Following Michael George’s conviction last month of the 1990 murder of his wife, his attorney, Carl Marlinga, has asked for an acquittal based on the “flimsy” evidence presented during the trial. Marlinga asked for this directed verdict during the trial but was denied.

But Marlinga has renewed the request in the wake of the conviction.

“There’s going to be a fight on this one either way,” Marlinga said.

On Thursday, Biernat ordered lawyers on both sides to file legal briefs, explaining in writing whether and why he should reconsider the issue before George’s sentencing, which is scheduled for May 27.

With this sort of legal maneuvering likely to go on for some while, Marlinga’s prediction that the case could go on for years could well be accurate.

Okay a few links to tide you over.

Jeff Trexler continue his coverage of the case with a FAQ and an explanation of why DC isn’t “doomed.”

Comics Should Be Good! has an FAQ written in non legalese, and and interview with copyright attorney Brendan McFeely:

Despite the Court’s explicit ruling, several factors remain in play. “[DC] does not need to account for profits earned outside the US,” McFeely said. “[The Siegels] have only recaptured these rights within the United States. The court also found unequivocally that DC retains all rights outside the United States. I suspect that Siegels’ lawyers will find a way to appeal this.”

McFeely continued, “It’s a bit up in the air currently exactly what this means: the Court also found that major elements of the Superman mythos were created long after the original material published in ‘Action’ #1. Lex Luthor, Myxyzptlk, Titano, kryptonite, Kandor, Brainiac, the Phantom Zone and Zod, just for starters, were all created after ‘Action’ #1. But the key elements of Superman, his abilities, his appearance, his dual identities and his basic abilities were all present in that comic, so its very likely that DC and Time Warner will have to cough up a very, very large amount of money to the Siegels.”

A few historical links. Jamie Coville’s The History of Comic Books has some of the history surrounding the creation of Superman.

It should be known that Siegel and Shuster did not share in the wealth generated by Superman. The two had sold the rights to the characters along with the first story for 10 dollars a page. Siegel did ask for increases in page rates and did get them, but they still were only getting very small portion of the income Superman was generating. A 1941 magazine article in the Saturday Nights Evening Post went into detail about how the money was being distributed. It reported that in 1940 The Superman Shop got $75,000 dollars. $16,000 of which went to pay the staff and other expenses, leaving $59,000 to split between the two creators. Meanwhile Harry Donenfeld was bragging to reporters his take home pay from Superman was around $500,000. The article writer believed it to be half that, Liebowitz would only admit that it was over $100,000. Superman Inc., the company set up for Superman licensing made 1.5 million dollars that year. There was no mention on how much DC co-owner Jack Liebowitz was getting paid.

Mike Catron’s page has a letter Jerry Siegel wrote in 1975 attempting to get publicity for his continuing attempts to get what he felt was his share of the profits of Superman.

Obviously, this case will go to appeal, and the legal battle will go on for years and years. I couldn’t find any mention anywhere of the age of Joanne Siegel, the original inspiration for Lois Lane, but she has to be in her 90s. Begin to ponder the years of fighting this woman has gone through, and this legal victory — one that has come not through any groundbreaking legal precedent, but through the application of established copyright law — and you can’t help but think the good guys have won, at least for a day.

With that in mind, the attitudes displayed on many message boards accusing the Siegel family of “greed” or worrying that this is a terrible decision for the character of Superman are stunning examples of ignorance and selfishness. They are the reason we have laws that apply a higher degree of ethical and moral judgement than the rabble is capable of. Granted, copyright law is the not a subject that the man or woman on the street would be expected to have a sound grasp of. But the case of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel – living in poverty for years even as a character no ever denied they created made hundreds of millions of dollars — is infamous as one of the most unfortunate examples of financial disparity in the history of intellectual property.

And with his shaman’s magic, Grant Morrison managed to get their story, once more, into the pages of All-Star Superman. The story of Siegel and Shuster is the story of comics, in all its shoddiness, inspiration and endless battle.

The law finally caught up.

In a stunning decision, the heirs of Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman, have been granted the copyright to Action Comics Vol. 1. Jeff Trexler has more links and details. The concluding paragraph of the court decision is worth quoting in it’s entirety.

After seventy years, Jerome Siegel’s heirs regain what he granted so long ago – the copyright in the Superman material that was published in Action Comics Vol. 1. What remains is an apportionment of profits, guided in some measure by the rulings contained in this Order, and a trial on whether to include the profits generated by DC Comics’ corporate sibling’s exploitation of the Superman copyright.

While many details of the decision remain to be worked out, including the fate of Superboy, this at long last rights one of the greatest injustices in the history of comics, whereby the creators of the tentpole character of the superhero genre sold all rights away for $300$130.

Breaking. We’ll have more details and analysis later.

More: Jeff Trexler has a FAQ with lotes more background:

Q: Do the Siegels have creative control over Superman comics?

A: No. The court explains, quoting an earlier case, that “each co-owner has an independent right to use or license the use of the copyright. . . . A co-owner of a copyright must account to other co-owners for any profits he earns from licensing or use of the copyright.” (p. 66) However, if the Shuster heirs regain copyright in a few years, then the future of Superman comics gets rather complicated, since all domestic copyright in the Action Comics #1 material & its derivative works will vest in the two families.

Q: What about Superboy?

A: That’s a separate case, although procedurally it is consolidated with the Superman case for discovery and pre-trial purposes. The question of the Siegels’ rights to Superboy is as of yet unresolved.

Also: the New York Times analyses the ruling::

Compensation to the Siegels would be limited to any work created after their 1999 termination date. Income from the 1978 “Superman” film, or the three sequels that followed in the 1980s, are not at issue. But a “Superman Returns” sequel being planned with the filmmaker Bryan Singer (who has also directed “The Usual Suspects” and “X-Men”) might require payments to the Siegels, should they prevail in a demand that the studio’s income, not just that of the comics unit, be subject to a court-ordered accounting.

Mrs. Siegel and Ms. Larson said it was too soon to make future plans for the Superman character. But they were inclined to relish this moment.

UPDATE Saturday: Nikki Finke has some interesting things to say

For instance, Joanne Siegel (who’d been the sketch model for Lois Lane) wrote a 3-page letter back in 2002 to then Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons calling the company “greedy” and “heartless” and acting “just like the Gestapo … your company wants to strip us naked of our legal rights… Is that the reputation you want?” The answer is a resounding yes. Because for years Warner tied with Disney for its aggressive unwillingness to settle these kinds of legal disputes and its absurd eagerness to risk going to court. Its corporate counsel would hire litigation piranhas hungry for billable hours who pledge to make each case go away by exhausting the patience and resources of the creators or rightsholders. It’s a thoroughly effective but completely disgusting way of doing business.

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A jury has found Michael George guilty in the slaying of his wife 17 years ago.

George was accused of shooting his wife, Barbara, in the head on July 13, 1990, and making the crime look like a robbery. The jury found George guilty of first-degree murder, felony firearm, insurance fraud and obtaining money from an insurance agency under false pretenses.

The four-man and eight-woman jury began deliberations Friday afternoon after listening to the testimony of nearly 50 witnesses in the trial that drew national media attention.

Prosecution and defense have rested, closing arguments have been made. It’s up to the jury to decide whether retailer/convention organizer Michael George killed his wife 18 years ago. The DA has argued that only George had the motive and opportunity, and that there was no robbery, as claimed. The defense has countered by pointing out that the evidence against george in this cold case is all circumstantial, and his mother and two daughters have testified he was asleep on the couch when the murder took place.

It’s up to the jury to decide who’s telling the truth.

The Detroit Free Press has more.movie archive browse celebritymovies asswatcher freebeing whipped movie of womenmovies bus bang jessicachildren movies pornmovies masturbatingmovie hentai samplegrill studio movie Map

We’re happy to report that the Jess Fink vs Hot Topic brouhaha has been ended with a satisfying and righteous conclusion:

“I would like to first and foremost, appologize for this situation. It is very important to us to support artists and their ventures and it just makes my stomach turn when something like this happens. We in NO way would have written this artwork if we had known it was someone else’s design. We work with many vendors that sell us “generic” artwork and we put our faith in those vendors to not sell us stolen or immulated artwork.”

On top of this she offered that they would like to buy some of my designs.

Also from what she said I have a feeling no one is going to be buying anything from “NewBreedGirl” for a long time.

I don’t know if I will in fact do the designs for Hot Topic or not yet, but all I really wanted in the first place was for the shirt to not be sold and so I think I am satisfied with how this all turned out, and that I didn’t have to take it to court.

I hope this isn’t an anti-climactic ending for anyone, I am not going to blow up Hot Topic with a rocket gun or brake any one’s neck bones, but I think I am happy with it.

In yet another happy turn of events, Rachel Nabors has had a very successful fundraising to finance the extensive dental work she needs:

It’s official. We’ve raised at least $5,000 toward my jaw surgery! Let’s see, that either covers the braces or half of the surgery (provided it doesn’t involve widening the roof of my mouth). Last I checked tonight, we were at $5,588.04 USD. I still need to use part of that for shirts, but we’re over five grand! Wooooo!!! Check out that bar graph!

The Macomb Daily continues its in-depth coverage of the Michael George trail. The latest testimony came from Theresa Danieluk, a friend of accused killer George who claims that after the death of his wife, he made advances to her and also made disparaging remarks about his dead wife, calling her “unattractive” and “heavy.”

“You look very, very very pretty today. Thanks for coming in. Sincerely, Michael,” says the note penned on Comic World stationery, which included the store telephone number. Danieluk read the note in court under questioning by assistant Macomb prosecutor Steven Kaplan.

Danieluk, who said she was engaged at the time to the man who is now her husband, said she never called him. But he called her, making comments such as, “I saw you today, you looked pretty today,” while talking to her and leaving recorded messages, she said.

In other testimony, long time friends of George reported that he had turned down their offer of posting a reward for finding the killer.

More comics trouble in Connecticut, where an expelled high school student was arrested in Groton, following a threatening video he posted on YouTube which contained quotes from Naruto.

In the video, which Brown addresses to the students of Grasso Tech, he writes, “The Corpses Crimson Bitter Tears Will Flow And Mingle Through The Endless Sand Feeding The Chaos In Me and Making Me Stronger.” The quote is taken from
a fictional anime series about a character named Gaara who, according to several fan sites, claims only to feel alive when he kills.

While kid-friendly, life-affirming NARUTO would seem to be an unlikely role model for a would-be trouble-maker, school authorities now take a dim view of such videos after recent high school shooters were found to have posted video warnings here and there.

The murder trial of retailer Michael George continues, with testimony striking at the heart of his alibi being presented:

A witness gave testimony Tuesday that could be damaging to accused murderer Michael George’s alibi that he was at his mother’s house when his wife, Barbara George, was shot in the Comics World store they co-owned.

Customer Michael Renaud said he telephoned the Clinton Township store on July 13, 1990, from his job at Crowley’s department store at Lakeside Mall. He said he spoke to Michael George between 5:15-5:30 p.m. — a time the now 47-year-old was supposedly at his mother’s home in Hazel Park.

Witnessed also tesitfy that George knew information about the slaying of then-wife Barbara that he had not been told, such as that it had taken place in the back room of their comics store. However, the nearly 20 years since the murder has rendered memories of the case sketchy.

Jonathan Levine writes to say that a drawing by artist Lori Earley was stolen from her show at his gallery last week. Details a description of the suspected thief are below the cut. On a happier note, here’s a picture of artist Tara McPherson working on her “Lost Constellations” installation.

(more…)

The Macomb Daily reports on the first day of testimony in the trial of accused killer Michael George. Eight witnesses were called to weave a tale of George’s reported “weird” behavior surrounding the killing:

Joyce Selke said Michael George, who once sold insurance, met with her and her husband about purchasing life insurance for about $130,000, the same amount George had on Barbara George.

“It was such a large amount we couldn’t believe he said that much,” Selke said on the stand. “My husband and I were shocked that he suggested that amount. … He laughed and said that’s how much he has on Barb.”

