The final judgement has been handed down in the long running Gary Friedrich vs Marvel (Ghost Rider) case, and now we know the full amount that Friedrich owes Marvel. That’s right, Marvel, a company that stands to make millions of dollars from the upcoming Ghost Rider II movie, and is paying Nicholas Cage millions to portray a character that Friedrich created, now wants money from Friedrich – in specific $17,000.
Essentially, Disney/Marvel counter-sued Friedrich over ownership of Ghost Rider, demanding all moneys he had made from selling prints of the character at conventions and the like, and won, so now Friedrich – who, by his own accounts, is unemployed and has no assets – finds himself owing the corporation that he believes stole his creation $17,000 with no way of paying. It’s one thing for Marvel to reassert itself legally as the owner of the character, but demanding $17,000 from someone who’s essentially penniless? That just seems cruel, and maybe worse for Marvel, something that can only lead to bad publicity for the company (and at a time when its treatment of Jack Kirby and the Kirby estate is getting some mainstream media attention, too). The sooner the decision is made to waive the “debt,” the better.
February 9th, 2012 at 11:58 am
F*ck Marvel!
February 9th, 2012 at 12:06 pm
You won Marvel. Look everyone, Marvel won! Can’t that be enough? Let it be enough. For the love of God, the man is penniless. Leave him be. Please.
February 9th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
The ongoing Kirby debate, the Before Watchmen debate, and now this.
It begs the questions: Why would any writer or artist bother creating something new for Marvel or DC?
February 9th, 2012 at 12:18 pm
They don’t need to create new characters—they simply get paid for rehashing the same stuff with a new, edgy attitude. It’s like being back in the 90s.
February 9th, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Not to sound pro-Marvel, but if Freidrich is “essentially penniless,” how could he afford to hire lawyers to sue Marvel? I hope it was one of those “you only pay if we win” kind of things because if not, Freidrich will also have hefty legal fees to pay on top of this too.
February 9th, 2012 at 1:02 pm
I doubt the Mouse of Ideas will care about how this looks to the public. If they cared about how their actions looked to the public they wouldn’t have screwed over their founding father. Hell, they spend decades screwing Jack Kirby. It was like a hobby for them. They publicly screwed Stan Lee too, and to most people Stan Lee IS Marvel Comics, as he was their public face for four decades. They kicked him to the curb rather than pay him his cut for the Spidey movies. He had to sue Marvel & Sony to get THAT. At no point did Marvel care how that looked to the public. And that was before Disney bought them and they could sic the Mouse’s Demon-seed Lawyers after anyone.
The only time Disney has ever bowed to public pressure was when it leaked that they were going to copyright & trademark the name “Seal Team Six” after the real Seal team killed Bin Laden. Guess even the Mouse’s legal staff was afraid of a midnight raid on the Magic Kingdom.
I would like to see comics-fan and Ghost Rider star, Nick Cage step in and pay this fine out of his $2 million earning for the GR sequel. It would be the best publicity the movie could get, and would restore a lot of Cage’s cred in the geek community. The worse that could happen to Cage is that they recast or reboot for a third movie.
February 9th, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Yes, I have to say this is rather despicable act on Marvel’s part, but it makes perfect sense in an evil corporation sort of way.
I fully expect them to magnanimously waive the $17k settlement… this time…
…but let this be an example to the next artist who thinks they have a case against Marvel in the future.
February 9th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
Marvel/Disney & Sony did nothing wrong. They defended their ownership of an intellectual property and the $17K was part of the countersuit. And the judge ruled in favor of Marvel.
If they actually try and collect the $17K from Friedrich then they would be the evil corporation/@$$-holes that the everyone is calling them.
February 9th, 2012 at 4:58 pm
Sounds like Friedrich hired a pretty shitty lawyer. but no worries, he may be penniless now, but he was able to come up with Ghost Rider on his own. All he has to do is come up with another character and sell that. Its not like there’s much overhead or capital investment to create a character. Whats Ghost Rider worth, millions? So Friedrich just needs another multi million dollar idea. he’s fine.
of course if Ghost Rider was his only good idea, he is totally screwed, and really never should have sold it/created it under WFH for Marvel. Live and learn I guess.
February 9th, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Disgusting.
And totally expected.
–J.
February 9th, 2012 at 8:12 pm
Look, this argument bugs me. It is often said that people who are rich shouldn’t automatically win in Court. Well, the same is true for people who are not rich.
The Court ruled. Marvel may make a decision that the damage to its corporate brand is greater than $17,000.00, and not enforce the judgement. But the idea that this evil corporation has done a dastardly deed is just wrong. Friedrich could have conceded the point. He didn’t, and the Court ruled against him. How does that make him the good guy?
February 10th, 2012 at 2:10 pm
@Aussiesmurf
It doesn’t make him the good guy, but it does make Marvel the bad guy. They counter-sued him, and not even for defamation, which there would, at least, be some logic to. No, it’s for selling prints of Ghost Rider at conventions, which also happens to open up a whole can of worms for any artist that ever does a sketch featuring a character owned by the Big Two.
February 10th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
I think the issue with the prints (and I could be wrong about this) is that I read somewhere that the signed prints he was selling were of a MARVEL OWNED product, like the actual cover to Marvel Spotlight #5, which IS Marvel property – Things like one off character sketches are seen as promoting the brand, so long as they are done in good taste and as such are not infringing on licensed and published product…No matter how you slice it though, it is too bad he can’t get a credit and some cash to at least recognize his contribution to the character…
February 10th, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Marvel/Disney has now opened a can of worms. Artists who never worked for Marvel draw and sell original art based on Spider-Man and all the others on Ebay every day. John Byrne has been selling recreations of his Marvel covers as well as original drawings of Marvel characters for years. How is that any different from what Gray Friedrich did? As far as I know Marvel doesn’t issue licenses to these artists to sell those drawings.
February 18th, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Marvel blank/white/sketch variants do not have a disclaimer saying that only licensed Marvel artists are allowed to draw a character on the cover. From the way this is being reported it creates a poor legal precedent that Marvel or any like company can claim intellectual property damages upon anyone who sells or is commissioned to draw or sign a piece or portrayal of a character.
For instance… under this ruling… it could be construed that there will be no more CGC signings unless allowed by Marvel or any other publishing house.
To me? This is like Major League Baseball stepping in and stopping retired players from signing autographs on baseballs that have the MLB logo unless they receive a cut.