Read This Letter

"My daughter Laura and I, as well as the Shuster estate, have done nothing more than exercise our rights under the Copyright Act. Yet, your company has chosen to sue us and our long-time attorney for protecting our rights."

Nikki Finke has published a letter from the late Joanne Siegel to Jeffrey Bewkes, Chairman and CEO of Time Warner, Inc.

The Siegel estate has been fighting to recapture their share of the copyright to Superman. Under U.S.copyright law, works sold to companies can be recovered by the creators at specified periods. There is no question that Superman was not a work for hire. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created it independently and tried selling it for years before it was bought by what was to become DC comics, now owned by Time Warner.

I've spent a fair amount of time on this blog warning creators about losing their rights. Anyone who has an idea that they hope to bring to the public needs to read this letter. Paste a copy of it wherever you do your creative work to remind you that it's possible to create a billion dollar property and still have to fight for what's legally yours.

"As for this letter, the purpose is three-fold:

"To protest harassment of us that will gain you nothing but bad blood and a continued fight.

"To protest harassment of our attorney by falsely accusing him of improper conduct in an attempt to deprive us of legal counsel.

"To make you aware that in reality this is a business matter and that continuing with litigation for many more years will only benefit your attorneys.

"This is not just another case. The public and press are interested in Superman and us and are aware of our and your litigations.

"The solution to saving time, trouble, and expense is a change of viewpoint. Laura and I are legally owed our share of Superman profits since 1999. By paying the owed bill in full, as you pay other business bills, it would be handled as a business matter, instead of a lawsuit going into its 5th year."

Walt Kelly Animation Drawing

Click to enlarge.

I haven't bought much original artwork in recent years, but I couldn't resist this drawing that I purchased on eBay recently. It's from the film We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us, made by Walt and Selby Kelly.

Walt Kelly, creator of the Pogo comic strip, was reportedly unhappy with the TV special made of the strip, The Pogo Special Birthday Special, which was directed by Chuck Jones. Following that, Kelly and his wife Selby decided to make an animated film on their own. Both of them had worked at Disney on the pre-war features and Selby had continued to work in animation after Walt left it to work in comic books and strips.

The film was to be a half hour, but it ended up being only 15 minutes or so. It also suffered from poor distribution, never playing TV and rarely screening anywhere. VHS copies were for sale several years ago, though I have no idea if that offer is still good.

The drawing above is of the pig villain in Kelly's film, a polluter who is happy to point out that he is no more guilty than those who think of themselves as innocent. Kelly's environmental view was that we were all responsible, not just the large companies who were known to pollute.

The drawing above is typical of Kelly's work in many ways. It is dimensional and Kelly's line varies its thickness to sculpt the forms of the character. The face is expressive; Kelly was a master of the pose that communicates.

I'm looking forward to having this drawing framed.

Mars Needs Box Office

The New York Times analyzes the failure of Mars Needs Moms:

“Mars Needs Moms” may lead to the end for the Zemeckis style of motion-capture filmmaking, which has proven increasingly unpopular with audiences. Unlike the digital animation used by Pixar, in which movies are created entirely by computer, the Zemeckis technique requires actors to perform on bare sets while wearing uniforms outfitted with sensors to record their movements. Those movements are then transferred into a digital model that computer animators use to create a movie.

Critics and audiences alike, with audiences voicing their opinions on Twitter, blogs and other social media, complained that the Zemeckis technique can result in character facial expressions that look unnatural. Another common criticism is that Mr. Zemeckis focuses so much on technological wizardry that he neglects storytelling.

Tatsumi Trailer

The trailer for the animated feature based on the work of manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi can be seen here.

The Benefits of Ownership

Two comics, two creators, two different outcomes.

A couple of things popped up this week which show, by contrast, the benefits of ownership.

Jeff Smith is a former animator who is the creator of Bone and RASL. Bone began in the '90s as a self-published comic book distributed to comics shops. Since then, Smith has collected the comics in a series of graphic novels and a one volume edition. Scholastic Books reprinted the series in colour and later this year, there will be a one volume colour edition.

Smith had a movie deal with Nickelodeon for Bone, but Nickelodeon dragged things out Smith and Nickelodeon parted company. Later, Smith made a deal for Bone with Warner Bros. The experience with Nickelodeon made Smith more demanding, and Warner Bros. agreed to his terms.

