Bam! Zap! Whammo! It’s a battle royale between two of the toughest heavyweights in the superhero business.
The fate of the world doesn’t hang in the balance, but a lot of money probably does.
Science-fiction writer Neil Gaiman and former Spider-Man artist Todd McFarlane’s attorneys have been sparring for years over Gaiman’s claims to a handful of characters created for McFarlane’s classic Spawn series, which features a murdered CIA agent who becomes a demon.
Now Gaiman insists McFarlane owes him for three more characters — a demon named Dark Ages Spawn and two avenging angels in thong bikinis.
A federal judge in Madison scheduled a hearing yesterday to listen to both sides’ arguments.
The long-running case underscores the tension among comic artists as they vie for rights to even minor characters in an industry that has grown more lucrative over the past 20 years through movies, graphic novels and international distribution.
Comic book sales totaled about US$429 million last year, up from US$360 million to US$400 million in 1996, according to estimates by the Comics Chronicles, which compiles comic sales data. The Batman movie sequel The Dark Knight has grossed more than US$1 billion worldwide since it was released in 2008, according to Box Office Mojo.
Spawn isn’t as popular as Batman or Spider-Man, but the series has been fairly successful with action figures, an Emmy-winning HBO series and a 1997 movie that grossed US$87 million worldwide. A sequel is in development, Image Comics’ Web site said.
Gaiman’s lawyers said he plans to donate any money that comes out of the case to charity. The lawsuit for him is more about establishing clear guidelines for other comic book creators about their rights to characters, they said.
“Our view is McFarlane just took some of the characters Neil was a co-creator of and just gave them different names,” said Gaiman’s attorney, Allen Arntsen. “It’s a matter of principle.”
McFarlane’s lead attorney, James Alex Grimsley, didn’t return several messages seeking comment. In court filings, though, McFarlane’s legal team denied Gaiman has any right to the three additional characters, arguing they’re based on ideas from the Spawn universe, not other characters.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS