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THE LAW IS A ASS for 09/19/2000
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment #61
Originally written as installment # 50 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 587, February, 15 1985 issue
Noted author Harlan Ellison has said there's basically only one reason that anyone does anything. It's not greed or altruism or self-interest or even Red Kryptonite. Harlan says the reason anyone does anything is, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
So there I was on Christmas Eve, 1984 looking for a novel way to approach what was to be my fiftieth column and a plain letter-answering column. Then I remembered what day it was, and it struck me: do a pastiche of A Christmas Carol. After all, everyone else does.
I, of course, completely ignored the publishing concept known as "lead time" so that the column actually ran several months after I wrote it. So why did I write A Christmas Carol column that didn't appear until Valentine's Day?
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
******
"The Law is a Ass"
Installment #61
by
Bob Ingersoll
Maggie was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Old Maggie was dead as a door-nail. This must be distinctively understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.
Once upon a time--of all good days in the year, on Christmas Eve--old Ingersoll sat busy in his office writing "The Law Is a Ass.
"A merry Christmas, Husband!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Ingersoll's wife, Becky, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of her approach.
"Bah!" said Ingersoll, "Humbug!"
"What are you doing down here, Bob?" Becky asked.
"I'm writing a column, of course."
"Can't it wait, Bob? It's Christmas Eve."
"A poor excuse for keeping a man from an honest day's work every twenty-fourth of December."
"Oh, knock it off, Bob! What kind of column is this: 'Maggie was dead: to begin with?' What are you talking about, Maggie Thompson isn't dead, and she's going to brain you for that 'old' line."
"That's for atmosphere, Becky. This is my fiftieth column, so I'm doing something different. Now, importune me no further, woman!"
"Okay, I'm going. But let me give you some advice. You'll write it much faster, if you knock off the pseudo-Victorian."
Ingersoll returned to his column. The cellar-office door flew open with a booming sound, and he heard a noise, as if a person were dragging a blue pencil over the casks in a wine merchant's cellar, coming down the stairs; then straight towards his office. Until, at last, a figure stood before him.
"How now!" said Ingersoll. "Who are you?"
"In life I was your editor, Maggie Thompson. And I thought you were going to drop the ersatz gothic style."
"I suppose we're going to do a Christmas Carol pastiche, now?"
"Of course. You borrowed from Dickens for the title of your column, so why not again for a column? After all, you're writing it on Christmas Eve."
"But no one will read it until January or even February."
"That's what you get for being too lazy to write this column back in October, like you should have. Besides, it's perfect. No one will expect a Christmas column then 'Just when you thought you were safe from Christmas specials again.' "
"No way out of it, Maggie?"
"Nope."
"Fine, bring them on. But before you go, isn't the 'Jacob Marley' bit supposed to be reserved for someone who has been bad and is now suffering eternally. What have you done?"
"I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link every time I made a male hero suffer for my titillation."
"Oh."
Maggie left. And Ingersoll waited for the Ghost of Columns Past to arrive. When it did, Ingersoll was in for a surprise.
"Tony Isabella? You're the first ghost?"
"Yup."
"Don't you have something better to do? Go write an 'Everett Newsstand' or something."
"Stop stalling. Just because both you and Dickens were paid by the word doesn't mean you get to pad, like he did.
"Look, Bob, you're such a curmudgeon in your columns, always attacking comic books. Christmas Eve isn't the time for that. I'll bet you were going to write about Flash or Vigilante again, weren't you?"
"Well..."
"See? If you've got to do a column why don't you answer some mail on your past columns?"
"Like what?"
"Like Thomas Fielding of Largo, Florida, who said you were stereotyping Carmen Miranda, when you said Vibe spoke like her."
"But, I didn't say Carmen Miranda had a Puerto Rican accent. All I meant was that in her movies she had a heavy hispanic accent, just like Vibe. I suppose I could have used the Frito Bandito or Jose Jimemez, but I thought Carmen Miranda sounded funnier. That's all."
"Then how about Ken Hahn of Auburn, New York. He read your old column about copyrighting and wants to know if it's necessary either to register or deposit one's work with the Copyright Office, in order to secure a copyright."
"Not anymore. Under the Copyright Law of 1976, a work is automatically copyrighted, once it is put into fixed form. Nothing more is necessary. However, if copies are being sent out, then it is advisable to put the copyright symbol on the work as a notice of copyright. Registration with the copyright office isn't necessary. But do it. In the event of any infringement, damages can be sought only from the date of registration.