Now, Smith's latest comics series RASL has also been sold to Hollywood.

The week, the depositions in the copyright termination case brought by the Jack Kirby estate against Marvel were made public. The case turns on whether Kirby's work was at the direction of the company or if Kirby was a creator who sold his work to Marvel. The waters are muddy as the legal arrangements in the comic book business in the 1960s were shockingly casual.

Regardless of the legal decision and one's own opinion, Kirby is definitely the designer of The Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Thor, Ant Man, Nick Fury, The X-Men, and the many villains and supporting characters who filled the stories that he drew for these characters.

Kirby was way more prolific than Jeff Smith in terms of the number of his creations and the number of pages he drew. Yet Smith is a millionaire and Kirby never received a nickel beyond what he was paid for each individual page.

Because Smith owns Bone, he has been able to repackage it and profit from it each time. He's been able to merchandise it and license it to other media. He will be able to do the same with RASL and will be an executive producer of the film.

Kirby owned nothing of what he created at Marvel, unless the termination of copyright suit determines otherwise. Just using the Hulk as an example, the work has been reprinted countless times, been an animated TV series, a live action TV series, two feature films and countless toys, posters, etc. Kirby was not compensated for any of this.

As much as we love animation, it is a team sport. It takes a lot of people and a lot of money to make a film. That leaves animation creators pitching their ideas to corporations in order to get their ideas funded, and the corporations routinely take ownership. A first-time creator has no leverage to gain a percentage of the profits, merchandising or to reserve certain rights. In this regard, animation creators resemble Jack Kirby more than they resemble Jeff Smith.

However, if you can establish ownership of your property and demonstrate that it has an audience, you can continue to control and to profit from your work. That probably means working in a medium other than animation to start with, but given Hollywood's current mindset about sequels and pre-sold properties, it's probably more likely you'll get an animated film made by creating something outside animation than inside it.

Jeff Smith could take advantage of different economic circumstances in the comic book field in the '90s than Jack Kirby had in the 1960s. And with all due respect to Kirby, Smith has a better head for business than Kirby ever had. That's the point. I'd be hard pressed to name anyone who worked in popular culture in the 20th century who was more fertile or prolific than Jack Kirby. Smith, by comparison, is a lightweight. But because Smith maintained ownership of his work, he maintained more control of it and made more money from it than Jack Kirby. That's the benefit of ownership.

Børge Ring's New Website

As a 90th birthday gift, Børge Ring's children have created a website for him. You can watch his independent films there and leave him a message. Eventually, the site will include links to articles about Børge and information about his musical career.

Toronto's Starz Animation Studio Sold

The Winnipeg Free Press is reporting that Starz Animation has been sold to a group of investors headed by marketing executive J. Thomas Murray and executive producer Steven B. Hecht. Starz LLC, the current owners, will continue to own a minority stake.

Starz latest project is Gnomeo and Juliet, which has grossed more than $74 million and is still showing in theatres.

The studio was founded by Dan Krech and was known for years as DKP. It was sold to American telecom company IDT, which made the cgi feature Everyone's Hero in the facility. IDT abandoned the animation business and sold the studio to Starz LLC. The Toronto studio is also responsible for the feature length version of Shane Acker's 9.

(Thanks to Paul Teolis.)

False Comparisons

Michael Barrier was interviewed in the Huffington Post for an article entitled "Animated Man: Cartoon Expert Michael Barrier Decries Pixar, Computers." This article already has multiple comments about Barrier's views and the article was linked to on Cartoon Brew, where there are yet more comments.

Two quotes caught my eye.

"What I'd call the direct connection between the animator and the character that you have when the animator is drawing the character with a pencil on a sheet of paper, it simply doesn't have an equivalent as far as I'm aware, or if it has an equivalent, it's much harder to establish."

I've already attempted to debunk this based on the techniques of both drawn and computer animation. My opinion hasn't changed. It's not the technique, it's how the production is organized. Should a cgi feature want a strong connection between animator and character, there is no technical reason why it couldn't be accomplished.

