Looks Good On Him!

A court case that's been in one stage or another for a decade has finally been settled, with Todd McFarlane's company paying former St. Louis Blues enforcer Tony Twist five million dollars for the damage Todd the Rod did to the hockey player's rep in creating a gangster character nicknamed "Tony Twist" in his inexplicably-popular Spawn comic series. It's hard to tell whether McFarlane thought he was providing an homage to Twist with the character, simply believed no fellow Canadian would ever sue over something as 'silly' as defamation of character, or was too stupid to even realize the damage he was doing. Regardless, this result couldn't have happened to a better person.

And that's not even the highest profile comic-related court case that McFarlane's involved in (which says a lot about his character, by the way). He's also fighting Neil Gaiman over whom actually owns the rights to Miracleman. The Toddster thought he bought them when he picked up a bunch of holdings of defunct comic publisher Eclipse Comics a few years ago, when in reality Miracleman's rights had been bequeathed from creator to creator, including from Alan Moore to Neil Gaiman (on the writing side) and from various artists to penciller Mark Buckingham, as Gaiman and Buckingham had been the creative team working on Miracleman when Eclipse went under. This was a unique situation that Alan Moore came up with, as he believed that passing along the rights to the character would ensure that care would be taken by whoever came next. The irony of this situation, where McFarlane had helped co-found Image Comics in the 90s in order to provide a place where writers and artists could own the rights of characters they create - something he doesn't extend to the work-for-hire creative team that's been cranking out Spawn under his auspices for many years now, as far as I can tell - shouldn't be lost of even the casual observer: here he is, trying to steal the rights away from the creators, based on his buying some inventory at an auction. To say that he's an enemy to creators' rights these days would be an understatement. Few events in the comic world have been as reviled as Todd's actions in that particular case, which fortunately Neil Gaiman has been fighting (on all our behalves, I like to say) and so far winning. That's another case that's been dragging on for years. Once it's finally resolved - and I expect Gaiman to prevail, because I don't think the Rod has a leg to stand on - rumour has it that Marvel Comics will provide Neil with a place to publish more Miracleman stories, even allowing the character to resume its original name, Marvelman, with their blessing. And I for one would dearly love to see that happen...

You can read a bit more about the Twist result here if you're interested.