Elfsar Comics & Toys Blog

The lucky heirs of Jerome Siegel won a share of the U.S. Superman copyright in a court ruling in Los Angeles (according to the New York Times).  The judge held that the copyright termination notices served by the Siegel heirs in 1997 gave the Siegels rights to half of the copyright in Superman as depicted in Action Comics #1.  DC Comics still owns the other half until at least 2013, when a similar copyright termination on behalf of the lucky heirs of Joseph Shuster might take effect, giving full control of the character to its creators until at least 2033. However, DC’s international rights to the character were unaffected.  The judge did not rule on the degree to which uses after the premiere of the character were based on its first appearance, or on the amount of any compensation due the lucky heirs for the uses of the character after 1999, when the copyright termination took effect.

Also open is the question of whether the Siegel heirs should have a share in the profits from Superman Returns, which did around $200 million in domestic box office after its open over the July 4th weekend in 2006.

The stakes for movies in the pipeline are also large.  A sequel to Superman Returns is in pre-production and the Justice League is on track to be a 2009 tentpole release.

The likelihood that this is the end of this case is slim. Time Warner and the Siegel heirs are still litigating over the rights to the Superboy character, on which a judge ruled for the heirs in 2006.  Let’s hope that the comic world does better at settling these disputes than the world of children’s fiction, where Disney has been in litigation over the merchandising rights to Winnie the Pooh since 1991.

Marvel, Dark Horse and Image have new prices but the latest news…

DC COMICS Press Release:

Please note that beginning with items arriving in Direct Market stores on March 19,

DC Comics periodicals will feature a single price for both U.S. and Canada.

As an example, the price on the cover of ACTION COMICS #863,

scheduled to arrive in stores on March 26, reads “$2.99 US/Can.”

Hurrah!

Marvel as of last weeks trades with a Jan08 code have new adjusted prices.

It is yet unknown if they have done the same with Hardcovers (i’ll find out later today).

At this point, the Canadian dollar is basically hovering at par with the US and for the past couple of months various publishers of comics, magazines, books choose to adjust or not adjust their cover prices.  Some simply did nothing more than remove them all together, putting the responsibility yet again on the Retailer.

In Vancouver about 5 months ago, it did not look like the publishers were going to do anything so we took it upon ourselves to adjust the price by offering an extra 15% off on any book that seemed unfairly adjusted.  Quite honestly, it made for a great Christmas and post holiday season at Elfsar.  We then had our January Buy 2 get 1 Free sale and then continued the slashing of books and giving basically a partial sample to the public of what our comic Saver files enjoy every week.  However, a lot of these books had to be manually price changed and as you can imagine, it created a large amount of extra work for our humble little store.

I am happy that the publishers are finally paying attention and dropping the price… the savings in labor alone are worth it.

 But I ask… what will happen when the dollar rises?  Will we be treated like a yo-yo when the dollar is not as strong?

Well fight fans, UFC 82 just finished and I have to say I was not surprised by the outcome.  (with exception of the Herring vs Kongo match, which in my books I thought was really a draw)  However, Herring was able to inflict a lot of pain with knees he threw to Kongo’s rib cage. This was a nice win for Herring after his loss to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and he will remain a top contender in the Heavyweight division. Kongo needs to work even more on his ground game before becoming a true threat for the Heavyweight title.

As for the main event Silva vs Henderson, the match started good for the former Pride title-holder with all three judges giving the first round to Henderson.  But in the second round Silva got a bit looser and came out much more aggressive, both fighters exchanging a barrage of punches, but in the final seconds of the Round 2, Anderson Silva sank in a rear-naked choke and Dan Henderson tap at 4:52 into the round. There’s nobody left to challenge the champion but Yushin Okami at this point.

I thought I would give you a Here’s your “MMA Moment of Zen” – Bas Rutten vs. Frank Shamrock from one of the trio of Pancrase fights between the two. Make sure to keep your eyes open for the tackle between the ring ropes and down to the floor at around the 5:00 mark.  Gone are the days of Pancrase… I sure do miss fights like this.

Enjoy.

Rutten vs. Shamrock, greatest line ever…”That’s a #@*!ing fist.”
Is that a technical term?  Frank Shamrock also had some of the best facial expressions I have ever seen in a fight.