There are other reasons, salaries being one, that are incentives to prevent it. The more animators remain anonymous and the less distinctive their work, the harder it will be for an animator to demand a higher wage. As it is unlikely that an animator's name will ever increase the box office gross the same way a star voice does, why create star animators who will only drive up the budget?

The other quote is this one:

"If you look back, we've had computer animated features for 16 years going back to 'Toy Story,' and we've had computer animated characters before that, I have not seen the kind of evolution of those characters anything like the extremely compressed and dramatic evolution of the hand drawn characters in the 30s. When you think about how Disney went from 'Steamboat Willie' in 1928 to 'Snow White' less than ten years later, I think that's an extremely compressed [growth] that I don't think computer animation has nearly approached. What you have instead in computer animation is a continuing elaboration on texture and surfaces and three dimensional space without anything comparable for characters."

I am at a loss to understand why the development of one medium is being measured against the development of another. It assumes that both media exist in a vacuum, not part of larger forces such as the Hollywood industrial model of the time, the availability of media to the public, the prevailing popular culture and the world economy. The conditions that existed when Walt Disney grew from Steamboat Willie to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs are wholly different than those that exist today.

Let's examine what Walt Disney actually did. If you look at the Oswald cartoons, made immediately before Steamboat Willie, you see films that are ten or more years behind the times compared to live action films. The films are shorts instead of features and at the level of story, characterization and acting, they are not as accomplished as Chaplin's The Immigrant of 1917. Compare the Oswalds to the best live action of the time (The Big Parade, The General, The Gold Rush, Sunrise, Seventh Heaven, The Crowd, Underworld, etc.) and you see a medium that cannot compete as an equal. Except for its use of sound, Steamboat Willie was no better.

What Disney was able to do in ten years was bring animation up to the level of live action films. Snow White and the films that followed were taken as seriously by film professionals, critics and audiences as the live action films of the time.

While computer animation struggled mightily against its technical limitations in the '80s and '90s (and I know because I was there), the advances made by Disney were taken for granted. The techniques developed at the studio were codified to the point where they could be taught in a classroom to 18 year olds at Cal Arts, including John Lasseter, and put between book covers by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. Computer animation's problem wasn't knowing what was needed, which was often the case in the '30s, it was figuring out how to make characters flexible enough via software. Which is to say that computer animation didn't start as crudely as Disney animation did and had less far to go to get up to the level of live action films.

And the state of live action films is a key point. Disney did not exceed the expectations of what a live action film was supposed to be in his time and computer animation is not exceeding it today. I can make an economic and cultural argument that computer animation is more successful than Walt Disney ever was in that cgi films have been nominated for Best Picture, are more numerous and have been more profitable on a consistent basis than the features Disney made himself.

You can't criticize computer animation without looking at the bigger picture. This article in GQ, entitled "The Day the Movies Died," is subtitled "No, Hollywood films aren't going to get better anytime soon." Computer animated films exist in the same economic structure and cultural zeitgeist as live action films and aren't going to escape the problems that plague the larger industry.

I'm not defending the current state of computer animated features. I just saw a preview of Rango, directed by Gore Verbinski, and while the people at ILM have done a great job on the technical side, the film itself is thoroughly mediocre. It's emotional tone is all over the map; sometimes it's a parody and sometimes it wants to be taken seriously. Its references to other films only reminded me that it's inferior to the films it's quoting. And it is a perfect example of Barrier's observation that "computer animation is a continuing elaboration on texture and surfaces and three dimensional space without anything comparable for characters."

But I insist that it's not the medium. It's the structure of Hollywood and its economic model and it's what the public expects from movies. If computer animation sucks (and it often does), there are many more reasons than technology that are the cause. Furthermore, I don't think comparing it to Disney in the '30s is a valid or useful comparison.

Jones and Freleng Interviewed in 1980

Chuck Jones (top) and Friz Freleng. That's a Blackwing pencil in Jones' hands and he spends the interview playing with it. I don't know where the Jones interview was shot, but Freleng's is in his office at DePatie Freleng. I met Freleng there in 1978.

For years, Elwy Yost hosted a show called Saturday Night at the Movies on TV Ontario. He would run classic films and TVO would send him to Hollywood once a year to film interviews that related to the films he scheduled. In 1980, he interviewed Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng.

