Comics, Copyrights, and Satire

Jesse Walker | December 7, 2004

If you haven't read Reason's recent story on Dan O'Neill's copyright dispute with Disney, you should. And then, if you're wondering how relevant a tale from the '70s could be today, you should take a look at this:

On October 27, U.S. Customs sent a letter to Top Shelf Productions notifying them that copies of the anthology Stripburger had been seized, charging that the stories "Richie Bush" by Peter Kuper and "Moj Stub" (translated, "My Pole") by Bojan Redzic, constituted "clearly piratical copies" of registered and recorded copyrights. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has retained counsel to challenge these seizures.

"Richie Bush," appearing in Stripburger (Vol. 12) #37, is a four-page parody of Richie Rich, that also satirizes the Bush Administration by superimposing the personalities of the President's cabinet on the characters from the comic. "My Pole," appearing in Stripburger (Vol. 3) #4-5, which was published in 1994, is an eight-page ecology parable in Serbian that makes visual homage to Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and Woodstock in three panels.

Comments

|12.7.04 @ 11:24AM|#

Maybe Customs will hold the comics on grounds that they are "Un-American."

Warren|12.7.04 @ 12:54PM|#

Yet another example to illustrate that intellectual property belongs to whomever has the highest priced lawyer. These guys got the shaft because they had no one on retainer. Now that the 'Comic Book Legal Defense Fund' has joined their ranks, perhaps they got a shot at beating the rap. Contrast this with "Drawn Together" airing on Comedy Central and backed by the legions of MTV suits.

R Wellor|2.7.05 @ 1:44PM|#

Holy Cow! Time to ban HTML tags!