Marvel Sends Mike Kaluta And Elaine Lee Cease And Desist Over Creator Owned Comic (UPDATE)

[Greymattersplat]

I'm really sooo glad that the mouse owns Marvel and Star Wars now.

Just wait until they start claiming ownership over Star Wars fanfilms...

[brian-cs]

This is a junior shyster looking to score a point. I looked at the Marvel Graphic Novel Starstruck appeared and the indicia is clear that Lee and Kaluta own the property. Now, if DeMatteis starts getting letters re: Greenberg the Vampire or Paty Cockrum gets one for the Futurians or Claremont and Bolton's ownership of Marada the She-Wolf is challenged, then there's a pattern. There is only this attempt at a dubious claim.

[Howard]

I don't know about fanfilms but they will own my Wolverine/Chewbacca slashfic when they pry it out my cold dead hands.

[MizElaineLee]

Just to make sure that things don't veer into the realm of "truthiness," Michael Kaluta and I received a letter that challenged our ownership of Starstruck and used the words, "please stop all sales and other related activities." Through our lawyer, we provided two letters from Marvel's former publisher, Mike Hobson, that backed our ownership of Starstruck. Things seem to have calmed down now. The situation seems to have been resolved. (I'm overusing the word "seems," so as not to jinx myself. Knock wood.) It was scary. At first, we weren't sure we could find the 3-decades-old documents we needed. (From way back in the pre-digtal days, youngsters. We're talking paper here. Dusty, old, yellow paper.) But there is no lawsuit. We think it may either have been about Disney's teen movie of a couple of years back, also called Starstruck. They may have found us while looking for people infringing on their property. Or they may have been simply trying to figure out what they still owned. But it was a frightening way to do it. So, this may have been an aberration, or other Epic creators may hear from them. Who knows? But creators may want to scare up that old paperwork. It can't hurt and might save you several days of abject fear.

[Stevaux The LEsser]

If they did get the rights to Starstruck wouldn't Disney wind up owing money?

[_OM_]

However, if you wanna see the internet actually attempt to rise up against Disney, let them try send one of those to Sergio...

...Note to those going to upcoming conventions: if Sergio is there, get him to do a quick sketch of Groo beheading Mickey, with the caption "Did I err?" being answered by "No." by Rufferto.

[Hollow]

Next Disney will send DC a cease and desist letter because Marvel used to publish DC characters (Avengers/JLA et al) and thus own them as well.

[The Xenos]

Damn. That suck. I sure hope it is some Misney lawyer peon overstepping his bounds with no clue as to ehat the old Epic line was or the concept of crwator owned. Maybe some bloodsucking layer at Disney assumed that every book they published as work for hire bullshit.

Funny. I just was looking at a Starstruck hardcover yesterday. It was of the IDW issues I already had. I also picked up a copy of the original oversized Epic Comics graphic novel adter I had picked those up.

[downlikecharlie]

Just to make sure that things don't veer into the realm of "truthiness," Michael Kaluta and I received a letter that challenged our ownership of Starstruck and used the words, "please stop all sales and other related activities." Through our lawyer, we provided two letters from Marvel's former publisher, Mike Hobson, that backed our ownership of Starstruck. Things seem to have calmed down now. The situation seems to have been resolved. (I'm overusing the word "seems," so as not to jinx myself. Knock wood.) It was scary. At first, we weren't sure we could find the 3-decades-old documents we needed. (From way back in the pre-digtal days, youngsters. We're talking paper here. Dusty, old, yellow paper.) But there is no lawsuit. We think it may either have been about Disney's teen movie of a couple of years back, also called Starstruck. They may have found us while looking for people infringing on their property. Or they may have been simply trying to figure out what they still owned. But it was a frightening way to do it. So, this may have been an aberration, or other Epic creators may hear from them. Who knows? But creators may want to scare up that old paperwork. It can't hurt and might save you several days of abject fear.

This is really good to hear. Thanks for posting! Now is not a great time for the big guys to discourage creatives from, you know, actually creating.

[FilmBuffRich]

Just wait until they start claiming ownership over Star Wars fanfilms...

That was my inital thought too.