Elwy was very much a fan, and not a particularly informed one. His questions were often naive and his reactions were overly enthusiastic. However, he did speak to a great many important Hollywood figures and was genuinely interested in their careers.

I have these interviews on VHS somewhere and remember being disappointed by how superficial they were. If I recall correctly, you could see Freleng's patience getting a little thin at times. However, how many on camera interviews are there with Freleng? Jones certainly received a lot of coverage in those days and had his stories down pat, but it's still nice to see and hear him again.

Michael Barrier has recently printed an interview with Warner Bros. director Robert McKimson from 1971. That's essential reading and frankly way better than Yost's interviews. If you hunger for more Warner directors looking back, though, you can watch Yost's interviews with Jones and Freleng here.

Scott Caple Retrospective

Scott Caple is having a show of his work at the Toronto Cartoonist Workshop, 486 College Street, just west of Bathurst, in Toronto. The opening is Friday, Feb. 25 from 7 to 11 p.m.

Scott is a 30 year veteran of the business, having done effects work on Raiders of the Lost Ark and layout and design for films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Incredibles. He's worked for Nelvana, Industrial Light and Magic, Don Bluth, Disney and Pixar and has also done designs for videogames and book illustrations. For the last several years, Scott has been teaching layout at Sheridan College, where he also mentors 4th year students in the making of their films.

While the art will be up for awhile, it is in the regular classroom space of the workshop. As such, the retrospective doesn't really have regular hours. Scott tells me that he'll try and set up an additional time when the art can be viewed for those who can't make it on Friday.

Happy 90th Børge Ring!

February 17 is Børge Ring's 90th birthday. I want to wish him the warmest of birthday greetings and thank him once again for the films he has made, Oh My Darling, Anna and Bella and Run of the Mill.

All the best to you, Børge!

Animated Tatsumi

Yoshihiro Tatsumi is a manga artist who is the founder of the gekiga movement, one which took manga into the area of adult content. In some ways his work resembles film noir, dwelling on desperate outcasts who are driven by their emotions to behave in socially unacceptable ways. Tatsumi's work has been published in English by Drawn and Quarterly.

Eric Khoo, a Singaporean director, is adapting several Tatsumi works into an animated feature film. The only information I've found on the film is here.

I've admired Tatsumi's work for years and hope that this film will be worthy of it.

Tatsumi in Toronto in 2009 for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.

Helletoon

Teletoon is running another one of those contests that essentially rape creators while pretending to do creators a favour.

By submitting your film -- not winning, just submitting -- here's what Teletoon takes:

You hereby grant TELETOON Canada Inc., its affiliates, agents and each of their successors and assigns (collectively ,”TELETOON”) the unlimited, irrevocable and royalty-free licence and right to use, display, exhibit, edit, modify licence, sub-licence and otherwise exploit the video (“Video”) you upload to www.teletoonatnight.com (“Website”) without notice or compensation to you or any third party, in perpetuity throughout the world, in any and all manner, media or technology now known or hereafter devised including, without limitation, TELETOON’s television services, websites, or in any promotion or programming for TELETOON.

In short, they can do whatever they like with your film without your permission or without any payment to you. They can sell it to anyone they choose. They can edit it or modify it in any way they like. They can do this anywhere in the world, forever, in any existing medium or any medium not yet invented. You have a problem with that? Too bad. By submitting, you've given up your legal right to complain:

You fully discharge, release, indemnify and hold harmless TELETOON and its respective directors, officers, employees, agents, representatives and advertising and promotional agencies (collectively, “Releasees”) from any or all claims, demands, damages, losses, expenses (including any legal fees and expenses) actions or causes of action whatsoever incurred by or asserted against Releasees arising out of or in connection with: (a) any breach or alleged breach of any representation, warranty, promise or agreement made by you in this agreement; or (b) TELETOON’s use of the Video in accordance with the rights and licences you granted to it under this agreement.

It is disturbing to me that Teletoon does not find this offensive. Why would anyone want to do business with these people? What they are doing with these contests is vacuuming up other people's intellectual property and planting their flag on it. I hope this contest fails to attract entrants and I would discourage anyone from entering.

The truth is, if you have a film you want to pitch to them or anyone else, make an appointment and pitch it. If they don't want it, you walk out of the meeting with them having no rights whatsoever to your film or idea. And if they want it, get yourself a good lawyer and squeeze every penny you can out of them. Because they have no scruples about taking your property without paying. They've stated that in black and white.

