- Hello, and welcome everyone to an all new
episode of Super Suits, the YouTube comic book
show where we take closer looks at the most
famous lawsuits in the long and storied history
of superheroes in comics.
And today's show, get ready to aim for the head
and not get bitten because we have zombies
on the docket.
Chances are I don't need to tell any of you
out there listening right now that The Walking Dead
is a full on phenomenon.
Well, it began life as a small black and white Indie comic
book from Image has quickly exploded into one of the most
successful franchises in modern memory.
The Walking Dead managed to almost single handedly
usher in a new era of zombie mania.
The likes of which haven't been seen since the hay day
of George Romero.
But you know what?
You don't get to the top of the multi-media heap
with two successful shows, truckloads of merch,
good video games, bad video games,
and an entire post-show hosted by Chris Hardwick
under your belt, without getting involved in a
Super Suit or two.
And that my members of the internet court is what
we're going to be covering today.
But to truly understand and appreciate this Super Suit,
however, we're going to need to take a look back,
all the way to the very inception of The Walking Dead,
and first tell the tale of two friends.
Writer, Robert Kirkman and artist, Tony Moore.
These two guys have been best buds since the
seventh grade and had collaborated on such comic works
as Battle Pope and Brit, but these two unassuming
gentleman wouldn't fully take the world by storm until
October 8, 2003 when the first issue of The Walking Dead
would hit comic stands.
Fun little aside, did you know that Kirkman had to lie
about his long term plans for The Walking Dead?
It's true, originally Image had no interest in a zombie
book so Kirkman made up a revelation about aliens
being involved by the end of the first arch,
of course by the time that all came around,
the book was already a smash hit with readers
and critics, so no one seemed to care.
Keep this story in the back of your mind as we move forward
because it might just become important.
Now that's the writer, but what if the artist Tony Moore
would cease regular interior artist duties on
The Walking Dead with issue six.
He continued to contribute to the title as cover artist
through issue 24 and illustrated the covers for the series
first four collected volumes.
For his work, Moore was nominated for at least
two Eisner Award, Best New Series in 2004,
and Best Cover Artist in 2005.
Yup, it seemed like Kirkman and Moore had the perfect
working relationship but it's right around here
things between the two men began to sour.
You see, in February 2012, Moore filed a lawsuit
alleging that in 2005 writer Robert Kirkman deceitfully
engineered him into surrendering his rights to
The Walking Dead comic book and eventual TV series,
in exchange for money that he was never paid.
Now in this supposed deal that the two men had worked
out beforehand, in return for signing over his rights
to Kirkman, Moore was apparently told that he would
receive 60 percent of the net proceeds from the comic
books for both Walking Dead and Brit,
as well as 20 percent of the net proceeds from any
future movie or television adaptation of The Walking Dead
and Brit, plus 50 percent of any net proceeds from any
potential movie or television adaptation of Battle Pope.
Litigation got very ugly very fast with Kirkman
saying he overpaid Moore for the work he did on the first
six issues before counter-suing him for breaching contract
by outing the details of the original deal.
This suit would hit a metaphorical brick wall
when Image comics objected to a subpeona for
information on its relationship with Kirkman saying
Moore and his attorneys had no right to that information
on their business partner as it's, "had no relevance to
The Walking Dead work that Moore actually had performed."
Now you might be thinking this would have ended
all this ugliness right then and there,
but you would be wrong.
The Moore camp filed another lawsuit that August,
this time not only looking for money but also looking for
co-ownership of The Walking Dead for more himself.
Once again, things got about as ugly as a walker rotting
in the sun, Moore would say in his suit,
"Kirkman is a proud liar and fraudster who
"freely admits that he has no qualms about misrepresenting
"material facts in order to consummate
"business transactions."
Now for obvious business reasons,
it was in the Kirkman camp's best interest for Moore
to never get recognized as co-owner of The Walking Dead,
if only because of a particular quirk in the American
copyright system and that is that each co-owner has
independent right to exploit the work either in direct
use or licensing it out to third parties provided that
they provide any accounting, any royalties due
for any and all profits from the license or use.
Basically saying, had Moore got what he wanted,
he could have possible taken The Walking Dead show
to another network.
In the end, however, this case despite all these sound
and fury would ultimately settled out of court.
In September 2012, both Kirkman and Moore reached
an amicable agreement in their respective lawsuits.
Of course, the particulars of the deal are known only
to those involved and no one else.
This case being just yet another in a very long saga
as old as comic books themselves
and that is who truly owns a comic work,
the artist or the writer?
Personally, I've always thought of writer and artist
as like parents to their creative works,
but you know, some parents are more active in the
lives of their child than others.
And some parents can often be abusive or even absentee,
but you know, now I'm getting off topic,
and kind of depressing, too.
So yeah, that's the story of the battle for
The Walking Dead.
Tony Moore, would of course, continued to do art for comics,
Kirkman is riding high right now on a new season of
The Walking Dead TV show will be upon us very soon.
So, that will just about do it for me and another
episode of Super Suits.
I hope you all learned a little something
and before you go why not enjoy the only true
cure for the zombie plague, hittin' that big, red, shiny
subscribe button, or while you're at it,
why not watch the newest episode from Scott
in NerdSync or checkout something I'm doing
over on my channel.