WILL EISNER - Giveaways, Educational, and Souvenir Comic Books

[BOOT]

and here's a tale of legal wrangling, dirty deeds done dirt cheap, the dog eat dog world of promotional comics, and the Scrappy Coco nature of Will Eisner.

 

WORD TO THE WISE: Think you can work for Eisner and steal one of his ideas? And then claim it's different because it's drawn better? Even if the judges think it's drawn better?

 

THINK AGAIN.

 

and oh yeh - Boot, Bo, anybody got "Killer in the Streets"?

 

I missed this the first time round. GREAT STORY, DOC! Thanks for sharing it. Don't have a copy of Killer in the Streets and haven't ever seen one.

 

[Sqeggs]

and here's a tale of legal wrangling, dirty deeds done dirt cheap, the dog eat dog world of promotional comics, and the Scrappy Coco nature of Will Eisner.

 

 

AMERICAN VISUALS CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. Frederick A. HOLLAND and Sam Schwartz, Defendants.

 

United States District Court S. D. New York. November 26, 1957.

 

"This action is for infringement of copyright, unfair competition and the misuse of confidential information by plaintiff's former employees. It relates to two pamphlets—plaintiff's pamphlet entitled "Killer in the Streets" and defendant Holland's "It Can't Happen to Us." Each pamphlet details pictorially in cartoon style three common types of highway accidents resulting from careless driving by members of one family.

 

Plaintiff is engaged in the business of creating and selling illustrated books for industrial purposes. In 1950 it conceived and created an illustrated cartoon booklet on highway safety entitled "Sudden Death." Undoubtedly the title and the subject matter were prompted by the famous article entitled "And Sudden Death" published in the Reader's Digest in 1935. For a period of two years plaintiff restricted distribution of the pamphlet, still in rough dummy form, to a limited number of persons. In August 1952 defendant Holland, at that time one of plaintiff's salesmen, showed the pamphlet to a Mr. Browne of the Aetna Casualty Company who suggested a change of name to "Killer in the Streets." The name was changed and the pamphlet "cleaned up" by plaintiff's other employee, defendant Schwartz, i. e., he redid some of the lettering and copying but none of the creative work. In September 1952 defendant Holland, on behalf of plaintiff, attended a convention of accident and casualty insurance companies in the Poconos, Pennsylvania, and distributed some 100 copies of plaintiff's pamphlet, still in dummy form, and induced an insurance association to distribute a similar number to its members. On September 25, 1953, Holland left plaintiff's employ and started a new business under the name and style of Frederick A. Holland Company, and within a short time thereafter published his pamphlet "It Can't Happen to Us", oddly enough for a group of insurance companies who, according to him, expressed no interest when "Killer in the Streets" was shown to them. It is undisputed that Schwartz did the actual art work in "It Can't Happen to Us" and that he was paid for his labor and is not a partner, nor did he share in the profits, of defendant Holland's publication and sale. His recollection was not clear as to whether or not he had "Killer in the Streets" before him at the time of the preparation of "It Can't Happen to Us", but we find as a fact that he did. His phrase was that he used plaintiff's pamphlet as an example of the thing not to do, but we find that he used it as a model.

 

While it is undoubtedly true that only the expression of ideas is copyrightable we find as a fact that defendant Holland has stolen the expression of ideas in plaintiff's pamphlet and that his work "It Can't Happen to Us" infringes plaintiff's copyright in that he took a substantial part of plaintiff's execution for his own. He took the general style of the art work, dialogue and arrangement, the use of the family group and the characterization of the father as the road hog, the mother as the inattentive driver and the son as the youth heedless to mechanical imperfection. The only redeeming feature in the larceny is that the art work and composition of defendant's pamphlet is better. However, this is not sufficient to negative infringement.

 

Since we find defendants infringed plaintiff's copyrighted pamphlet, plaintiff is entitled to an injunction and its damages are hereby assessed in the amount of $5,000, which sum appears to be just, together with costs, and a reasonable attorneys' fee, which we fix at $1,500."

 

WORD TO THE WISE: Think you can work for Eisner and steal one of his ideas? And then claim it's different because it's drawn better? Even if the judges think it's drawn better?

 

THINK AGAIN.

 

and oh yeh - Boot, Bo, anybody got "Killer in the Streets"?

 

 

Pre-Production workup

 

 

 

Splash

 

 

 

Fascinating stuff. How did you find it?

[Dr. Love]

Ebay, some years ago. When I was on there daily - from work of course!

 

Beautiful Bowzer, Boot! Yellow version - outstanding! You are the Price of Promos. Actually, with Levine moving (some?) of his inventory - that would make you the King!