The motion picture Back to the Future has had remarkable longevity of popularity in Japan. It was therefore no surprise that the film was to be adapted into a manga, even though the gap between the two is 33 years. The internationally successful 1985 movie starred American actor Michael J. Fox as teenager Marty McFly. … Read more
Too busy to go to law school? No problem: here, your favourite comic book characters give you a primer on what intellectual property law, that oddball bag of rights that underpins everything from advertising to comic books to aerospace innovations, is all about. 1. Trademarks (Marvel Superheroes’ Secret Wars #7 (1984-5)) Spider-Man is correct: a … Read more
Many of American comic book publisher Marvel Comics’ iconic characters were created or co-created by Stan Lee. This include the Incredible Hulk, Thor, the Uncanny X-men, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the Black Panther, amongst many others. Mr Lee was born Stanley Martin Lieber on December 28, 1922. Over many decades, Mr Lee … Read more
Our publication has a category devoted to “superheroes”. It is a genre to which we have paid disproportionate attention, primarily because it is in English (the language of most of our contributors) and because of the sheer volume of superhero-genre material generated primarily by American publishers. But what does the word “superhero” actually denote? The … Read more