Via The Hollywood Reporter
A decade ago, Stan Lee Media Inc. declared bankruptcy. Since then, the company has been furiously fighting to reclaim rights to valuable intellectual property that the company's board of directors believes was fraudulently taken during the bankruptcy process. Next month, the company is set to appear before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to make the argument that a lower court should let continue a case questioning whether comic book genius
Stan Lee validly terminated his contract with the company that bears his name.
In the meantime, SLMI has experienced another defeat. Last week, a federal judge in California tossed SLMI's attempt to reclaim ownership over rights to "Conan the Barbarian."
SLMI was founded by Lee in the late-1990s, before the company hit a rocky period and Lee returned to the House of Marvel.
STORY: 'Conan the Barbarian' Lawsuit Seeks Character Rights (Exclusive)
Since filing for bankuptcy, SLMI has struggled to reformulate itself. Finally, in 2010, the company was able to get court approval on a new board of directors. Since then, against its founder's wishes, the company has been attempting to revive claims that it experienced a conspiracy to rob it of its assets.
This includes an ongoing lawsuit over characters such as Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four. On March 8, the 2nd Circuit is scheduled to hear SLMI's arguments that it now has standing to pursue efforts to reclaim these multi-billion dollar properties.
As SLMI waits for the showdown, the company has experienced another stinging defeat.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge
Stephen Wilson dismissed SLMI's lawsuit against Conan Sales Co., Paradox Entertainment, and Lee's long-time attorney
Arthur Lieberman, among others, in an action that sought to restore SLMI's rights to the "Conan the Barbarian" character and gain proceeds from exploitation of the character, including last year's film release of
Conan the Barbarian 3D.
SLMI made the claim based on arguments that in early 2002, when Conan Sales Co. bought back rights to the "Conan" character, 1,800 SLMI shareholders weren't given proper notice. The company also alleged that Lieberman had made misrepresenations during the ordeal and failed to disclose conflicts. Finally, the company asserted that its interests were not properly represented during the proceedings that led to "Conan" being taken from them.
Judge Wilson has rejected these claims on various grounds, including that notice wasn't required during the bankruptcy process, and even if it was, SLMI couldn't show standing and harm. Additionally, the judge determined that SLMI hadn't shown that Lieberman provided services to the company's officers and shareholders to support allegations he misled them, and that SLMI did in fact have proper representation at the bankrputcy proceedings.
The long-running, complicated, and bi-coastal litigation over SLMI's break-up closes a chapter, but perhaps doesn't finish the book.
For instance, we hear that when Wilson ruled last week that "SLMI has not demonstrated why SLMI would have standing to sue on behalf of any such shareholders," it has been received as a possible invitation to some of the larger hedge funds who owned SLMI stock to make their own claims and pleas to reconsider.
And, of course, there's the coming 2nd Circuit appeal, which might determine whether SLMI's day in court is coming to an end once and for all or instead spark many more years of litigation concerning some of the biggest superhero characters in entertainment.
The wonderful web has always been a bountiful place to share and find glorious artwork on juuuuust about anything. Today I'd like to share some commission artwork I found that Joe Jusko created in his travels around the globe while visiting conventions and providing opportunities for folks on different continents to enjoy his work. Who don't love Joe Jusko? He's the best in the biz.
Two days ago January 22nd was the Birthday of Robert E. Howard the Father of Conan and the man who created the genre known as Sword and Sorcery. Sure...We can argue point for point if he is indeed the father of the Genre but in my eyes...he simply is. It is to him that I dedicate this post. Happy Birthday Mr. Howard.
This piece comes from ME..Mikeyboy...or Michael John Destasio for those of you who are familiar with me in OTHER circles. I bought some ink brush pens and wanted to test them out. So I found a random CONAN drawing on the web. I am not sure who it was drawn by but it's from a sketch card...some artists sell them at cons and some companies give them as prizes. I wanted to take up as much space on the paper as possible and use every pen for every little different texture I could possibly think of. ( The large black area was done with a white board marker , they spread out nicely ) Being that it was from a sketch card there were a lot of areas in the drawing that were hazy and pretty much unformed and ambiguous. So I noodled around over every little pencil line. Mind you this ink testing and study was done right on the printed image lifted from the web. Then I went into my pc's paint program and whipped up this paste up MOCK cover ( If you look close I signed the sword )....We will still accept any fan art anyone would like to share. Please E-mail Reis with any art you'd like to share with the followers of CROM!
It was on this date 10 years ago that John Buscema passed away. His work is his legacy and we will never forget.
Bruce is the man...I really wish he'd do a CONAN cartoon. If they did a semi serious cartoon...sort of like BATMAN the animated series ( More Bruce Timm ) they'd nail it! I'm loving the work here. He's really a multi talented do it all kind of artist. I'd love to see a complete Conan comic book series by Bruce. It's just that he's got so much going on with working on television contracts and I don't know if they could pay the man his deserved scale.
If'n you head over to ebay you still might be able to score yourself a few of these French reprint editions. Who don't love foreign reprints of CONAN comics...It's always exciting to see some of the coolest Conan covers in a different language! Despite the fact that these ebay photo's are poor quality you still get a real good idea what the folks over there were reading practically at the same time we were. ( Back in the 70's and 80's ) I would love to have any one of these in my collection of Conan coolness.
