In a ruling filed this past weekend, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in favor of Neil Gaiman in a lawsuit against Todd McFarlane. Gaiman’s lawsuit claimed that McFarlane’s creation of Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany were completely deriviative of his own characters of Medieval Spawn and Angela, and that he was owed royalties for these creations.
This ruling has been long brewing and much observed in the world of comics, but as noted by CBR, is very interesting if only for Crabb’s encyclopedic knowledge of the world of Spawn and her (as noted by a CBR reader) awesome ideas of what McFarlane could have done instead of Dark Ages Spawn.
It’s also interesting for another thing, as pointed out by Erik Larsen on Twitter:
How anybody can look at Medieval Spawn and side with Neil just shows their bias against Todd. It’s Spawn on a horse, for cryin’ out loud!
Claiming that Dark Ages Spawn is derivative of Medieval Spawn, when the latter is clearly just a variation on an existing mythology and character, seems kind of ridiculous. But maybe that’s just me.
Still, it’s good to finally have resolution on this ugly affair, and hopefully it marks the end of the avalanche of lawsuits McFarlane’s prized creation has faced in its existence.
