New Siegel case briefs yield free comics & law crack

So work commitments have you stuck at home while every one else who reads comics--and given the size of today's comics buying market, I mean that literally--is out gallivanting at the San Diego Comic Con. What's there to do except wallow in self-pity and stay late filing TPS reports?

I'll tell ya what, grasshopper. Y'see, thanks to good folks in the Siegel case, you now have a chance to spend this weekend living out the Con's charitable purpose by getting a comics education right here at your computer screen.

The latest briefs from both sides are available, with the Siegels and DC taking their best shot at legal questions arising from the Siegels' copyright interest in the Superman material in Action Comics 1. If the briefs were just dueling legal analysis, I might have just posted the links with a just a promise to write more about it later once my own deadlines are met, but there's more.

A lot more.

• Historic documents from 1938 and 1939 pertaining to the sale of the rights to Superman.

• The findings in the creators' 1947 case.

• Selections from Jerry Siegel's unpublished biography.

• Lengthy expert testimony, including a statement by DC Comics President & Publisher Paul Levitz.

• Web pages that sell Superman stuff (OK, not so exciting there, but look what's next . . . )

• Free comics entered as exhibits by DC to illustrate its legal points.

There are also complete copies of Superman movies, but alas, these have been sealed so as not to be made available for free online as government exhibits.

OK, so it's not quite the Con, but if you & your SO read this stuff while dressed up as Wolverine & Slave Girl Leia it can be a reasonable substitute.