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'Spawn' Publisher in Bankruptcy Court from Yahoo News

Submitted by cherylp3 on Sat, 12/18/2004 - 2:47pm.

PHOENIX - A $15 million jury award against "Spawn" creator Todd McFarlane has pushed his comic-book business into bankruptcy court.

AP Photo

Todd McFarlane Productions Inc. of suburban Tempe filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

A jury in St. Louis awarded former NHL player Tony Twist $15 million after concluding that McFarlane and his company profited by using Twist's name without permission and that Twist's publicity rights were infringed.

McFarlane gave the name Antonio "Tony Twist" Twistelli to a New York mob boss character in his "Spawn" comic books in the early 1990s.

The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) in January rejected without comment an appeal by McFarlane arguing that his work was free speech.

Last year, he said his McFarlane Cos., then an umbrella of seven businesses, had annual sales exceeding $50 million.

The bankruptcy filing allows McFarlane's company to continue to operate and reorganize its finances while freeing it from the threat of creditors' lawsuits.

In 1999, McFarlane paid $3 million for Mark McGwire's 70th home-run baseball. He also paid $450,000 last year for Barry Bonds' record 73rd home-run ball and owns Sammy Sosa's 66th home-run ball.

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People should not judge a cas

Submitted by fuzun on Mon, 12/20/2004 - 3:19pm.

People should not judge a case until all of the facts are know. The press is notorius for leaving out the substance behind the claims in court cases. And first impressions are wrong. As you can see from Circeus' reply about his research on the case. it shows that McFarland was definately in the wrong.

Some cases on the other hand should be laughed out of court. Case in point, Marvel Comics lawsuit against Cryptic and NcSoft. I wouldn't be surprised if the case ends in a full or partial summuary judgement against Marvel.

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I agree

Submitted by Maq on Mon, 12/20/2004 - 1:40pm.

Macfarlane's greed ruined the comics industry, but initially he opened the door for artists and writers to take hold of the reins of their creations from the publishers. Were it not for Mcfarlane, Image would not have been created.

But eventually, Macfarlane's greed ruined a character that was a creative twist upon the anti-hero theme and did Daniel Webster one better (for those that are familiar with that paticualr short story). The constant commercialism of his characters undermined his initial success.

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That's American court for you >_>

Submitted by Mybrokenwings on Mon, 12/20/2004 - 2:36am.

Seriously...so many stupid things that end up in court and actually wins...If I were to be an judge (with no jury) I would have laughed the guy up in the face so hard that I would get cramps..I would probably been fired but hey!...I still had the possibility to humiliate the person.. heh..

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circeus's picture

A little research and viola:

Submitted by circeus on Sun, 12/19/2004 - 12:51pm.

A little research and viola:

[url=]John Doe, a/k/a Tony Twist, Appellant v. TCI Cablevision, et al., Respondents.[/url]

Here's the entire basis for the case:

Quote:
In 1992, avowed hockey fan Todd McFarlane created the comic book Spawn, and the next year, he added to the Spawn storyline a villainous Mafia don character named "Anthony 'Tony Twist' Twistelli." McFarlane has acknowledged within the comic industry that this character was based on the professional hockey player and "enforcer," Tony Twist.

However here's the relavent stuff that I think was ignored:

Quote:
In 1993, a fictional character named "Anthony 'Tony Twist' Twistelli" was added to the Spawn storyline. The fictional "Tony Twist" is a Mafia don whose list of evil deeds includes multiple murders, abduction of children and sex with prostitutes. The fictional and real Tony Twist bear no physical resemblance to each other and, aside from the common nickname, are similar only in that each can be characterized as having an "enforcer" or tough-guy persona.

And he only really admits to using the names of hockey players:

Quote:
Each issue of the Spawn comic book contains a section entitled "Spawning Ground" in which fan letters are published and McFarlane responds to fan questions. In the September 1994 issue, McFarlane admitted that some of the Spawn characters were named after professional hockey players, including the "Tony Twist" character: "Antonio Twistelli, a/k/a Tony Twist, is actually the name of a hockey player of the Quebec Nordiques." And, again, in the November 1994 issue, McFarlane stated that the name of the fictional character was based on Twist, a real hockey player, and further promised the readers that they "will continue to see current and past hockey players’ names in my books."
In April 1996, Wizard, a trade magazine for the comic book industry, interviewed McFarlane. In the published article, "Spawning Ground: A Look at the Real Life People Spawn Characters Are Based Upon," McFarlane is quoted as saying that he uses the names of real-life people to create the identities of the characters. Brief biographies and drawings of the Spawn characters follow the McFarlane interview. The paragraph devoted to the "Tony Twist" character contained a drawing of the character accompanied by the following description...

And more importantly as any person who's actually read the comics (did the judge?) could agree with the following:

Quote:
At trial, McFarlane denied that the comic book character was "about" the real-life Tony Twist despite the fact that the names were the same.

But here's why McFarlane lost, and this I can agree with now having read over the case and summary opinion of the case:

Quote:
Twist, however, presented evidence that McFarlane and the other defendants had indeed benefited by using his name. For example, Twist introduced evidence suggesting that in marketing Spawn products, McFarlane directly targeted hockey fans -- Twist’s primary fan base -- by producing and licensing Spawn logo hockey pucks, hockey jerseys and toy zambonis. On cross-examination, McFarlane admitted that on one occasion defendants sponsored "Spawn Night" at a minor league hockey game, where McFarlane personally appeared and distributed Spawn products, including products containing the "Tony Twist" character. Another "Spawn Night" was planned to take place at a subsequent NHL game, but the event never occurred.

And loss of consortium will get you a loss every time:

Quote:
In addition, Twist introduced evidence that his association with the Spawn character resulted in a diminution in the commercial value of his name as an endorser of products. To that end, Sean Philips, a former executive of a sports nutrition company, testified that his company withdrew a $100,000 offer to Twist to serve as the company’s product endorser after Philips learned that Twist’s name was associated with the evil Mafia don in the Spawn comic book.

So as long as this was not truly an issue of rights to a name (which no one has) and a completely different sort of case (which the original article implied it was). I'm okay with this decision.
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Darn!

Submitted by Dawn on Sun, 12/19/2004 - 2:21am.

If only my last name was Walters!

In other news... Senior citizen and retiree Lex Luthor of Clearwater Florida is calling his lawyer right now. <br><hr>
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I would think that they would

Submitted by Herodotus Frost on Sun, 12/19/2004 - 1:17am.

I would think that they would have needed to prove that he willfully stole his name and used his likeness (image, personality, trademarks...) to capitalize on. Personally I don't have much love for MacFarland because I think his type of greed really screwed up the whole comics industry in the mid 90's, but I sure hope he gets a better lawyer and appeals this because on the surface it sounds sickening.

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circeus's picture

Holy cow is that a load of BS

Submitted by circeus on Sat, 12/18/2004 - 3:47pm.

Holy cow is that a load of BS.

Tony Twist, the character in Spawn was nicknamed Tony Twist because he twisted off peoples limbs when he killed them.

How a court could award a win to Tony Twist the NHL player for this I have no idea. Now not that I'm a huge fan of Todd McFarlane (though I did like Spawn, not liked much else he did -- I think he fubar'd Spiderman for a while personally), the result of this lawsuit is beyond sanity.
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