No offense implied but you don’t have a clue about comic book industry economics. I feel strongly about this, so I’m going to explain:

The risk taken by the publisher of a comic book is minuscule compared to that of a movie studio, music company or software developed.

The only costs are (a) pitiful artist compensation (especially back in the ’40s when Jack Kirby started work for Marvel and DC Comics’ predecessor companies) and (b) printing a distribution costs amounting to a few thousand dollars per issue. If the issue doesn’t turn a profit, they would cancel the next installment, in most cases denying compensation to the cartoonists for the work already done.

When Jack Kirby started work he was around 16 years old and created successful comic characters like Captain America and the Sandman.

He worked out of a private studio shared with his writing and artist partners and sold the work to publishers. Each studio had a distinctive set of books and even productions styles and the publishers were just that – publishers. They received a ready made product and only then paid for it, on a case by case basis.

In fact the original work for hire contracts used in the comics industry have been held up as one of the most exploitative forms of employment used in the western world dusing the past century. They have been repeatedly revised as the courts have recognized the fact they fail to comply with a multitude of laws that exist for the protection of workers, artists and content producers.

A particularly glaring example is the fact that, while Kirby used his own materials to produce his comics (paper, ink, pencils, brushes) the majority of his artwork was never returned to him by the publishers, who blatantly ignored his repeated requests for it. Much of it ended up in the private homes of employees and executives, which of course constitutes theft.

It’s worth mentioning, that an original Kirby page is worth between a few thousand to several tens of thousands (in some cases hundreds of thousands) of dollars.

Kirby who faced financial difficulties through much of his life, could certainly have used the sale of his artwork to support himself through lean times but the publishers who achieved supernormal profits from his creations treated him like cr*p.

Among the list of characters created and developed by Kirby some that come to mind are:
-Captain America
-The incredible Hulk
-The Fantastic Four
-The X-Men
-Iron Man
-The Silver Surfer
-The Avengers
-The Sandman
-Black Panther
-Thor
And a huge number of others (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Characters_created_by_Jack_Kirby if curious)

Collectively his characters have (a) delivered 75% of Marvel Comics’ income over the last 70+ years (d) generated over $2.2bn of movie revenue in the last 10 years alone (c) constituted the basis for over 50% of Marvel comics subsequently developed content and a healthy chunk at DC comics.

And to the day he died he never received a pension, an insurance payment or a day’s paid vacation. He always worked and was paid by the page, even running his own studio in the 70’s, with his assistants paid by himself to work on marvel comics books.

Now I’m not a big supporter of IP, copyright extensions and IP inheritance, but I think that the publishers bled the guy enough during his life. Maybe his family should have some of the quality of life they would have had, had he worked during the 90’s after the work for hire contract standards were reformed.

If not, maybe the copyrights should become public domain. But cementing these predatory parasites’ right to continue to profit from his work is just sick. Unfortunately that’s exactly what may happen.