Also: George and future wife, then girlfriend Renee were spotted kissing three to four weeks after the killing.

Full details in the link. More in the Detroit News.

Bonus for the tabs: A sex-tape of George will NOT be put into evidence.

The Macomb Daily covers opening day:

Kaplan, chief of special prosecutions, conceded the case against George is almost all circumstantial, as he will show George at the time of the killing had had an affair with one woman two years earlier and was having an affair with the woman to whom he is now married, Renee George. Michael George wanted a smooth divorce, but Barbara George, 32, a Warren native, didn’t want to get divorced and would make a divorce hard for him, Kaplan said.

“Barbara George wasn’t happy in the marriage but wanted to make the marriage work for the (two) children,” Kaplan said.

The defense counters:

The defense acknowledges their client is flawed but was not at the store at the time of the slaying. Instead, he was lying on a couch at his mother’s Hazel Park home some 15 miles away.

“There is simply no - zero, zip, nada - physical evidence … placing Michael George at the scene,” defense attorney Joseph Kosmala told jurors in his opening statement. “Justice is not served by convicting the wrong man.”

The prosecution will call about 40 witnesses, the defense, 7. The case is beginning to garner some attention in the mainstream media and will be featured on NBC Dateline at some point, we’re told.

Gary Tyrell has been all over the Jess Fink/Hot Topic controversy. (It’s not really a controversy — it’s pretty clear what happened: they stole her soap.) It’s still unclear as to whether Hot Topic is actually dealing with the situation, Tyrell reports.

In the meantime the blog Hurfadurf has started a “I Designed an Original T-Shirt!” of which the above is one of the few which we can reprint on a family blog.

It seems that Hot Topic has stated selling a t-shirt which is a dead ringer for one created by cartoonist Jess Fink. She isn’t taking it lying down.

I’m sorry but I really don’t think this design is coincidentally or simply inspired by clip art. Things right down to the pose of the character and the look of the feet and hands are the same, even the color. I do not know if you know this guys, but most soap is white. Why not make your rip off soap blue or white? I am not trying to give any ideas to any further assholes, I am trying to point out how blatantly similar this crap is.

Fink’s original t-shirt was sold on the Threadless site, and she reports they will pursue action against Hot Topic. A friend of Fink’s created the above banner which many sites are posting in solidarity.

More info here, including mention of another t-shirt designer we can’t talk about here.

Danish authorities have arrested three people who were allegedly planning to assassinate one of the Mohammed cartoonists. A 40-year-old Dane of Moroccan origin and two Tunisians were arrested. The Dane ill be charged with a terrorism offense and the Tunisians deported.

The target of the plot, the intelligence service said, was the cartoonist for the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jullands-Posten, which first published the controversial drawings in September 2005. The paper identified the cartoonist as Kurt Westergaard.

“Not wanting to take any undue risks [the intelligence service] has decided to intervene at a very early stage in order to interrupt the planning and the actual assassination,” the statement by Jakob Scharf, the agency’s director general, said. “Thus, this morning’s operation must first and foremost be seen as a preventive measure where the aim has been to stop a crime from being committed.”

Westergaard and his wife have been under police protection for three months. In a statement, the 73-year-old Westergaard wrote:

Of course I fear for my life when the police intelligence service say that some people have concrete plans to kill me. But I have turned fear into anger and resentment.

While this is surely a “what a horrible world,” story, at least a potentially even more horrible story has been averted. For now.

MEANWHILEFox is suing Warners over the labyrinthine rights to the Watchmen movie:

Fox claims that between 1986 and 1990, it acquired all movie rights to the 12-issue DC Comics series and screenplays by Charles McKeown and Sam Hamm. In 1991, Fox assigned some rights via a quitclaim to Largo International with the understanding that the studio held exclusive rights to distribute the first motion picture based on “Watchmen,” according to the lawsuit.

When Largo dismantled, the rights were transferred to producer Lawrence Gordon. Under a “turnaround agreement” between Fox and Gordon, the producer agreed to pay a buy-out price to Fox if he entered into any agreement with another studio or third party to develop or produce “Watchmen,” among other things.

