Jah Furry shares a preview of the new issue of Royal Flush Magazine, which contains much of comics-related interest:

• Exclusive cover story / interview with Playboy’s Hugh Hefner, including a first-time-ever-printed 60-year-old autobiographical comic strip written and drawn by Hef. In homage, Royal Flush Book 6 features two foldout posters: centerfold by comics rock star Paul Pope and calendar by poster legend Brian Ewing. Plus, a Joan Jett flip cover with 3-D “smoke eyes” spot gloss varnish.

• Interviews with Joan Jett, Leslie Nielsen, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, Brian Posehn, Jeffrey Ross, Jim Gaffigan, Ahmet Zappa, Jenna Jameson, Dethklok, Basil Gogos, Danny Trejo and more.

• Art and comics by Harvey Pekar, Rick Veitch, Peter Kuper, John Pound, Basil Gogos, Danny Hellman, Sean Pryor, Cojo, Aaron Augenblick, Scrojo, Robin Eley, Steve Chanks, Erik Rodriguez, Seldon Hunt, Ryan Dunlavey and many more.

Above, Frank Zappa as a Jack Kirby character, as drawn by Rick Veitch.

In addition, this week will see the launch of the Royal Flush Festival, Oct. 15 – 19, 2009 in NYC. Details of the music/film/art fest are in the link, but we’ll be appearing at a panel on Saturday at 4 PM at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center, 107 Suffolk Street. The topic: BLOGGING. The participants:
Michael K – Founder/Editor, Dlisted.com
Brandon Harris – Hammer to Nail, Filmmaker Magazine, Spout Blog, Cinema Echo Chamber
Heidi MacDonald – Editor, Publisher Weekly’s The Beat
Brandon Kim – IFC.com’s Indie Ear
The panel will be moderated by John Holmstrom.

§ Oh Shaenon, why can’t I be you? The Patrick Swayze Manga Recommendation Guide.

§ Robot 6 calls this post “The comic Chris Ware doesn’t want you to see“, and it is pretty hard to improve upon that description. What is the secret of…FLOYD FARLAND???

§ Geoff Boucher looks at Jack Kirby, the abandoned hero of Marvel’s grand Hollywood adventure:

The satisfaction was fleeting. The artist may be reverently referred to as “King” Kirby by the pop scholars and younger artists who celebrate his genre-defining work but Kirby is, in some ways, an overlooked figure in the broader view of American culture. He didn’t live to see his creations fly across the movie screen over the last decade and his four children made nothing from those lucrative films, although they are now pursuing legal action to claim some of the future Hollywood wealth. “There is,” daughter Lisa Kirby says, “a bittersweet legacy to my father’s work.”

§ Jog looks at Krusty’s Ergot.

§ Marc-Oliver continues his look at Steve Gerber and makes us think that OMEGA THE UNKNOWN was WATCHMEN before WATCHMEN was WATCHMEN.

§ Movie stuff! Steven Zeitchik points out that animated movies make lots of money these days and suggests it may have some consequences:

§ Remember when? Marc Sobel looks back at the 1999 SPX anthology and wonders where rea they now?

1. The Jay and Silent Bob cover by Matt Wagner is a reminder of just how big a deal Kevin Smith once was to comics fans, and how much that has changed in the subsequent decade. I don’t think most comics fans have had any real kind of emotional investment in Smith’s movies since Chasing Amy, and Smith’s few forays into writing comics have either been mired by ridiculous delays or simply underwhelming stories.

§ An oldie but a goodie we came across during surfing: 22 unflattering moments from autobiographical comics

ALL HELL IS BREAKING LOOSE. Last week, Jack Kirby’s four children filed notices of copyright termination for 45 characters . The LA Times has details. This is the same legal maneuver that the Siegel family employed to get back their half of the Superman copyright. Notices were sent to Marvel, Disney, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures, suggesting that the 45 characters include many already being made into successful movie franchises.

Kirby, of course, co-created the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and hundreds more of Marvel’s 5000 characters. Copyright termination allows creators to apply for copyright reassignment after the term of the original contract runs out.
Under copyright law, creators and co-creators can seek to regain copyrights they previously assigned to a company 56 years after first publication and can give notice of their intentions to do so up to 10 years before that.

