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THE LAW IS A ASS for 09/03/2002
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 160
Originally written as installment # 142 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 764, July 8, 1988 issue
Here comes the unsolicited plug, and not even for my own stuff.
In this column I mention a comic strip in a weekly newspaper published by and for the legal profession. The comic strip was "Wolff & Byrd Counselors for the Macabre." It's the creation of writer/artist Batton Lash, a very funny man. Don't believe me. Consider this Radioactive Man which Batton also writes just won this year's Eisner Award as Best Humor Publication. "Wolff and Byrd" is equally as funny. It was funny then, as a weekly comic strip. It's funny now as a by-monthly comic book called Supernatural Law. If your local comic book store carries Supernatural Law buy it. You won't be disappointed. (If you enjoy my column, you should enjoy Supernatural Law).
If your local comic book store doesn't carry Supernatural Law, complain. And then complain some more. And then complain and complain and complain until it does carry Supernatural Law.
But while you're waiting for your local "Comic Book Guy" to see the light, you can order Supernatural Law directly from the publisher, Exhibit A Press. Just go to their web site at, what else, www.exhibitapress.com. There you can order current issues, back issues and the trade paperback collections of the comic strips, like the one I mentioned in this column.
Thus ends the unsolicited plug. No go and read my column. You might just enjoy it, too.
******
THE LAW IS A ASS
Installment # 160
by
BOB INGERSOLL
pot•pour•ri, n 1: a general mixture of often disparate or unrelated materials or subject matter. 2: the type of column prepared by a writer who has several short bits he wants to write but no topic for the week. Kinda like this.
******
Walter Langkowski of Alpha Flight has a problem. No, it's not the fact that after his male Sasquatch body died, he was resurrected into Snowbird's female Sasquatch and now when he becomes human, he's Wanda Langkowski. That's normal, at least for a comic book. Mr./Ms. Langkowski is hard ly the first character in recent comics to have encountered this situation. Walter/Wanda's problem is that he was declared legally dead and his hated ex-wife will inherit the sizable Langkowski fortune, unless s/he can do something about it.
My problem was, I didn't believe that for a minute.
Unless Canadian law is vastly-and stupidly-different from American law, once the Langkowskis divorced, and the property was divided pursuant to the divorce, she would have gotten whatever her fair share of the Langkoswki estate to which she was entitled. But his ex-wife should have lost all claim on Walt's remainder of the Langkowski estate. Thus, if Walter died without a will, his ex shouldn't have received a penny. And if Walt died with a will, then the story is asking me to believe that a biophysicist genius was dumb enough not to write his hated ex-wife out of his will after the divorce.
(NOTE FROM BOB TO HIS WIFE: Remember, you ever divorce me, and you lose all this.)
(NOTE FROM BOB'S WIFE TO BOB: Don't tempt me!)
I have one other question about Walter/Wanda's problem. Why is it when all these male comic characters get trapped in female bodies and don't like this, they insist on dressing in things like flimsy, barely existent swimsuits that would be too revealing for the Miss America contest?
******
In a recent column, I chided the Tyrone Johnson/Kelco lawsuit story line in Daredevil for having a lawsuit in New York, when Kelco is a New Jersey corporation and the injury occurred in New Jersey. I argued that New York lacked jurisdiction over this New Jersey case. In CBG #759, Mic McConnell pointed out that if Tyrone Johnson lived in New York and if Kelco did business in New York, that would be enough minimum contact for Tyrone to sue Kelco in New York. He is right. Under the law, if a defendant has sufficient contact in a state, even if that contact is minimal, then the business can be sued in that state, even if the business is headquartered in another state. For the purposes of minimum contacts, doing business in a state suffices. So if a New Jersey company does business in New York, it can be sued in New York by New York residents.
What's frustrating about this whole thing is, when I wrote the column, I remembered my Civil Procedure course in law school and the International Shoe case (That's just a case we studied in Civil Procedure, the one that defined the legal term "minimum contact." You don't want to know anything more about it. Trust me, as one who suffered through Civil Procedure; you don't want to know anything more about it.) I remembered it well enough to have checked out Tyrone's state of residence to see if he lived in New York.
From the textual clues I saw, I determined that Tyrone lived in New Jersey not New York. So this was a case of a New Jersey citizen suing a New Jersey company in New York. Just because the company did business in New York didn't give it enough minimum contacts that a New Jersey resident could sue in New York. No the New Jersey resident should have sued in New Jersey.
Anyway, I did check into this and determined that Tyrone lived in New Jersey, so the minimum contacts test didn't apply to his lawsuit. Then, like an idiot, I completely forgot to include this essential point in the column.
One aside to Mic: about your waiting in the wings, if I ever get tired of writing this column--don't give up your day job! Not that you wouldn't do a fine job of it. It's just that I'm no where near tired yet.
******
In Action Comics Weekly # 607 Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan wondered if it was ethical for him to break John (another Green Lantern) Stewart out of jail, because John had been framed for murder. Hal, it's not. But I shouldn't expect you to understand this, six issues ago you forgot that it's illegal to steal diamonds.
One issue earlier, Hal wasn't wondering ethics; he was wandering the country looking for a friend. Really, he went to Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, and Oliver Queen and whined, "Please be my friend. Please!"
This was the most shameful display of whimpering since Green Lantern whined to the Guardians, "Please let me go home to Earth! I'll be good. I promise!" Green Lantern is supposed to be without fear, not without a backbone.
******
The absolutely wonderful comic strip Wolfe & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre by Batton Lash has been collected into a trade paperback by Andiron Books. This places the strip, printed in the National Law Journal--a publication by and for lawyers and not generally purchased by the public-at-large--in a format more generally purchased by the public-at-large. Look for it. It's about attorneys whose practice consists of defending vampire dentists; ghosts accused of squatting; and John Doe, a man accused of and standing trial for every crime known to man.
This book is a delight full of wry humor and groan-making puns. I highly recommend it.
You don't even have to be an attorney to get the jokes.
******
In Speedball # 1 we learn that this newest creation of Steve Ditko's is, in his secret identity, Robbie Baldwin, a teen-age boy who, because of a scientific accident was given the proportional speed and strength of a Super Ball. Does that sound familiar? Well that's not what I want to talk about.
We also learn that Robbie Baldwin's father is Justin Baldwin, a no-nonsense assistant District Attorney in Springdale, a small midwestern city which is still large enough to have its own scientific research center and its own maximum security prison and its own castle. However, that's not what I want to talk about, either--although a no-nonsense D.A. plotted and drawn by the creator of Mr. A ought to be good for column fodder sometime.
What I want to talk about is this: we've seen three Speedball stories, as I write this; two stories in Speedball # 1 and a special preview in Amazing Spider-Man Annual # 22. One story is Speedball's origin, it's obligatory and doesn't count. Let's look at the other two stories. The plot of the untitled story in Speedball # 1 is about Johnny Roarke, a gangster who comes to Springdale to kill Speedball's father as revenge for prosecuting him. The plot of "He Who Laughs" from Spidey Annual # 22 is about a failed actor who wants to kill Maddy Baldwin, Speedball's actress mother, for turning a director against him and ending his acting career.
Do you sense a pattern here?
I'm not saying the plots are the same--or even similar. (They are; I'm just not saying it!) I'm just saying, if Speedball has any cousins they'd better have their insurance premiums paid up.
Bob Ingersoll
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