willing to press Marvel Comics for it's crimes against Jack Kirby. Credit is owed. Money is owed. Hard cash, not tributes, not wistful nostalgia. Don't buy or write or draw the latest revival, the latest company crossover of Kirby characters, and all the while claim you are honoring the man. Not if you aren't at least willing to raise a stink and tell Marvel that we have not forgotten. And for God's sake, don't speak of the man's "legacy" while you tolerate Marvel's flat denial of what they should be doing with at least some of the money that legacy has given them.

Don't delude yourself. Marvel Comics will never stop their horrid larceny until they're pressured into doing so. They've proven otherwise, over and over again. Larceny? Now their behaviour is positively ghoulish.

Pressure Marvel Comics. Embarrass them. Pick up a pen and write them. Don't let a signing or a convention panel go by without letting them know that we stand up for our own. Make their faces red. Go ahead and make the situation uncomfortable. Hammer them and don't let up. If it seems awkward or inappropriate to stand up for Jack and his family, that's just our field's old, sick, stupid mentality talking. Outside Marvel's own offices, freedom of speech is still a constitutional right. In this case, it's duty to anybody who profits from or claims to love the work of Jack Kirby.

Do something, damn it!