Quite interesting this thread....

I disagree with anyone who would deprive the co-creator to go on with the creation....Unless the heir had anything directly to do with the character, there shouldn't be a gripe. It is a litigious society we live in.....

If Paul McCartney wanted the Beatles to go on then he certainly had the right to. I don't think Sean or Julian have the right to stop him. Speaking hypothetically, of course.

Naturally, you like to please all parties involved, but sometimes you have to please yourself.

I side with Moebius on this one.

SDC

Jean-Marc asks that legal considerations be left out of this debate, but I don't see how they can be, when the crucial question is "doesn't Giraud have the *right* to do this?"

If the question was "_shouldn't_ Giraud have the right...?", then I would say "it depends on the agreement between the creators," in which case we still have the legal situaution.

Any new Bluberry works would be derivative works of the original collaborations. So the question is, do(es) the copyright holder(s) approve of the new works?

If yes, then the new works should be allowed. If not, then not.

To me, the answer to the legal question is also the answer to the moral question in this case.

The only part left to be answered is: if the copyright is jointly held by Giraud and Charlier Jr. (as I suspect), then, do *both* copyright holders have to agree on derivative works, or just one?

Legally, I don't know the answer. But morally, I would say that both copyright holders should have to agree, unless it was previously decided otherwise.

So, the short answer after that not-too-short reasoning ... if Charlier is co-owner of the copyright, Giraud should not be allowed to do whatever he likes with the character.


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Marc Fleury
Go to the John & Cori website right now you doofus!
www.panel1.com/abdo/jnc

Kim, I think you've made Moebius (Giraud)'s case very eloquently. Of course, Philippe Charlier (JM Charlier's son) would vehemently disagree with you...

The core of the argument (I may be repeating myself here) is that Giraud wants to take BLUEBERRY in a more, er, mystical/magical direction, while Charlier's son believes (probably correctly) that this is a total betrayal of his father's published intentions (ie: outline) for the character.

There's no villain here. Giraud feels that he must be true to his inspiration. Charlier's son feels he is protecting his father's (co-) creation from something akin to artistic vandalism.

Marc Fleury is right: the law cannot be left out of the discussion entirely, even though no one here (except me) is versed in French law.

I'll try to address some of the pertinent issues.

-- the copyright (or rather ownership) of the BLUEBERRY series is indeed shared between Giraud and Charlier (or their respective heirs). It's like a house jointly owned by two brothers. When one brother dies, his family inherits his share of the property.

Decisions must therefore be taken jointly. I am not sure, however, if a French court would automatically consider that this applies to ARTISTIC decisions, and not merely BUSINESS ones.

That said, that does not give one of the party total power over the other. For example, if the roof leaks, and one brother refuses to fix it, under French law the other brother can get it fixed and then recover half the cost (assuming 50-50 ownership) from the other brother.

Another hypothetcal yet real-life situation: if a film producer offered $1 million for the rights to BLUEBERRY to make a film, and one of the two authors decided to accept, and the other refused to sign unless the offer was $2 million, I think the author who wanted to take the deal could demonstrate that $1 million is a good price, well in line with industry standards, and that the other author is abusing his position. I think he could force the deal to go through, or sue the other author for half of the money.

In the case of BLUEBERRY, if Giraud brings a proposal for a BLUEBERRY SHAMAN to his publisher, and Charlier refuses to sign the publishing agreement, PURELY BECAUSE THE DISAGREES WITH THE CONTENTS OF THE BOOK, as long as all the terms are the same (meaning, he is not being financially swindled), I am of the opinion that a French Court would consider this an abuse of right and would authorise the publication of the book.

-- As regards the famous "Droit Moral" so dear to the Europeans, the recent lawsuit between Albert Uderzo (the artist and co-creator of ASTERIX) and Anne Goscinny (daughter of Rene Goscinny, co-creator & writer of ASTERIX) (funny how writers seem to be the first to die?), defined the extent of the Droit Moral that is transmissible to the Heirs.

In essence, the Court said that the Droit Moral of the Deceased was indeed transmitted to his Heirs, but purely as the "guardians of the memory" of the Deceased, and that they (the Heirs) "don't have the power to make decisions based on their own opinions and personal tastes."

Like most judgments, this ruling can sometimes be interpreted in different ways. For example, Charlier's son would argue that he is not defending his "personal taste" but his father's... Also, it has not yet been confirmed (or infirmed) by an appellate court, so its validity as a precedent is still somewhat limited.

In my opinion, Charlier's son would have a tough time convincing a French court, for which all comics probably look the same, that a Blueberry Shaman instead of a Blueberry Pistolero causes any actual damage to the memory of his late father.

