[OtherEric]

If they're speaking of Marvel around 1960, "Timely or Marvel or whatever the official company name was" is a valid description.  The company used Marvel, Timely, and Atlas at different points, not settling on Marvel until a few years into the 60's.  And while it's not important to the readers at most times, any number of companies could show up in the indica of any given title.  A common tactic was to have multiple "official" publishers so that a failure of any one title could be disassociated with the other books.  (I know EC did the same trick, I think several others did as well.)  So the seemingly vague bit there actually tells me the person IS a fan and expert, rather than uninformed.

[JVJ]

I'm with Eric here, John,
(and I can 'sort of' be classified as an 'expert'). Between 1958 and the introduction of "Marvel" name circa 1963, there simply was NO commonly applied name or brand applied to the comics. There were several (what I call) 'sub-publishers' listed in the different indicias, but that was the sum total of the branding, and you had to look hard to find a common thread amongst them.

My understanding (and it's meager, at best) is that these smaller companies were created to avoid a higher tax bracket that might occur should the profits from all the companies be considered together. Admittedly, I know NOTHING about Martin Goodman's tax bracket/status/bill, so please take the previous statement for what it's worth.

Peace (from Paris), Jim (|:{>

[John C]

While I know where you're coming from, Eric (and Jim), I don't agree in this context.  For a casual researcher to refer to Goodman's heap of companies as "Atlas or whatever," referring to Goodman's in-house distributor, is fine.  The indicias are a mess, and from the perspective of the reader, don't make much difference.

However, each of those companies needed to file with the state of incorporation with relatively strict accounting of ownership.  Also, writing and art contracts (or paychecks) would've been handled consistently by one arm and surely must have turned up by now.  As an expert who must do exactly this sort of research routinely, it shows a lack of preparation or understanding.  (It might be the "whatever" that's bothering me, because I would've accepted "Marvel or the group of companies that became Marvel" without hesitation.)

I mean, yes, it's possible to structure a bunch of companies so that there's no clear parent organization or ownership of anything, but unless you're doing some heavy-duty money laundering, that's a lot of time and money spent maintaining the facade to little useful effect.

More likely, as Jim suggested, they were just to keep everything divided below IRS limits and some asset protection in case he hit financial trouble; but that kind of organization is far more straightforward than naming the publisher.

Again, I'm just a software guy, with no legal training beyond the occasional pun-addled dinner with a lawyer friend and his (non-lawyer) wife.  But I'm pretty sure that the paper trail would be open and easily-followed, to someone with the right resources...like an Intellectual Property lawyer who has dealings with Marvel talent, for example.

[Ed Love]

Not just the indicia. Their records at the Library of Congress are the same, I remember Daredevil specifically was copyrighted by a name I wasn't familiar with. It's what makes researching copyrights a bit of a problem as the cards are not always filed by the title name but sometimes by the person/publisher copyrighting. Usually there's a card referring to the right place where it would be if filed by title, but it does mean that there could be ones out there that are copyrighted or renewed and there's no referring card so you just don't know the proper place to look.

[OtherEric]

Fair enough, John.  I personally think the maze of names is convoluted enough that "or whatever" fits but I can't argue that it could grate on the ear.

[John C]

I agree that, from a publishing standpoint, the company is complicated.  But from the standpoint of the question at hand, it's a far simpler situation:  The court would only want to know what entity cut Kirby's checks and/or who filed his status with the IRS and what that status was.

The publishing company is irrelevant, here, because they could cross-license the property on paper, if anybody even cared to look, so they could act as one entity.  But most likely, one company existed for the purposes of employing the creative talent so that, in case of a lawsuit, it could get sued or go bankrupt without affecting the rest of the organization.

And Ed's absolutely right on the nightmare it makes for following copyrights.  Even just reading the CCEs, you'll often run across an entry that directs you another name, either another part of a combined entity or the recipient of a transfer...but if only one of those links got missed by a clerk, then that's a renewal you'll never be able to find unless you know the current owner.  And that casts doubt on the entire process, of course.