If you have the stomach for it, you can read the details here.

CGI Character Design

"I don't personally respond to the design in "Beowulf," "Polar Express," "Christmas Carol," "Final Fantasy" or anything that skews toward realism. There's an eye-contact issue with those characters. It never seems like they're making eye contact with each other -- they kind of have dead eyes. It's an eye-tracking issue. There's always this blank stare look.

"And if you look at "Polar Express," for example, they tried to make the main characters that Tom Hanks played look kinda like Tom Hanks and in some instance really trying to look like Tom Hanks. That's going beyond making your character look real -- you're trying to make him look like one of the most well-known personalities in the world. I would much rather see Tom Hanks in a movie than I would want to see a facsimile of Tom Hanks."

Salon interviews character designer Shannon Tindle.

Vintage TV Commercials

Duke University has put their collection from the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles Archives online through iTunes. You can access the animated commercials here. Lots of Post cereal and Beech-Nut gum and candy commercials.

iTunes is a clunky interface for quickly working through these TV spots, but if you have the patience, you can find some interesting work.

(link via Boing Boing)

Creative Talent Network Videos

The Creative Talent Network, hosts of the CTN Expos held the last two years, has posted a series of videos from the Expos featuring industry folks such as Mike Mignola, Steve Hickner, Chris Bailey, Kathy Altieri, Jerry Beck, Andy Gaskill, Dave Master and others. You can find the complete series of videos here.

Bob Clampett's High School Yearbook

Warner Bros. animation director Bob Clampett's high school yearbook is up for sale on Ebay. Starting bid is $249.99, but you can buy it now for $324.99 if you are so inclined.

The listing includes many cartoons done by Clampett for the yearbook, so even if you're not in the market to buy, it's still worth visiting the link and see what Clampett's high school cartoons look like. The yearbook is from 1930 and shortly after graduating, Clampett went to work for Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising at Warner Bros. on the Merrie Melodies series. Five years later, he became a director and went on to direct some of the greatest Warner Bros. cartoons in the first half of the 1940's.

(link via Mark Evanier)

Two Links for Independents

Here are two articles about alternatives to the accepted ways of doing business.

This story from Fast Company is interesting because it explains how the people running YouTube see their business. It also goes into detail about how advertising revenue is being generated and split with content producers.

This story about Brooklyn animator Mark Stansberry tells how he's marketing his character and cartoons on the N.Y. subway system.

Oscar Nominations

I don't take any awards seriously in that I don't take anybody's word that something is the "best" in any given category. However, I do take awards seriously as a marketing tool.

In the animated feature category, I'm happy to see that The Illusionist received a nomination. Of the three nominees (the other two being Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon), it is the film most likely to benefit from the nomination in that it is the only one of the three that is still in theatrical release. This should give it a bump at the box office. It will also boost the eventual DVD sales.

The other two films have already made most of their money. Their theatrical runs are over and their DVD sales peaked before last Christmas. While the nominations may goose their DVD sales a bit, the overall impact on their profits will be minimal.

The nomination of The Illusionist is also good for drawn animation. Anyone trying to finance a drawn feature will use this nomination as proof that the medium is still artistically viable. No nominations are needed to argue that for computer animation at this point in time.

Having said all of the above, I would be very surprised if The Illusionist wins. I think it's a given that Toy Story 3 will win the category. Its nomination for Best Picture is an indication of how much Academy members like it, but they will never vote for it in that category. The Illusionist has a better chance of winning Best Animated Feature than Toy Story 3 has of winning Best Picture, and I wouldn't place a bet on either occurring.

Mark Kausler Interviewed

If you have ever read a book about American animation history, the odds are that Mark Kausler's name is in the acknowledgments. In fact, if his name isn't there, you probably shouldn't bother to read the book.

Besides being one of the most knowledgeable people on animation's history, Kausler is also an animator himself who has worked on features such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Fantasia 2000 and Osmosis Jones; TV series like Snookums and Meat and his own independent film, It's the Cat (you can view the pencil test here).

The Animation Guild, as part of its continuing series of podcasts, has interviewed Kausler. Here is part one and here's part two.