I think a lot of people who think, like, 'geez, will this old guy just give it up and get over it already,' aren't capable of putting themselves in his shoes and seeing that he's been really hurt by this.

I think it's like the people who take the position that Kirby's family deserve nothing: They would have been the people complaining, when Kirby was alive, 'geez, old guy, give it up, already.'

An interesting bit of trivia: In the heyday of pulps and science-fiction magazines (even anthology shows like Twilight Zone), a common theme was making a deal with the devil in which the terms of the contract are deviously hard to divine. Rod Serling once explained that the device was so common because so many writers had the experience of dealing with dishonest and devious publishers.