The project apparently bounced around to Universal and Paramount before returning to Warners. Now, Fox claims that neither Gordon nor Warners has paid the buy-out price or advised the studio of any other conditions required under the agreement, including procedures necessary to acquire the rights to “Watchmen” from Fox.

If you canfollow all that you should get a job as an agent for sure. ICv2 has some good analysis”

Typically these sorts of rights disputes between studios are settled before any suits are filed and usually before a film goes into production (remember how rights disputes held up the production of decent Spider-Man movie for years), but perhaps Fox feels that it has Warners over a barrel with the fate of a potentially lucrative superhero film at stake.

Perhaps.

The Writer’s Guild strike is over. Joe Harris reports from the East Coast::

We didn’t get everything we wanted. Didn’t get a lot of what we wanted, actually. And we certainly didn’t get as much as we damn well deserved. 17 days of what’s now called a promotional window to watch programs online without having the pay writers their justly due residuals is odious in my opinion… even if the studios maintain that TiVo and DVR watching has changed the way viewers watch programming for the first/initial time.

Mark Evanier reports from the West.

A feeling of victory seemed to be the prevailing mood. I lost count of the well-deserved standing ovations and when they opened the floor microphones for questions or arguments, they began getting only questions and minor suggestions about deal points. As of the moment I left, no one had suggested that the deal not be ratified…and it would have been very easy for someone to say that if they’d genuinely felt it was improvable.

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Evan Dorkin talks about DC’s “cartoonist ban”:

First up from the files, the only piece of art I was allowed to draw for the Superman and Batman: World’s Funnest book for DC Comics. Not that it appears anywhere in the book. Long story short, part of which has been covered here before: DC has a clause that prevents folks from writing and drawing material unless said person is on the payroll or incorporated. Fear of lawsuits from freelancers claiming their work-for-hire entitles them to ownership of Batman or whatever the hell under some newly-inaugurated copyright laws or whatever the hell. I guess based on DC’s history they fully expect people to try to do whatever underhanded thing they can to chisel money and ownership of other people’s characters when the opportunity even vaguely arises. Or whatever the hell.

End result, I wasn’t allowed to draw a page of World’s Funnest even though I tried to get around it by various means, all of which went bust. Can I have someone else write the page I would draw? A hassle, apparently. Pretend Sarah wrote it? We’d get in trouble and the world would break in half. Use a pseudonym? It could mean jail time and Siegel and Schuster regaining control of Pete Ross. Sign an agreement that I wouldn’t pursue my questionable rights to the DC empire if I drew a goddamned page of a comic? No, no, a thousand times no. They wouldn’t put me on the payroll for a lousy single page, and I wasn’t going to incorporate for a lousy single page, so, no go (Somehow this hasn’t been an issue at Marvel, expect them to lose the rights to every one of their characters any minute now. I’ve got dibs on Fight-Man and whoever else is left over after the great purge).

An Italian court has named Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Tweety and Mickey Mouse as witnesses in a counterfeiting trial .

The court summons cites Titti, Paperino, Paperina, Topolino — the Italian names for the characters — as damaged parties in the criminal trial of a Chinese man accused of counterfeiting products of Disney and Warner Bros.

While the story summons jokes of all levels– “I didn’t say she was crazy, your honor, I said she was fuckin’ Goofy!”–alas, it is just a clerical error. Instead of writing down the companies as witnesses, a clerk wrote down the names of the characters. That is fortunate, because it is unlikely Disney would have allowed Mickey and Donald to be extradited for the trial.

An editorial in the local Rome, GA paper points out the overwhelming absurdity of the Gordon Lee case:

AS THIS SPACE has repeatedly pointed out, the zeal with which elected officials are pursuing consistently trivial “family value” issues locally reflects negatively on the community. First of all, the single theme of these “big deals” give the appearance of Romans being throwback Puritans left behind by the sexual revolution — hardly true, as the local unwed pregnancy rate alone attests.

