"Anyway... it's still full steam ahead now for the Miracleman plans, and now I need to figure out what I want to do with Angela, Cogliostro and Medieval Spawn."

http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004_02_22_archive.asp#107766958467371937



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It seems that the Toddler likes to try to solve his problems by throwing money at them.

Has he won ANY lawsuits? At all?

Sean

"I saw a werewolf drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect."

He won the "Tony Twist" lawsuit on appeal; the plaintiff even tried to get the Supreme Court to hear it, but they refused.

Not a McFarlane fan but but that Tony Twist case should never have come to trial.

*from Gaiman

From having listened to Judge Posner eviscerate the hapless Mike Kahn (Todd's Lawyer)(here's the MP3 of the oral arguments) I can't say it was any kind of a surprise, but it was a huge relief, and the end, or pretty nearly, of a long chapter of dealing with an incredibly shifty and dishonest publisher, of the kind I was warned about when I got into comics, but somehow never really expected to encounter in real life.


Pretty damning.

And yes, any money successfully extracted from McFarlane on this nonsense and left over from legal bills goes straight to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (something I decided and announced from the first).


cactusmaac

cactusmaac

I can't believe that Tony Twist thing made it into a court room either. Did anybody happen to look at the indica before taking this to court. Basically from what I read into it, you can put just about anybody in a comic book and there is very little they can do about it. As for Todds fight with Neil, Todd got what he deserved.

Ink Slinger on Something Wicked

There's something I thought about while reading this. Does anyone know where McFarlane actually claimed that he created Venom? Because I can't help but think about that story while reading about the Gaiman/McFarlane court case.

Wasn't Venom just an adapted version of the alien costume with an added tongue and drool?

cactusmaac

For that matter wasn't Spawn pretty much just Grendel wearing Dr. Strange's cloak and doing Hellraiser tricks with telikinetic chains?

For that matter isn't just about every character created a modified version of some other character that has been writen or created at some other point in history?

Lets face it, in the Marvel and DC universes there really isn't isn't reason to create any new characters, both companies have such huge histories and vast libraries of unused potential the grow on.

In a sense, that is what Todd did with Venom. He took something with potential and helped it to grow. Maybe he was a major help to that growth by providing the Eddie Brock part and his backstory (I am assuming based on things I have read here and there) but I would never say he "created" Venom alone.

In the case of Spawn being like other characters, that is certainly true. But, Spawn did give Todd the chance to have a virgin universe where he could tell all of his own stories without the silly inconsistancies of being in a shared universe. For that I give him creation credit even though there may be composite similarities to other characters.

Of course, his problem was that he invited others to bring their toys into his sandbox, but then didn't want to let them take their toys home later.

"In a sense, that is what Todd did with Venom. He took something with potential and helped it to grow."

How is taking a beautiful story of sacrificial love and warping it to fit his needs "helping it to grow"?

Okay then. I'm gonna make a new character. He looks an awful lot like Doctor Doom with Hawkman's wings and a trident but he's entirely original and aren't all characters based on other characters anyway?

I'm going to call him "Lord Gorgon" and he wears a mask so that he won't petrify everyone he talks to('cause he has gorgon powers...he's cursed!).
He's the billionaire ruler of a secret city deep under the Pacific ocean's crust and his base of operations is a highly advanced super sub marine. He defends the world from occult intrusion but only because he intends to rule it himself! He(like his father before him) is acting in accordance with a mysterious prophecy describing his inevitable rise to power and his destiny to save the world from the jaws of oblivion that was uttered by a strange old tattooed man who disappeared! Now he fights the forces of Neo-Lemuria(who betrayed his father) and their dark inhuman allies who dwell just beyond this reality's threshold!

There that bit should keep anyone from seeing that he's really just doctor doom with wings and a trident. Sorta like Clark Kent with glasses.

Next up: a guy who looks and sounds an awful lot like Spider man called "Web worm!" But he has to keep injecting himself with serum to maintain his powers and he's a cyborg. With a katana......

Drew: "There's something I thought about while reading this. Does anyone know where McFarlane actually claimed that he created Venom? Because I can't help but think about that story while reading about the Gaiman/McFarlane court case."

To my understanding, Neil Gaiman had a deal with Todd McFarlane that anything Neil created he would then own. Marvel did not have such a deal with McFarlane. Besides, as another poster noted, Todd did not created the costume, nor the name of "Venom." He did add a big ol' smile. The fangs and long, slimy tongue were added later, by Erik Larsen, I believe). Look at early Venom, he has big choppers, but they aren't "fangs" at that point.

It's funny to think... That the slimy tongue is now so connected (heh) to Venom that Marvel has a new issue of "Venom" with nothing else on the cover coming out, and McFarlane didn't add that to the character, himself.

The Image boys have often demonstrated a somewhat skewed notion of what constitutes creation -- and being a "creator". Note the number of times they have compared themselves to Jack Kirby -- how they got "screwed" by Marvel "just like Kirby did!"

Yes -- they did co-create virtually the entire Marvel Universe and get nothing but their page rates. . .

Oh, you mean they didn't?

Using the word "create" as if it is some kind of ongoing process was one of the things about these guys that somehow managed to bug me more than all their other excesses. Talk about diminishing the value of a word! An act of "creation" happens only once -- the rest is extrapolation -- which can be "creative", but is by no means "creation".

feh