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Exactly. Over a man who was illiterate and got his first money by marrying the widow of his dead boss.

You can see the cartoons here. I like the picture of a protester against the Freedom of Speach in London with a sign that read "Freedom Go To Hell". Here are other protestors and a nonviolent response.

Not like these were the first drawings of the man either.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/stewy1/2000/ampsycho.jpg

in American Psycho to this:

http://www.comicon.com/thebeat/images/machinist3.j pg

in the Machinist to this:

http://www.mtv.com/shared/media/news/images/b/Bale _Christian/sq-bale-shirtless-mira.jpg

in Batman. He dropped 1/3 of his body weight (180 to 120) for the machinist. Supposedly he wanted to go to 100 but the producers wouldn't let him.

BTW, see the machinist if you haven't.

and a few other sites has some good takes on the case:

The best of the lot is The Comics reporter at the Pulse
And little btis more or links:
The Comics Reporter
The Beat

and a few other sites has some good takes on the case:

The best of the lot is The Comics reporter at the Pulse
And little btis more or links:
The Comics Reporter
The Beat

That's about right. They claim no profits from the movies.

Here's a link about it.

Transformers are back and as popular as ever, along with G.I. Joe and a new, improved line of Masters of the Universe figures. Ahh, my childhood is "cool" once again.

A choice quote from Marvel's president, Bill Jemas:

"Finally, and really, I'll make this a personal statement, I just feel that there's something wrong with this current system, where if a book does not bear the stamp of the Comics Code Authority that there's something wrong with the book. I think frankly that's just bullshit. And that level of bullshit has really hurt the comic book business for the past 50 years. If you get to other countries in the world where there hasn't been this institution, comic books have become a significant, interesting, lively mainstream for of media with a tremendous amount of creative freedom and a hugely diverse offering."

Another interesting take, more specifically on Pearl Harbor, is this article with a lot of evidence that the Soviet Union manipluated the USA into drawing a Japanese attack, so that the Japanese would leave the Russians alone instead of whipping their butts as in 1905.

Don't have any links handy right now, so I'll do this off memory. Try Comicon.com's Splash Page had details, but a quick glance shows no info there now.

A few months ago, it came out that (due to the fact that Siegel and Shuster were not working under a work for hire contract, but had allowed what is now DC Comics to copyright their material), the family of Jerry Siegel (if memory serves; I don't think Shuster has any family left) has reclaimed the copyright on the original Superman stories.

Presumably, they and DC Comics will come to some sort of settlement on this; however, there has been speculation on what they can do based on this material, if they choose to do anything.

The general opinion is that they are limited in what they can do, in large part because DC Comics has a firmly established trademark on the Superman property. Marketing non-DC comic books, movies, etc. and labeling them as being about Superman could violate DC's trademark. That doesn't mean that it can't be done; simply that the material, while including the Superman character, couldn't be labeled using the Superman name, or the distinctive likeness of Superman.

Of course, they are also limited to the portion of the Superman history that is in the works in question. That would include Clark Kent, Lois Lane, maybe even Jimmy Olsen; but would not include, for example, kryptonite.

Anyway, my point is that trademarks are more powerful than copyrights, in that they only expire through lack of use, and that they protect the holder in a different way.

Most of the properties that corporations want to protect are source material for their trademarked characters; why doesn't that provide enough protection? No one can go out and make the Mickey Mouse Amusement Park, even if Steamboat Willie were public domain, without Disney's permission, because Mickey Mouse is their trademark. The amount of income that comes in from Steamboat Willie itself has to be neglible; the income from Mickey Mouse licensed products would not be reduced, as someone else producing anything not taken directly from Steamboat Willie would be violating Disney's trademark. Heck, I'm not sure that selling a shirt depicting a scene from Steamboat Willie wouldn't be a violation of Disney's trademark; the picture itself is in the public domain, but it still has Mickey(TM) on it....