"It isn't necessary to deposit a copy with the Copyright Office, until the work is actually published with a notice of copyright on it. Then, the work must be deposited or the copyright holder can be fined. However, the publisher usually takes care of the deposit requirement, so the average man doesn't have to concern himself, unless he self-publishes.
"Anyone interested in copyrights should write to the Copyright office in Washington D.C. and ask for Circulars R1, R22, and R99. They give a good lay overview of copyrighting.
"While, I'm on the subject, let me answer Ray Rose, the guy who wrote to Oh So in CBG 579 about using a sealed, postmarked envelope as a form of self copyrighting.
"Both copyrighting and postmarked envelopes are evidence that can be used in court to prove ownership of a property. Copyrights happen to be better.
"A post marked envelope can be faked. Say you recently read something you want to 'prove' you wrote first, so you can sue for plagiarism. For simplicity sake let's say you wanted to claim you had written Cujo before Stephen King did. Because you didn't write Cujo first, you have to fake the date of your 'creation.' Here's what you do: Simply send an unsealed empty envelope to yourself, or seal it and steam open the seal. Now you have a postmarked envelop. Then put your own version of the Cujo manuscript into the postmarked envelope, seal it, and you can and claim you came up with it first, using the faked postmark to prove your prior ownership."
"Why don't you get a little more descriptive, Bob, then you can be charged with aiding and abetting fraud."
"A registered copyright can't be faked. At least, not as easily. People should use a copyright instead of the old sealed envelope trick. Courts prefer it. A lot!"
"I have a nice post card from Clayton Emery of Brookline, New Hampshire," Tony said handing Ingersoll a card.
Ingersoll read it and replied, "Okay, here's my response. Clayton, thanks for the compliment. Unfortunately, I didn't make up any of the stuff from Peter Parker # 97. It was exactly as I described it. Really.
"Any more letters?"
"Just one from Rick Norwood of Wayne, New Jersey. It's about Bazooka Joan."
"He already wrote me about Bazooka Joan. Don't tell me, let me guess: he took me up on my challenge and told me the bumblebee isn't really aerodynamically unsound, right?"
"You got it. It seems that the bumblebee can rotate the axis of its wing, and does so when he flies. So the old theories of aerodynamic unsuitability, based on the assumption that the axis was fixed, are inoperative.
"If it's any consolation, Bob, he agrees with you about one thing. 'Bazooka Joan's sled won't fly worth dingo's kidneys.'
"Incidentally, Ingersoll, I really wish you hadn't put me into this column. I told you, before you wrote it, it was a stupid idea."
Ingersoll didn't even have time to apologize, before the Ghost of Columns Present came to him.
"Becky? But you've already appeared as my wife. What are you doing as one of the ghosts?"
"It's a low-budget pastiche. Some of us have dual roles.
"Now look, Bob, I know you were going to write about Flash again. But, you just wrote about him. No one wants to hear about him so soon. If you have to write a column, answer some mail with general questions that don't have to do with past columns."
"Like?"
"Well, Elliot Weininger from Worcester, Massachusetts wants to know about the old Doom Patrol and the old X-Men. Both books first came out back in 1963, Doom Patrol a few months earlier, and both dealt with a team of super powered social outcasts (freaks or mutants--take your pick) led by a wheelchair-bound professor. Elliot wants to know if the X-Men violated DC's trademark on the Doom Patrol."
"Obviously, DC didn't think so, they never sued over it, as they did with the 'Shazam!' version of Captain Marvel. I'll grant that the themes of the series were similar, but tone and the actualizations were very different. That's why there was no suit.
"If there had been deliberate copying, then I'm sure a suit would have been filed. But X-Men came out so soon after Doom Patrol, that it was obvious both were in development at the same time. Just one of those examples of parallel creativity."
"Several people wrote in about the rights of extra-terrestrials, , mutants, vampires, machines, and the like.
"Raymond Brown of Tempe, Arizona wants to know if extraterrestrials, like Superman, have any rights in the United States."
"As far as I can tell, it depends on if they're citizens. The Constitution protects the rights of citizens, because citizens are people. If the extraterrestrials have become citizens, like Superman, then they're people and they have rights. Otherwise, it doesn't appear that the average ET has any rights. True, they're sentient beings, but are they people? After all, dolphins are sentient, and dolphins are killed without legal repercussions, because they're not people. No, citizenship, not sentience, seems to be the key."
Patrick O'Connor from Hinsdale, New Hampshire, wants to know if mutants have any rights, seeing as they don't regard themselves as human but as Homo superior."