Like Kim Thompson, I'm inclined myself to vote for letting Giraud do what he wants. After all, it's the only *practical* thing to do, short of cancelling the series (which Charlier's son seems ominously prepared to do if I interpret his words on BDParadisio correctly).

This raises an interesting philosophical point: if instead of belonging to its creators (and heirs), BLUEBERRY belonged to its publisher, a situation like this would not arise.

(The standard French publishing contract pays royalties based on cover price for ever, plus 50% of all the monies the Publisher makes from ancillary sales, so the creators would still be handsomely rewarded in proportion to the success of their creation, no matter who held the keys, so to speak.)

JM

A surviving co-creator should be able to take a character in a completely different direction if [and only if] the deceased collaborator left no notes about hir plans for the future of the character. If nothing was left to go by, then the heirs shouldn't have the right to stop the survivor's new direction for the work. If the deceased did leave notes, then they should be respected by the surviving creator. If s/he didn't, then the heirs should be able to stop hir.

It's my understanding that the driving creative force in BLUEBERRY was Charlier. If Charlier hadn't died in 1989, then we would assume he would have followed his outline up to the Prohibition story, and if Moebius didn't want to do it, they would have worked out a compromise or Moebius would have left the book. I think Moebius should just let the series end, out of both respect for his collaborator and to avoid a legal entanglement that seems so needless. I certainly wouldn't consider a BLUEBERRY book written outside of Charlier's outline a travesty, but it is decidedly rude.

Thanks to my perpetual poverty, I've only read a few BLUEBERRY novels, and I don't recall anything in them that paves the way for any metaphysical shenanigans; they were pulpy, but realistic. To me, it makes sense that a pulpy down-to-earth series would end with a fairly down-to-earth ending. For Moebius to take it to mystical extremes just because he can is selfish and senseless.

Why doesn't Moebius simply let BLUEBERRY end and do the mystical western Jean Marc describes with a new character? Does Moebius's new stories hinge on them happening to Blueberry himself? If that's the case, why not avoid a headache [and, I hope, the occasional pang of conscious] and pull [loathe as I am to suggest it] a WATCHMEN style roman a'clef and do Blueberry without it being Blueberry?

Anyway, I'd like to throw a hypothetical artist/writer team death scenario, for everyone's perusal:
Let's say Alan Moore dropped dead somewhere around the fifth or sixth issue of FROM HELL, but left an outline for the rest of the series. Now, should Eddie Campbell have the right to change directions and turn the series into a more straightforward BACCHUS-esque storyline?

And, in the context of this thread, the idea of "Kirby taking THE FANTASTIC FOUR in directions different from what Stan Lee would have done" is moot, since the FF is owned by Marvel Comics.

"(funny how writers seem to be the first to die?)"

This is kind of morbid to ask, but isn't Carlos Sampayo gravely ill at the moment?

[This message has been edited by Milo George (edited 06-29-99).]

Yes, the point is moot as regards the ownership of the Silver Surfer, but this does parallel what actually happened with the character.

I remember reading an interview with Jack in the 80's wherein he expessed hi dismay regarding the Lee/Buscema Silver Surfer series (which has always been so loved by fans.)

Evidently, this completely changed tha origin that Jack envisioned when he created the character. Of course he created the character under the terms of the "back-of-the-paycheck" contract then in force throughout the comics business, so Stan was perfectly within his rights as Marvel's editor to decide the direction of waht had become a Marvel property.

I do wonder, though, how fans of the Lee/Buscema series who also took up the cause of creator's rights in the 70's and 80's reconcile these two conflicting interpretations of the character.

I didn't care for the Lee/Buscema series myself and thus I never had much interest in the character. As a result I've never read the Lee/Kirby SS graphic novel and I don't know if the creative conflict was resolved ther or not.

Jim Hanley

Milo:

I think you present a very cogent argument in favor of Charlier's side, but I think it is unrealistic to expect the survining creator to conform to a dead partner's wishes.

For a start, Giraud is not Charlier, and Campbell is not Moore. In the absence of Charlier or Moore, the best they could do is a pale approximation of the deceased's work.

(ASTERIX is a case in point, where Uderzo bravely attempts to imitate Goscinny's style of story and writing and completely fails.)

Maybe it would be better at that stage to stop the work and not continue the series. But that is unrealistic too. Not only for business reasons, but also because the surviving partner may genuinely want to continue.

And if has his own ideas... I was given to understand that Eddie Campbell had differences with Alan Moore about some of the aspects of FROM HELL (Queen Victoria's role).

I know that Giraud was never entirely too happy about the more pulpish, cliched aspects of BLUEBERRY. He thinks of BLUEBERRY much more as a reflection of himself, which wasn't the case with Charlier.

Who is to deny the right of the surviving creator to pursue his own path?

