Gaiman v. McFarlane 2010: Testimony Wraps Up

[This is part of my running report on the 2010 hearing on the Neil Gaiman v. Todd McFarlane case. To see coverage from the beginning, click here.]
 
Part Twenty-Two The hearing had begun at 9 a.m. It was now somewhere near 2 p.m. McFarlane was his own final witness, and his attorney Alex Grimsley asked him to compare the angel Tiffany (above), introduced in Spawn #44 (March 1996, written by McFarlane, pencilled by Tony Daniel, inked by Kevin Conrad) to the angel Angela (below), introduced in Spawn #9 (March 1993, written by Gaiman, drawn by McFarlane, here shown from Angela #3 (February 1995), pencilled by Greg Capullo and inked by Mark Pennington). McFarlane said they had the same marking around the eyes - but added that that had been a pre-existing element.
* "Angela has a spear, and Tiffany has a gun."
* "The hair is not the same."
* "Tiffany's wings are steel." He compared her wings to ninja blades.
* "Angela never had wings on her back."
When Grimsley referred to the entry on Tiffany in Spawn Bible, McFarlane said, "I don't believe I wrote that." Had McFarlane drawn the angel Domina? "I don't believe so."

Turning to the series Spawn: The Dark Ages, Grimsley asked why McFarlane had produced it. (It ran 28 issues, starting with the March 1999 issue and ending with the issue dated July 2001.) McFarlane answered, "I wanted to put more comic books out." Did he direct the team producing Spawn: The Dark Ages to base it on a specific time period? "I don't recall specifying," he said, adding that he'd told the team to "come up with something cool."

Gaiman attorney Allen Arntsen began the cross-examination. "Neil Gaiman created both Medieval Spawn and Angela in Spawn #9, right? "Right." "Angela was the first bounty-hunter angel?" "Right." "Angela is in the related story in Spawn #26, right?" "Correct, two or three pages, yeah." "Neil wrote Angela #1-3?" "Correct." "She's a major player in the Spawn universe?" "Correct. If I said it, I'll stand by it." Arntsen turned to the matter of whether there had been multiple Spawns in medieval times: "every 400 years, right?" "There may have been a time when that was true." Arntsen cited the letters page response in Curse of the Spawn #4 (December 1996): "A new Spawn appears on earth every 400 years and Daniel Llanso [the Spawn of Curse of the Spawn] is the Spawn that shows up 400 years after Al Simmons." Following an afternoon break, Arntsen returned to the 400-year plot device. McFarlane responded, "We weren't terribly consistent, and it wasn't a rule."

Questioning ended with a return to McFarlane attorney Grimsley: "How familiar are you with Spawn: The Dark Ages stories?" "Not very familiar." Regarding the 400-year basis? "We weren't consistent." "Why would you not be consistent?" "Things happen. I couldn't even keep track of how many spikes were on the costume." "Why not keep to the rules you set out?" "You break those rules because of the wants of the fans and marketing."

The session ended with attorneys agreeing to see to it that Judge Barbara Crabb received both attorneys' post-hearing briefs and (because some of the photocopies supplied to her as evidence had been virtually illegible) a set of exhibits in color by June 25.

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Gaiman v. McFarlane 2010: Marketing and Angela's Design

[This is part of my running report on the 2010 hearing on the Neil Gaiman v. Todd McFarlane case. To see coverage from the beginning, click here.]

Part Twenty-One Todd McFarlane discussed the economics of the comic-book and toy businesses briefly. Regarding the toys, he said, "The Spawn line as a whole was successful out of the gate, [produced] to draw on the popularity of Spawn." He addressed the issue of the Previews catalog listing for Spawn: The Dark Ages #1. "This is the main way you market to retailers." He said the solicitation did not mention Medieval Spawn. "We can make stuff look like other stuff and give it consistency. You call attention to the things that will get you sales. [In this case] the value is Spawn. ... If the intent was for us to use Medieval Spawn, we would have called him 'Medieval Spawn.' We weren't trying to do that."

Spawn #9 by Gaiman and McFarlane introduced Angela. "Were there elements of Angela used from Spawn?" Yes." He elaborated on his approach to drawing. "We have a flat piece of paper. We create the illusion of 3-D using cape, wind, and hair." He cited similarities to Spawn:
* Marks on her face are a repetition of the marks on Spawn's face, with the black indicating a bad guy.
* Blank eyes [since she's not a devil, her eyes aren't green]
* Her symbol is the opposite of the Spawn mark
* Her earrings are based on the Spawn mark
* "There are sharp points on Spawn, so she's got sharp points."
* "She's an angel, but wings locked on the back don't work [artistically], so they're on her head" (like Valkyrie headdresses)
* The chains of Spawn are turned into ribbons and even her hair

"Why is Angela scantily clad?" "A couple of obvious reasons: the history of women characters when men are at the helm." He cited paintings by Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo. "If we don't show skin, we put her in skin-tight clothes. Boys have been doing it since, I assume, the invention of boys."

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Gaiman v. McFarlane 2010: Soliciting Spawn

[This is part of my running report on the 2010 hearing in the Neil Gaiman v. Todd McFarlane case. To see coverage from the beginning, click here.]

Part Sixteen In the closing segment of Neil Gaiman's testimony, Todd McFarlane attorney Alex Grimsley asked whether Gaiman recalled whether the Medieval Spawn toy had been popular. "From what I remember, it must have been popular, because he did a lot more." Grimsley asked, regarding the Spawn: The Dark Ages series as it was being solicited, "If you were writing the solicitation for the issue, you wouldn't say, you know, 'Here is a new series based on this popular character'?" Gaiman said, "I'm a writer, not a marketer." "OK, but you write the solicitation, correct?" "Normally, no. ... I wrote the ones for Spawn #9 all those years ago because Todd asked me to and they had to put something out. But, no, I don't think I've written a solicitation since." Grimsley handed Gaiman a Lord Covenant toy and asked whether he recognized it. Gaiman said, "No." Grimsley asked, "That doesn't appear to be a character that you created?" Gaiman responded, "I wouldn't have thought so."

That wrapped up his testimony at the hearing. After the lunch break, the next witness would be for McFarlane: Spawn: The Dark Ages writer Brian Holguin.

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