"Yes. They are human. Homo superior is their classification for themselves, not anyone else's, so they are human. They're even people, Chris Claremont notwithstanding, entitled to all the rights of any other person. Mutants aren't 'unnatural persons' like corporations are, they're people persons. Thus, Senator Kelly's Mutant Control Bill should be unconstitutional. I know it won't turn out that way in X-Men, that's just the way it should turn out."
Nicholas Nahat from Detroit, Michigan asked you several questions, many along the same line."
"Detroit, huh? Have they moved it from Lake Michigan, yet?"
"What?"
"Never mind. Silly JLA reference. What are his questions."
"First, he wants to know if Dr. Strange can be prosecuted for killing all the vampires on Earth."
"No. Vampires are already dead, remember? How can you be prosecuted for killing a dead man? Desecration of a corpse, maybe, but not murder."
He wanted to know what Rogue's legal status is now."
"She's a suspect in a murder case. I don't know if she's been charged yet, so I don't know if she's a fugitive from the law. If she is, then the rest of the X-Men can be prosecuted for harboring a fugitive or obstruction of justice. Just because mutants have rights doesn't mean they can't be prosecuted for their crimes."
"Is it illegal to hunt Swamp Thing?"
"Is it illegal to hunt a carrot? Swamp Thing is a vegetable, a sentient vegetable, but a vegetable. Swamp Thing is not a person, so has no rights and cannot be murdered. It is legal to hunt Swamp Things, as long as you don't do it out of season.
"Do vampires and werewolves and other supernatural beings have any rights?"
Those that are actually living persons like werewolves, yes. Those that are dead, like vampires, or animated corpses, like zombies, or animated lumps of clay, like It, the Living Colossus, no. They aren't persons, so they don't have rights."
Could Illyana Rasputin be burned at the stake for being a witch?"
"No. We didn't burn witches in the USA, we hanged them.
"Now, I supposed if any state still has its anti-witchcraft laws on the books, the laws haven't been repealed by latches. 'Latches' is a legal principle that says if an entity doesn't try to enforce his, her or its rights for a long time, it's said right repealed by lack of use. Don't know if latches applies in criminal laws. If not, then if someone wanted to prosecute Illyana under them, and got a conviction, then yes, she could be hanged.
"But seeing as how that's less likely than Secret Wars II being readable, why worry about it?"
Can radioactive heroes or villains like Jack of Hearts or Radioactive Man be prosecuted if their radioactivity leaks out and kills someone?"
Yes. If they are negligent in allowing the leak and resultant death, they could be prosecuted for negligent homicide or sued for wrongful death."
"Do Machine Man or Vision have any more rights than a toaster?"
"Yes, but they've got less rights than a BMW. Again they're sentient, but they're machines not persons, hence no rights."
Is bounty hunting illegal?"
"Not per se. In fact, many bail bondsmen hire bounty hunters to track down bail jumpers. It's just illegal to bring 'em back on the dead half of 'dead or alive.'
"Finally, if Jon Sable's invasion into Vietnam wasn't illegal, then why was the Guardian's excursion into the USA called a 'covert invasion'?"
"I never said Jon Sable's actions weren't illegal. I just said his actions in Vietnam didn't violate American law. I'm sure they violated lots of Vietnamese laws; the Vietnamese probably accused Sable of a covert invasion.
"Guardian's actions were called a covert invasion of the USA, because he invaded the United States and violated American law."
"Well, that's all the letters, Bob. Hurry up and finish your column. It's time to hang the stockings."
"I'll be up as soon as I can. I have one more ghost yet."
"He's already here, Bob. That's him!" Becky pointed to a silent figure in the corner.
"Vigilante? You're the Spirit of Columns Yet to Come?"
Vigilante did not answer. He simply pointed to a stack of CBG's all cover dated 1985. None of them had a "Law Is a Ass".
"I get it. You're telling me that if I'm so cranky as to write a column attacking you or Flash on Christmas Eve, I won't write any more columns in the future. Why not, won't Don and Maggie buy them anymore?"
Vigilante did not speak, but he did communicate his message. He patted his side holster.
"I won't have future columns, because you'll blow me away in the present.
"Very well. Fortunately, what you've shown me aren't 'shadows of things that will be, but shadows of things that may be only.' Right?
"So I'll repent. I won't write a column on Christmas Eve that attacks anyone. I'll just answer my mail. I promise."
Ingersoll was better than his word. He didn't attack the Flash or Vigilante or Daredevil or any other comic book in a column written on Christmas Eve. And it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.
And so, as Tiny Tim--and how did he slip in here?--observed, "God Bless Us, Every One!"
But just wait till next week!
BOB INGERSOLL
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