Author Derrick Ferguson’s New Pulp character, Dillon marks his 10 anniversary in 2013 and Derrick has a few plans for the occasion. You can read all about Dillon’s anniversary celebration at http://dillon-dlferguson.blogspot.com/2012/11/coming-attractions-7-dillon-2013.html.

Altus Press has converted a new batch of their existing titles into ebook formats for Kindle, Nook, ophone, ipad, and iphone Touch.

For a full list of titles, prices, and links, visit www.altuspress.com/2012/11/another-wave-of-ebooks-available.

 “I was taught to believe you could use words to change the course of rivers – that even the darkest secrets would fall under the harsh light of the sun. But facts have been replaced by opinions. Information has been replaced by entertainment. Reporters have become stenographers. I can’t be the only one who’s sick of what passes for the news today.”

Well said, Clark!

The words that begin this column were spoken by Clark Kent as he quit his job at Metropolis’ greatest (and only?) newspaper, the Daily Planet.

Clark has been a journalist at the Planet for either five years, or 74 years, depending on whether you prefer comic book years or the kind of years most of us measure time by. Either way, what Clark did was a noble gesture.

This is not Mr. Kent’s first stray from the Planet city room. Some forty-one years ago he accepted a job in television and though, if memory serves, he didn’t completely sever all ties with the paper, he didn’t report for work there, either. Instead, he bopped around the city in a van seeking opportunities for on-the-spot, live coverage of news events. His secret – well, his newest secret – was that the van had an concealed escape hatch through which Clark could exit, unseen, when his alter ego – and you know who that is – was needed.

So Clark’s (temporary) change of status wasn’t dictated by ethics; he was just a working stiff doing what his boss wanted. And, not incidentally, what Superman’s biographer’s editor wanted. This was the splendid Julius Schwartz, who felt that Clark’s reporting gig was becoming a bit dated and that maybe shunting him into the electronic media would give him a dash of contemporaneity. You know, spiff him up a little.

I don’t remember what happened to Clark’s video career. Obviously, it didn’t last.

Now, he’s again cut loose from the only serious job he’s ever had, and I applaud him.

I expect that you applaud him, too, when you think about the egregious farce we’ve all just survived. It was called “an election” and it produced millions of words. Words spoken into microphones and in front of cameras and printed on paper: words used incorrectly and irresponsibly; words used to obfuscate and obscure; words that angered and irritated and infuriated; some words that distracted from the truth, some that denied the truth, some that seemed to bear no relationship to the truth.

Clark complained of “what passes for news today.” Does he mean all the print and broadcasting that details opinions and misadventures of instant celebrities – inconsequential nattering that once would barely have qualified as back fence gossip? Global warming? Palestine? Syria? The economy? Well, yeah, those get mentioned too, but maybe not a lot and besides, they’re not as interesting as Justin Bieber’s split with his girlfriend.

Are they?

RECOMMENDED READING: Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie.

FRIDAY: Thomases. Martha Thomases

Over at The Comics Journal website Michael Dean posted an article about how the Harvey Kurtzman Estate (represented by Denis Kitchen) and Al Feldstein filed to “regain” the copyrights to their EC Comics work.

Feldstein and the Bill Gaines estate reached an agreement – undisclosed, of course – but the Kurtzman situation is more complex. Kurtzman created Mad, he wrote it, he did the layouts for his artists and he drew a modicum of the material as well. But it’s Mad and Mad is owned by Time Warner. It’s a teevee show on one of Time Warner’s cablenets. The magazine might not be very profitable any longer, but the brand name most certainly is.

Be that as it may, I put the word “regain” in quotation marks because, well, Al and Harvey never had those copyrights in the first place. EC Publications and its sundry successors in interest always held them. And, as Dean and others point out, the exploitation value of the material has been well-plundered. But we’re saddled with a remarkably antiquated, unfair and pro-theft copyright law and I think Al and Denis deserve to get in the game.

But who really should own what? This is the sort of thing that gives compassionate thinkers migraines and earns lawyers their reputations. Lots of people contributed massively to the creation of this body of material, including a great many of the most accomplished writers and artists of the time. And, in my opinion, of any time.

Wally Wood, Jack Davis, Bernie Krigstein, Willie Elder, Al Williamson, John Severin – to name simply the first half-dozen creators to come to mind. They and their co-workers played as important a function in the creation of the EC legacy as Al and Harvey. Their work was not interchangeable. The then-current artist list of, say, Charlton or even St. John Comics could not have been dropped into their place – well, they could, but you wouldn’t have had EC Comics and I wouldn’t be writing this piece.

Then again, Bill Gaines took the financial risk. He selected and hired these people. He contributed to a great many of the stories, particularly those edited by Al Feldstein. Does he (or his estate) deserve to be chilled from the long-term rewards?

Maybe. Bill didn’t return any of the original art – but, then again, in those days nobody did. However, Bill kept and archived the original art, and decades later he had it auctioned off. When he did this, artists were getting their work back and those that had it returned whatever inventories of old art they had on hand. Bill did not do this. He gave the artist a taste of the revenue, at a price determined by him and him alone. The artists were unable to get their art back, to do with what they wish.

“Ethics” are tricky. The idea is to rectify wrongs without wronging others in the process. This is only somewhat easier than building a perpetual motion machine.

The conversation over at The Comics Journal is spirited, engaging and, in a few instances, amusingly over-the-top. These are three important elements in protracted online conversations. You might want to check it out.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil