At the time of the return of Mr. Byrne to She-Hulk, I was not aware of Mr. Gerber demands over HTD. Knowing it now, the Byrne piece seems like a joke over this situation, once it was Steve Gerber that filled the writer's chair during JB absence.

I'm assuming "Hal" was a pseudonym being used by a previously banned poster, and either Brian can see the IP numbers and knows it's the same person, or he's simply judging from the posting style.

Now that we live in the Summer of Superhero Movies, it is hard to remember what life was like when the comics obsessed lived furtitve lives, dependent on sneaking back issues of Shang-Chi from dentist's offices.

Or is there just some backstory I’m not aware of there?

Correct-a-mundo.

I wouldn't have said it at all publicly, but I wasn't sure of any other way of letting "Hal" know what was going on.

Did I miss something with Hal's remarks? They didn't seem mean to me. Or is there just some backstory I'm not aware of there?

I read the Howard script. That was pretty funny. Of course, it wasn't nearly as "vicious" of a parody as advertised, but I think that's a matter of personal opinion. I usually find comics-centric deprecation to be a little less biting than it thinks it is. Insular inside jokes are funnier when it's a couple of guys laughing over a beer or two, not so much when they're being published in a comic book, or an episode of MST or Family Guy.

EMPEROR FU MANCHU was quite definitely the last-written, last-published Fu Manchu novel (the last novel Rohmer completed before his death, in fact). Every Fu Manchu "timeline" I've seen also lists it as the last novel chronologically in the series. See, for example: http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Fumanchu.htm

(The posthumously published short story collection THE WRATH OF FU MANCHU (1973, DAW) contains four stories generally thought by most aficionados to take place in gaps between SHADOW OF, RE-ENTER and EMPEROR -- while EMPEROR is still generally regarded as the last Rohmer "story" about Fu Manchu.)

In other news, it's generally known among mystery fans, and has been for a long time, that "Ellery Queen" was (a) a pseudonym in the first place (for the writing team Fredric Dannay & Manfred Lee); (b) 'Ellery Queen' was used as a "house name" on certain books and stories, with other authors "ghosting"; and (c) even on the flagship novels about the character 'Ellery Queen', some stories were fully or partially 'ghosted' (oddly enough, usually by writers best known for their SF work, including Avram Davidson, Paul Fairman and the aforementioned Theodore Sturgeon).

And many thanks for Mark Evanier for stepping in and being nicer about setting the record straight than he should've been... I'm regularly amazed at "comics lovers" who have nothing but contempt for the people who actually created the characters they adore, and are company men to the bitter end.

Before people bandy about the words "work for hire", they really ought to look up what it means. WFH applies when a regular employee of a company creates intellectual property as part of their normal duties. However, most comics writers and artists, throughout the history of the business, have been freelancers -- independent contractors -- and the rules are completely different. Freelancers don't have the benefits or assurances that regular employees have. And companies must negotiate contracts with freelancers to determine what rights/copyrights fall within the scope of the work. For most of the history of comics, those contracts did not exist or were laughably inept attempts to circumvent the spirit of the law (like one company that printed a mini-contract on the back of the check, so that by signing the check, you were "signing" the contract). Also, the assumptions that the comics industry made about copyrights was at variance with much of the rest of the publishing industry -- for example, when an author sells a short story to a magazine, it is usually assumed that the rights being negotiated are for first North American publication rights only. It should also be noted that comics writers are still in the dark ages when it comes to rights and compensation for their work. In the fields of tv and film, the Guilds have established guidelines that determine when writers received "Created By" credits, when they're entitled to residuals on their work, etc. In comics (to my understanding) these kinds of rights and recognitions are largely at the whim of the companies unless they're spelled out contractually.

The poster had the current New Mutants line-up before the X-tinction Agenda event. So there was Warlock Boom Boom, Cannonball, Rictor, Wolfsbane(you could see Liefeld's fingerprints all over it with new costumes that will appear in the event and in X-Force afterwards). So Cannonball was in paratrooper uniforms, Rictor and Boomer were in a fitness jumpsuit. Rhane was in deadly wolf form in this and there were surprise additions such as Shatterstar and teen Ilyanna with her armor, sword and demonic horns. Maybe the other poster will remember it better than me but I think Sunspot and Cable may have been there also. I like that group because they felt like a good mix of Arthur Adams fantasy adventure and a more modern attitude(instead of what came later wich was all gritty attitude nothing else),

I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt before, but no more - you're done.

I just now noticed Joseph's posting about the Fu Manchu novels. My apologies for having missed it. All I can tell you is that in the 1980s I had a complete set of the mass-market paperbacks (Pyramid Books, IIRC), assembled in chronological order as indicated by the copyright notices, and that made RE-ENTER last (except for a short story collection, from Daws Books, that opened with a Fu story, but I wasn't at all sure when that story first came out). In any event, nobody is claiming that Rohmer was ghosted; it's just a question of order. Thanks.

by the way the rest of the annual was not by liefield.this poster was a teaser of changes to come

For some reason, a lot of folks make the assumptions that (a) every deal made to write or draw a comic was covered by an actual, unambiguous contract and (b) these were all "work-for-hire" contracts. Both assumptions are wrong. In many cases, there was no contract or there was a verbal contract or there was an arguable contract. In many cases where there were contracts, these were not "work-for-hire" contracts. It has also been the case that "work-for-hire" contracts are ruled invalid.

Steve Gerber's situation with Marvel was complicated and nowhere near as clear-cut as a couple of the above posters believe. If it had all been that simple, it would have been over the first week. As it was, the case dragged on for a long time and was finally settled to everyone's approximate satisfaction.

I'll mention one other thing before I go. When Steve returned that time to Howard the Duck, he was told, in effect, "This book isn't selling...we want you back...revamp it however you see fit." Steve decided that in order to do what he wanted with the book, he had to reverse what other writers had done on it. That may or may not have yielded a great comic but it's what he felt was necessary before he could do the kind of stories he wanted to do. That's how it works in the business, sometimes. When you take over a book that isn't selling, you usually make changes, even if you aren't the creator of the book. If it had been up to me, I would have let Gerber do whatever he wanted with Howard.