After all, the readers are ultimately free to reject the work if it doesn't meet with their expectations -- as Jim Hanley did with the Lee/Buscema SURFER.

JM

Much as I admire Moebius -- thinking this over, I'm on the Charlier side.

Legally, it seems they're co-owners, and Giraud is proposing to build additions to a house he co-owns that the other owner finds ugly and repellent. Doesn't matter if it doesn't alter the existing house -- Charlier Fils co-owns the additions as well, and he doesn't want 'em, and doesn't like what they do to the expanded structure.

The argument that one co-owner could force another co-owner to sell his property to the movies if he could demonstrate to a court that the offer was within industry standards is repellent to me -- it supposes that the only thing that matters is the money. If one co-owner doesn't want the work sold to those filmmakers, or perhaps doesn't want there to be a film at all, that strikes me as legitimate. That's what ownership means.

I think that co-owners should be careful to decide ahead of time who gets to break a tie vote, or accept that they have equal say and can't proceed at all unless they're both in agreement. That's what happened to Phil Foglio and Freff on D'ARC TANGENT, and for all that I'd have liked to see more DT, I'd rather see both owners' rights honored. Better to have no DT than to have rights someone never gave away, sold or otherwise transferred taken away from him by force.

I have no idea if there's any legality under that; it's just my opinion. If James Fry and I can't agree over what to do with LIBERTY PROJECT, nothing will get done. For either of us to knowingly trample the other's wishes would be repulsive to me.

I'll admit, I'd have sided more with Giraud, as an actual co-creator, over Charlier Fils, as an heir -- except that in this case, we do know Charlier Pere's wishes. He wrote 'em down.

In such a case, I don't think anything should be done with the property unless a direction can be found that both co-owners are happy with. Or, failing that, if Giraud can do his BLUEBERRY without concern for the wishes of the property's co-owners, Charlier Fils should be able to do the same -- and do whatever he likes with BLUEBERRY without concern for Giraud's wishes.

I expect this'll be decided by the courts. But if Giraud really wants to do BLUEBERRY in a way that violates Charlier's vision of the character, I think he should make up a new cowboy. That way, he can tell any story he wants, without affecting in any way Charlier Fils's rights to and interest in BLUEBERRY.

Of course, if it's BLUEBERRY, it'll sell better. But is that a good enough reason to change "ownership" from being about control to being merely about the right to profit from the exploitation of the work, so long as the money's good enough to satisfy some judge?

This being a money-oriented world, I imagine it'll work out that way. But I can't imagine doing that to an equal partner's wishes, and would hope it wasn't done to me. I'd make up a new character, and take the lower sales.

No offense meant to Giraud -- I'm sure he feels strongly about this, and is doing what he feels best. I just don't agree with him.

kurt

And come to that -- I'd love to see Blueberry as an old man in Prohibition-era Chicago...

kurt

Holding a surviving creator to an outline left by a deceased one is a creative shackles. The outline was Charlier's plan for the future of the character, that does not make it Giraud's plan, or imply any obligation.

It occurs to me that the Charlier heirs may have it in their rights to hire a creative team to pursue the late Mssr Charlier's vision and let the fans decide which they want to continue reading. Any chance of that JM?

I have only read a couple of the books, and I find Mssr Giraud to be a more interesting storyteller left to his own devices anyway.

Since I read all the Asterix books in French, it is harder for me to notice any inherent flaws in the post-Goscinny books. The only one I have read in English was the Magic Carpet. It seemed to fit the format pretty well, but I blamed the reliance on bad puns on the fact that it was most likely translated by English folk who tend to go for that sort of thing. However, from what I understand, SOMEBODY should have tried to stop the live-action film.

MtPanic
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>>Holding a surviving creator to an outline left by a deceased one is a creative shackles.>>

True. But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

Co-creating something and agreeing to share it -- as opposed to giving one partner greater control, or selling the whole shebang work-for-hire, or whatever -- in itself carries with it the concept of limiting one's freedoms. I don't see a problem with the idea that one partner can will his share of something to someone else, and then that someone else can speak with the authority of the partner. The ability to transfer ownership -- and with it, control -- is a part of ownership, too.

If Giraud wants complete creative freedom, he's free to create something himself -- he's done it before. But if he wants to use BLUEBERRY, which he isn't the sole creator or owner of, he's choosing to work in a situation in which he shares control of that property with someone else. If Charlier and Giraud had wanted to have control of BLUEBERRY convert to the sole control of the survivor upon one partner's death, they could have agreed on that, and taken steps to make it happen. But they didn't, for whatever reason.

That gives Charlier's son a say in what happens, if Charlier's co-ownership of his co-creation -- which would include the right to transfer, bequeath or assign it -- is to mean anything.

kurt