Stan Lee, the man responsible for making our childhood (and adulthood) almost bearable, is celebrating his 87th birthday today. He still has his wit, still has most of his marbles, and is one of the few living legends of Geekdom we have left. Hell, Stan is so hip he even has a Twitter account, with his latest entry reading:

Now sleep ye soundly,True Believers, secure in the knowledge that right hath prevailed and wisdom hath triumphed over warfare! Excelsior!

Happy birthday, Stan.

Hype has been building for the super hero movie Kick-Ass, which is based on the graphic novel of the same name by Mark Millar. Those who have seen screenings claim the movie is awesome and really delivers the goods, but this newly released trailer just leaves me wanting. Feel and looks a little corny, but I’m willing to keep an open-mind and see how it evolves.

Kick-Ass

Trailer Park | MySpace Video

Brilliant idea:

Alan Moore Does Superman!

Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (Deluxe Edition)

More hijinks at Comics Alliance

Jack Kirby co-created countless characters for Marvel, including the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Avengers, etc. His estate has sent out 45 notices of copyright infringement to such companies as Marvel Entertainment, Disney, Paramount, Sony and others, insisting they intended to own the full copyright for every character by 2014. This could be a major problem for Disney, who recently purchased Marvel.

From the New York Times:

Under copyright law, the author or his heirs can begin a process to regain copyrights a certain period of years after the original grant. If Mr. Kirby’s four children were to gain the copyright to a co-created character, they might become entitled to a share of profits from films or other properties using it. They might also find themselves able to sell rights to certain characters independently of Marvel, Disney, or the various studios that have licensed the Marvel properties for their hit films.

In July, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that Warner Brothers and its DC Comics unit had not violated rights of the Siegel heirs in handling internal transactions related to Superman, but an earlier ruling had already granted the heirs a return of their share in the copyright. In the late 1990s, Mr. Toberoff represented a television writer, Gilbert Ralston, who sued Warner over the rights to the film “Wild, Wild West.” The suit was ultimately settled.

Copyright issues have become increasingly difficult for Hollywood, as it continues to trade on characters and stories that were created decades ago, but are now subject to deadlines and expiration dates under federal copyright law.

 

[Editor's Note: It's both interesting and sad to see how litigious the comic book industry is. In order to stay in business and to only spend tens of thousands of dollars defending ourselves rather than the necessary millions (???), by agreement we aren't allowed to discuss the matter's details, but we have been under legal threats and attacks ourselves in the recent past. Who with, you wonder? What about? Well what do you think of the cool fictional photoshop work below? Neat, huh? Yeah, child's college fund and an entire retirement savings worth of "neat". It's quite inspiring illuminating to see real super-heroes® in action first-hand.]