Kirby’s children would be eligible to claim their father’s share of the copyright of the Fantastic Four in 2017, while the Hulk would come up in 2018 and X-Men in 2019. The copyrights would then run for 39 more years before expiring, after which the characters would enter the public domain under current law.
The Kirby family is being represented by lawyer Marc Toberoff, who also handles the Siegel case. In Hollywood, he is known as a relentless litigator — he also represented the creator of The Dukes of Hazzard in a successful claim against Warner Bros.

Of course there’s a lot to be written and discussed about this. Jack Kirby spent many of his later years trying to get his ART back from Marvel, and he felt that he was not fairly compensated for his creations for years. It also casts a shadow over Disney’s recent acquisition of Marvel, although a Disney spokesperson said “The notices involved are an attempt to terminate rights seven to 10 years from now and involve claims that were fully considered in the acquisition.”

We’ll have a bit more on this later, but in the meantime, Marc-Oliver Frisch considers how appropriate it is that this news broke on what would have been the late Steve Gerber’s 62nd birthday. (Kirby and Gerber collaborated on DESTROYER DUCK.)

AND, Jeff Trexler reports on the latest in the Siegel/Superman case, including the potentially huge news that the presiding judge is retiring in a few months.

Jack Kirby would have been 92 years old today.
Bully has a 24 hour tribute, with hourly posting. Spurge has a visual tribute. We’ll link to the epic Merry Marvel Marching Society recording, which, although it does spotlight other Marvel personnel, also includes the King’s voice and personality as it was heard.

4th Letter one-ups Garfield and gives us DARKSEID MINUS NEW GODS, a bleak, existential drama set in a landscape of nihilism and doubt by Søren Kierkegaard.

And the Kirby Project gives us Thor on a Scooter.

§ Superboy??? Jeff Trexler looks at the possible legal reasons for the character’s return and reminds us that the Superman trial is underway right now:

A settlement is one possibility, though at present it seems a relatively less likely explanation. The court record in the Superboy lawsuit contains no reference to a finalized settlement. To the contrary, the parties stated last year that court-ordered mediation did not resolve the dispute. As things stand, the court record indicates that the resolution of the Superboy lawsuit will follow the court’s judgments in the Superman trials, the first of which began this past week. (More on that soon in another post!)

A more likely explanation as to why DC feels comfortable reviving Superboy–or at least the Conner Kent version–is that the company’s legal position regarding the character improved considerably after the 2007 court ruling that vacated a previous judgment awarding the rights to the Siegel heirs.

§ Jann Jones has joined Viz as an editor, Robot Six reports. She was formerly senior coordinating editor at DC. Congrats to Jann!

§ Ed Chavez has joined Vertical as Marketing Director. He has previously worked with CMX and Kodansha, and of course, headed up MangaCast. Congrats to Ed!

§ Less happy news at McFarlane Toys, which has laid off 27 people from its design staff. More details at Playthings.

§ There are surely tons and tons o’ Free Comic Book Day reports out there, and we’re finishing up a big post for a bit later, so here are TWO to keep you while we round up more: CBR’s 15 hours of non-stop FCBD action! and Kiel & Kegmeister’s Excellent Free Comic Book Day. Please link to your report in the comments.

§ Oh yeah, also via the Cool Kids’ Table: Jack Kirby and an ex-Beatle. The story, from Lisa Kirby, here.

Wow.

As an alternative to parades or football, may we suggest, these 39 never-reprinted Kirby Monsters comics at Philip Parodayco’s Monster Blog. Hours of browsing fun.

Most of Jack Kirby’s 188 pre-superhero stories have been reprinted; here’s the 39 that have NEVER been, in chronological order. As collectors provide me with scans from their original issues, I’ll be posting these stories on Monster Blog for your eternal enjoyment and edification!

Via Mark Evanier. Shot by Lee Hester.

- Mit Commentary! This fine feature runs on the MARVEL website. Damn their getting into the content business!