The local chamber of commerce and others work overtime to enhance the image of Rome as a great place to live, work and play — and some local officials seem to work overtime to make certain nobody outside of Rome believes it.

This comic-book case is particularly nutty — and if our observations now makes it impossible for an impartial jury to be seated, then so be it. Any jury anywhere else in the state would probably laugh this one out of court.

The piece goes on to reveal the piece de resistance of all this — near the courtroom where this legal farce is taking place, stands a statue of Romulus and Remus suckling the teats of a she-wolf, with their own naughty bits dangling out. “They don’t show a thing that the Picasso picture didn’t also show,” states the editorial.

Bully even found a photo of it.

As the editorial suggests, Georgia is particularly prone to these kind of senseless prosecutorial vendettas. The state where, until 1998 oral sex between a husband and wife was a crime punishable by 20 years in jail, was also the setting of the the Genarlow Wilson outrage: a 17-year-old boy was sentenced to 10 years in jail as a sex offender for having consensual oral sex (on tape!!!) with a 15-year-old girl. He ended up serving two years of his sentence while prosecutors fought appeal after appeal as the absurd case kept being overturned.

Our advice? Stay out of Georgia.

Who would have thought one of the biggest stories of the year would have broken over the Thanksgiving weekend? For those of you who have been living in a cave–or possibly on vacation for a week–both Marvel and DC have threatened comic book site Z-Cult with legal action regarding their plentiful torrents of comics. The site has agreed to remove ALL Marvel comics trackers, and to delay posting new DC comics trackers for 30 days. Newsarama has several news stories, and a zillion comments at their message boards. It appears that Top Cow, which has its own downloadable comics program in place, has joined Marvel and DC is asking for the trackers to be taken down.

We’re especially sad about all this because we’ve been getting rid of tons of books we had around the house for reference, thinking “Well, if we REALLY need it, we can just go to Z-cult”…and now THIS happens. Sheesh.

This post is just a place marker really as we attempt to catch up on this story, but Glenn Haumann over at ComicMix adds color with his account of a meeting with DC to deal with illegally pirating…2 1/2 years ago.. The post has a bunch of informative comments from ex-DC staffers, as well.

Do you remember the Spanish cartoon controversy?. Of course you do. Two cartooners for the satirical Spanish cartoon magazine El Jueves were accused of making fun of the royal family with a cover which showed the crown prince having…relations, let’s say, with his wife. So you could say that they WERE making fun of the royal family, which happens to be a crime in Spain. Yesterday, they were found GUILTY, according to this story in the UK Telegraph and artist Guillermo Torres and writer Manel Fontdevila were fined €3000 each.

Judge José María Vázquez Honrubia ruled that the two men “vilified the Crown in the most gratuitous and unnecessary way”. He said that they could serve 10 months house arrest if they refused to pay.

The public prosecutor, Miguel Angel Carballo, had demanded a fine of €6,000 each.

The duo has said they will appeal, but they seem to be enjoying the notoriety in the photo above.

If you keep reading this Telegraph piece, you get some bonus snark. According to the paper, “Spain has developed the most lurid pornography in Europe, with magazines and television shows dedicated to the sex lives of the rich and famous.” We also learn that

The cartoonists’ skill in poking fun at the ruling classes was perhaps nowhere better expressed than during their golden age in Britain between about 1780 and 1820.

The greatest exponents were James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson, whose main target was Napoleon Bonaparte.

so take that Ted Rall!

Ronald Castree has been found guilty of the 1975 child murder of Lesley Molseed. Castree is a well-known comics retailer in Manchester, England. A different man had been convicted of the crime, but released after DNA evidence proved his innocence.

A 54-year-old man has been jailed for life for the murder of schoolgirl Lesley Molseed more than 30 years ago.

Ronald Castree, of Brandon Crescent, Oldham, Greater Manchester, was told by the judge at Bradford Crown Court that he must serve a minimum of 30 years.

Lesley, 11, vanished from her Rochdale home in October 1975. Her body was later found on moors in West Yorkshire.

She had been stabbed and sexually assaulted. Castree’s DNA matched semen found on Lesley’s clothing.