Wednesday, January 19, 2005

The Art of the Deal

The other day in this item, I pointed you all towards an unusual item being sold over on the Costco website. The link no longer works so I'm now getting e-mails from folks asking what the hell it was I wanted you to see there.

They were selling an original Picasso crayon sketch...and not a very good one. It was priced at $39,999.99 because, after all, who'd pay $40,000 for something like that?

I find two things especially amusing about this, one being that the Costco site is set up for multiple quantities. You not only could order the original Picasso sketch online, you could have specified that you wanted two or ten or fifty of them added to your shopping cart.

And the second thing is to wonder about the route by which a Picasso sketch winds up being sold by Costco. I mean, if I had one and I wanted to sell it, I don't think it would occur to me to say, "Hey, how about that store where I bought that case of toilet paper?" Or imagine it from Costco's point-of-view. They have buyers who sit there all day and the phone rings and they say, "You have how many truckloads of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda? Okay, if you can come up with another 200,000 units and make delivery by August 1, it's a deal." Then the guy gets another call and he says, "What? Original Picasso sketch? No, we aren't overstocked with them. Hmm...how many thousand units you got of them? Oh, you just have the one sketch? Well, we don't usually deal in...oh, what the hell. Sure, we'll sell that. Maybe we can work up some sort of package deal...you know, shrink-wrap it with ten pounds of Cascade Dishwashing Detergent..."

Sounds silly, I guess. But the Picasso is no longer on the Costco site so I guess they sold it. Let me know if you see any Chagalls over there...or maybe a closeout on Matisses. Also, I'm just about out of Windex.

• Posted at 8:54 PM · LINK

With Great Profits Comes Great Responsibility...

As noted in the previous item, Stan Lee has won the first scuffle in a lawsuit against Marvel Comics over profits relating to the Spider-Man movies. A couple of folks have written to ask what, if anything, this means for Spider-Man's co-creator, Steve Ditko. I'm not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV, but I'm pretty sure the answer is "Nothing," apart from some possible resentment. Stan's lawsuit, as I understand it, had nothing really to do with his status as co-creator of the character. He was not claiming ownership of the web-headed one or claiming that as co-creator he was entitled to anything...so there's no precedent here which could affect Ditko.

Stan's claim was a pretty simple contractual matter flowing from his employment deals with Marvel. His attorneys were claiming that one of those contracts stipulated he would receive certain sums of cash, if and when these movies were made. They sued, claiming he had not received the specified payments. If I read Marvel's response correctly, they're prepared to appeal based on some different interpretations of how the profits are to be calculated and which exploitations of the property are subject to Stan's cut. In other words, they're going to drag it out and argue every semi-colon, hoping Lee will see the wisdom of settling for a lesser sum. One suspects that no matter how things go, Smilin' Stan will be smilin' all the way to the Automated Teller.

And like I said, none of this relates to Mr. Ditko in any way. The dispute is about a specific contract Stan had as an executive of the company, and Ditko never had such a contract. In a just and benevolent world, the company would long since have loaded all their key creators down with hefty pensions and cash awards...but we rarely dwell in such a universe. I'm not saying it's right because, obviously, I don't think it is right. Alas, so many things are not.

• Posted at 8:26 PM · LINK

Clash of the Titans

Stan Lee has won Round One of his lawsuit against Marvel Comics over profits from the Spider-Man movie. Here's a report on the fisticuffs, which will continue with appeals.

• Posted at 12:13 PM · LINK

Wednesday Morning

In the wee small hours of this morning, I made a telephonic appearance on Ken Gale's fine New York radio show, 'Nuff Said. I talked about Will Eisner with Ken and his co-host, Mercy Van Vlack, and we said wonderful things about the late Mr. Eisner.

At one point, I was talking about how the comic art community has reacted to his passing and I said something like, "The only person I know who isn't depressed at the news is a guy who's hoping that it will free up a hotel room for the San Diego Con."

This morning, I got up and found an e-mail from someone that included the sentence, "I have a hunch you were just making a joke but really, if this means that there is a hotel room available, who would I contact about it?"

• Posted at 9:30 AM · LINK

January 20, 2005 • Current • January 18, 2005