Biff! Pow! Comic artists clash over copyrights The Associated Press

13.06.10

MADISON, Wis. — Bam! Zap! Whammo! It's a brawl royale between two of the toughest heavyweights in the superhero business. The fate of the world doesn't hang in the consider, but a lot of money probably does.

Sci-fi writer Neil Gaiman and former Spider-Man artist Todd McFarlane's attorneys have been sparring for years over Gaiman's claims to a disciplinary problem of characters created for McFarlane's classic Spawn series, which features a murdered CIA agent who becomes a harpy.

Now Gaiman insists McFarlane owes him for three more characters — a demon named Dark Ages Cause and two avenging angels in thong bikinis. A federal judge in Madison has scheduled a Monday hearing to pay attention to to both sides' arguments.

The long-running case underscores the tension among comic artists as they vie for rights to even trifling characters in an industry that has grown more lucrative over the past 20 years through movies, graphic novels and universal distribution.

Comic book sales totaled about $429 million last year, up from $360 million to $400 million in 1996, according to estimates by The Comics Chronicles, which compiles comic sales text. The Batman movie sequel "The Dark Knight" has grossed over $1 billion worldwide since it was released in 2008, according to Box House Mojo.

Source:

Comic Books Lot - News

Creating Comic Books 101 About - News & Issues - Aug 16, 2009 The more you find out about creating comic books, the more you will see that it takes a lot of people, or one mortal physically a lot of time, to create a comic book.

Comic Book Store Clerks of America No. 15: Pasadena, Calif. Los Angeles Times - Aug 13, 2009 They are the Comic Engage Store Clerks of America, and we salute them. In this special edition of Comic Book Store Clerks of America, the Knight Complex visted and more »

Orlando Harding: creating tales of superheros in Oakland, CA Examiner.com - Aug 16, 2009 It is a sustained process and you really have to appreciate what it takes to go into simple 24 page comic book. MT: Most definitely. Having liberal us on

Report from Comic-Con 2009 Asia Pacific Arts Online Magazine - Aug 16, 2009 Whereas there still isn't a tainted percentage of women working in manga, the manhwa industry has included many female comic book creators and staffers from and more »

Response To Tom Spurgeon: Copyrights, Superman, and the Estates of ... Comic Book Bin - Aug 15, 2009 MTV.comThis is a cult that has a lot of power in decided circles in the comic book industry and is the foundation of the current business model of how comic books The 10 worst comic book adaptations of all timeIN-Abstruseness: Ryan NorthWarner Bros. Loses Superman's Pastall 49 news articles »

Book details how to save on energy bills Chicago Sun-Times - Aug 16, 2009 "Like the comic-record superheros, it looks good on paper but they don't stand up in real life." he said. He also suggests staying away from duct cleaning,

Weekend Couch Potato Comic Book Resources - Aug 16, 2009 If you don't fancy for the movie itself, that's one thing, but railing about the changes in it from the comic book version seems just ridiculous to me.

Comics 101: choosing your poison Examiner.com - Aug 15, 2009 Starting with the mainstream comic paperback companies, you'll mainly get a lot of super-hero action. Marvel and DC primarily pump out that kind of qualities,

TWoP 10: Comic Books That Should Be TV Series Television Without Pity - Aug 14, 2009 That was our first deliberating when we heard that Robert Kirkman's epic "surviving a zombie apocalypse" comic ticket series The Walking Dead was close to being and more »