Poor Mojo's Newswire

The final judgement has been handed down in the long running Gary Friedrich vs Marvel (Ghost Rider) case, and now we know the full amount that Friedrich owes Marvel. That’s right, Marvel, a company that stands to make millions of dollars from the upcoming Ghost Rider II movie, and is paying Nicholas Cage millions to portray a character that Friedrich created, now wants money from Friedrich – in specific $17,000. Essentially, Disney/Marvel counter-sued Friedrich over ownership of Ghost Rider, demanding all moneys he had made from selling prints of the character at conventions and the like, and won, so now Friedrich – who, by his own accounts, is unemployed and has no assets – finds himself owing the corporation that he believes stole his creation $17,000 with no way of paying. It’s one thing for Marvel to reassert itself legally as the owner of the character, but demanding $17,000 from someone who’s essentially penniless? That just seems cruel, and maybe worse for Marvel, something that can only lead to bad publicity for the company (and at a time when its treatment of Jack Kirby and the Kirby estate is getting some mainstream media attention, too). The sooner the decision is made to waive the “debt,” the better.

We have a new winner for largest Kickstarter-funded comic… and there’s still 22 days to go on the pledge drive. The “Order of the Stick Reprint Drive” is about a webcomic not acting like Marvel. That is to say, a few of the print collections of the Order of the Stick webcomic were out of print and creator Rich Burlew needed to get some cash up to afford the printing bill on some large full color books. $235K worth of pledges in a week? Yeah, I think it’s working. This particular Kickstarter campaign is a little unusual in two ways. First off, Order of the Stick has been around for over 6 years. It’s a very well known strip. I’ve actually checked out one of the print collections from a library. That’s not unheard of for a webcomic, but it’s not exactly standard operating procedure, either. This is a well-established strip with a pretty big fanbase to draw upon. Secondly, Burlew is getting pretty creative with the incentive premiums. To date, he has 34 different prizes for pledge levels. Starting with with a kitchen magnet and a PDF of a new story for $10 and going all the way up to $5K getting a walk-on part for your D&D character in the webcomic. Seriously, PBS could learn something about pledge drives from this guy. And his high-end incentives are mostly sold out. . . .