SWIPE, FILED FOR COPYRIGHT

This month the heirs of Jack Kirby, in accordance with copyright law, filed for many of the Marvel properties which Kirby co-created with Stan Lee, and for one which I judge to be little more than a reworked "swipe."

The usual use for the term "swipe" in comic-book circles is to indicate when Artist B has swiped, with minimal if any changes, some artistic rendering by Artist A, to the extent that one cannot doubt that Artist A's work was the model.

However, the term "swipe" has been used more broadly at times, and on occasion certain artists have been known to "swipe" even from their earlier selves, recycling configurations or designs they themselves have used for newer work.

However, the latter use is not the case with the claim being made by Jack Kirby's heirs to the Marvel property SPIDER-MAN. The complicated history of Spider-Man's genesis has been told best in Greg Theakston's 1990 zine PURE IMAGES #1, but as its contents aren't available on the web, this writeup by Al Nickerson (going on memory here) seems to substantially agree with Theakston's analysis.

As detailed therein, the sequence of events goes like this:

1) Joe Simon, together with writer Jack Oleck and artist C.C. Beck, conceive a proposal for a new character SPIDERMAN, which they present to one publisher, Harvey Comics. Simon creates a logo for SPIDERMAN but at the last minute the name of the character proposed is changed to THE SILVER SPIDER, probably in emulation of such long-running heroes as THE GREEN HORNET and THE BLUE BEETLE.

2) Harvey Comics rejects the proposal, which has very little "spidery" about it (as a letter from the editor notes) and which looks, thanks to Beck's art, much like a reprise of the artist's most famous comics-work, CAPTAIN MARVEL. The proposal then languishes in the Harvey offices for years.

3) Roughly around 1959 Simon reclaims the original proposal from Harvey and brings it to Jack Kirby. But instead of using either "spider" name, the duo decide to rework the Oleck-Beck-Simon- material into a new concept, THE FLY. Harvey Comics *does* accept this proposal and they publish the Fly's flights until cancelling that first series in 1964, though Simon and Kirby only collaborate on the first four issues. This entry by the Kirby Museum shows points of comparison between the Beck-Oleck-Simon work and the Simon-Kirby work on THE FLY's first appearance.

4) A few years later, Kirby, no longer teamed with Joe Simon, is working regularly for Marvel. Stan Lee asks if Kirby has any ideas for new features, and Kirby pulls forth the original concept of SPIDERMAN, complete with Simon's logo.

5) Kirby submits five rough pages to Lee. Lee allegedly doesn't like Kirby's take on the character, and reassigns the project to artist Steve Ditko. Lee and Ditko proceed to make SPIDER-MAN (now with 100% more hyphen!) into Marvel's best-selling feature.

Now, the legal suit of the Kirbys vs. Marvel today will unfold as it will no matter what I say about it.

But as much as I sympathize with Jack Kirby's treatment at the hands of Marvel and publisher Martin Goodman, I could only sympathize with his having significant rights to the SPIDER-MAN character *if* that input, as it appeared in that lost proposal, came directly from Kirby himself.

And though it's chancy to put much faith in reminiscences of some fifty years ago, it looks like whatever Kirby pulled out of his files was little more than a reworking of the Beck-Oleck-Simon SILVER SPIDER, with maybe a touch of the Simon-Kirby FLY-- in other words, a swipe.

I don't mean to be overly judgmental of the practice of swiping as an artistic survival skill. I'm sure everyone in the business does it and that it harms no one anyone as long as it's used minimally and with discretion.

But a swipe from Artist A seems a pretty weak basis to use in a case revolving around Artist B's rights.