RobAbsten
Name: Robert Absten
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Reviews
One hundred and fifteen pulls. What’s wrong with you people? It’s the annual Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) book,…
Read full review and commentsWhen we last saw Emp, she was consoling a distraught Sista Spooky, who’d just lost the love of her life,…
Read full review and comments@JoeCom summed this book up nicely in his review so I won’t post what I’d originally written – go read…
Read full review and commentsAll reviews by RobAbsten
Past four episodes: 1:57, 3:52; 1:47; and 3:01.
Also, and I have to shout this one: YOU CAN'T PAY FOR A DIGITAL BOOK WITH CASH. Vast numbers of Americans do not havecredit cards or even bank accounts. They operate in a world of cash and money orders; iTunes/comixology/graphic.ly/etc. do not. Yes, a motivated individual can go use his cash to buy a prepaid credit card, but that person gets to pay a premium, ranging from 10-25% (e.g. a $20 Visa may cost $24.95 at the corner bodega). Digital cuts off that market entirely.
2) Length. I don't love four hour podcasts. I don't love three hour-plus interviews being jammed into one show. Keep it reasonable.
3) Pocasts in general. Get to the point. As Ron once tweeted, if you're doing a comics revioew podcast and 20 minutes in you're still not talking comics you're doing it wrong. And get a good mic, learn to use Skype, and encourage if not require guests to Skype or use a land line. Cell phone interviews often (usually) suck.
4) Panels in specific. Mic the audience questions or repeat them verbatim - in show or in post - for the home audience. And the moderator shouldn't be a featured guest, s/he should moderate.
The original TMNT was near-perfect satire for the mid-80s, poking fun at the then current obsessions with teenaged herores (X-Men, New Mutants, and The New Teen Titans), mutants (X-verse in general), and ninjitsu (Daredevil, Wolverine, and again, the X-Men). And turtles. Everyone loves turtles.
But, the Fugitoid wasn't goofy. He was a fine, fine character. Misunderstood, perhaps, but not goofy. Well, maybe a little.
The Kirby estate could not provide any evidence, other than hearsay, e.g. Mark Evanier's "expert" testimony and opinons, that Jack WASN'T working under WFH circumstances. Compare that to Marvel, who had the sworn testimony of several men who were there: Stan Lee, Larry Leiber, John Romita Sr., and Dick Ayers, who, to a man, described facts that could only lead to one conclusion: Kirby's work on those characters was work for hire.
Is it fair? Probably not, but the work for hire provision of the Act and subsequent cases interpreting it have been the operative law since 1909, thirty years before Jack got his start in comics. Moreover, Jack had sixteen years after the 1976 Act went into effect to exercise his option, yet he never did. Had he sone so he would have had the opportunity to speak on the issue and provide the "genuine issue of material fact" necessary to overcome summary judgment and move the matter to a trial. I may not agree with the outcome but I can't dispute the Court's reasoning.
As for the Superman cases, it's been fairy well established that Seigel and Schuster were NOT operating under a work for hire scenario, making this case irrelvant to that litigation.
And yes, I'm a lawyer.
Cut them up into something managable. Even with the time coding it's near unmanagable.
Bad form.
Yeah, Wolvie'd'a figgered it out.
Deadman is dead, ergo the name.
The dead crave but one thing: the flesh of the living.
It then follows that Deadman would not want a sandwich but would, rather, prefer to dine on a sandwich artist. Q.E.D.
We've known this was coming for a while but it still hurts. Gene revolutionized comics layouts; the medium today is better for his lasting contributions. We owe him every time we pick up a book with dynamic, something-other-than-a-grid presentation. It was all him.
I'm getting a beer and pulling out my Howard the Duck Omnibus. Then my Daredevil essentials. Then Nathaniel Dusk. And maybe even some Batman. And I'm going to cry.
Bye, Gene. And thanks.