Wednesday, November 13, 2002

Captain America - Free At Last! In 1941, a young pair of comic book creators, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, hit on a winning formula: a patriotic costumed hero they called Captain America. Published a few months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 by Marvel Comics (then called "Timely Comics"), Captain America proved to be a lucrative and long-lived property. If this story seems somewhat familiar, it was part of the basis for Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Cap was absent from comic books during the 1950s, but he was revived by Stan Lee and Kirby in the 1960s and has been a mainstay of the Marvel pantheon ever since. The problem is, having served his 60 years' enlistment in Marvel's army, the terms of the original work-for-hire agreement, always in dispute, have expired. Ownership of the character now returns to the surviving creator, Joe Simon. It wasn't an easy transition. Surprise, surprise: Simon had to go to court and get a ruling from the Second Circuit restoring his rights, at least for the time-being. Thanks to ampersand at Alas, a Blog for the detail and the pointer, and to Neil Gaiman for referring me there. 4:45:21 PM    Emphasize This! []

E-Books Done Right Fans of old-school popular literature must proceed forthwith, without fail, to Blackmask Online, the greatest collection of free e-books I have ever seen anywhere online. There are over 10,000 titles to choose from, in subjects ranging from serious (drama, criticism, modern thinkers) to the just-plain-fun (pulp fiction, adventure stories, humor, esoterica), all in  a variety of easy-to-download formats. Presumably most of this treasure trove is public domain (and if it's not, I'm not telling). It's totally amazing - go forth and enjoy! 1:13:50 PM    Emphasize This! []

Hart in the Right Place? There have been a few murmers lately that former Colorado Senator and 1984 Democratic presidential hopeful Gary Hart is considering re-entering the political arena. I'm not sure where Hart stands on today's issues, but in his time he was an articulate voice on economic policy, and has lately become something of a cassandra figure in security matters for his unheeded warnings about a lack of preparedness for terrorist attacks. Though tagged with the NewDem label before it was cool to be one, Hart proved his lefty cred beyond a shadow of a doubt as the national campaign manager for George McGovern's 1972 presidential run. Unfortunately, despite one of the more impressive resumes in the Democratic party, a political base in an intriguing part of the country (Mountain-West) and no small amount of personal charisma, Hart's plans for a comeback are routinely greeted with a rude snicker by the national media. This is of course because of an incident during the 1988 campaign signified by a singularly unfortunate photograph of Hart with his arm draped around a young blond-haired woman (Donna Rice? I forget...) in front of a boat called "Monkey Business." Oh shock! Oh horror! A public official who is perhaps unfaithful to his spouse? Strong stuff back in the innocent days of 1988, perhaps, when it may have lent some oblique creedence to general charges of "recklessness" in other matters leveled against Hart. But today, after a recovered drunk (and probably coke-head) has met with some success in the White House following two triumphant terms by a confessed adulterer, following a single term by a widely-known but unconfessed adulterer, do we not have ample proof that this so-called character issue has nothing whatsoever to do with the qualifications for being head-of-government? Unfortunately, the media can't let it go because Hart's real crime wasn't dallying around on the "Monkey Business," it was treating the media like idiots. The knock on Gary Hart in the newsroom is that he was the arrogant jerk who thought he could pull something over on us. Well, we showed him! And we're never going to let him or anyone else forget it. Too bad if this petty axe grinding keeps a compelling purveyor of ideas out of the public eye at a time when articulate, experienced statesmen are not so easy to find. 11:20:33 AM    Emphasize This! []