Scrawlers store

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Winnowill
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Scrawlers store

Post by Winnowill »

Will more items be added? I was thinking that Santa NC would make a killer card for the holidays. I don't know how the licensing would go.
Bamf Bunny
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Scrawlers store

Post by Bamf Bunny »

Bamfette or Crawler would have to fill you on in on store plans, but ... nothing that's there currently shows Nightcrawler, except in silhouette. Showing Kurt in uniform would be a lot touchier.
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Bamfette
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Post by Bamfette »

we can't use any images of Nightcrawler as he is a copyrighted and trademarked character of Marvel and we would be violating copyright law by doing so, even if the image is drawn by me such as Santa Kurt. the closest we can come is the silhouette, sorry.

we get away with it on the site since we are not making a profit using Kurt's likeness. it's not technically right or legal, but Marvel has been ok with this kind of usage of it's characters for years. selling shirts and stuff with those charactersand making a profit doing so.... whole nother matter.
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Post by Ult_Sm86 »

That stinks. Well if we have DAVE's agreement doesn't that mean anything? Or is the same as Stanly (ha stanly! stan LEE!) and he doesn't technically own them anymore.
Which would suck....

hey if stan lee doesn't own them any more how come his name is on every spider-man or x-men comic and he isn't even editing or publishing them....what's up with that. If nightcrawler were to have his own series shouldn't it say Dave Cockrum presents: Nightcrawler: the fuzzy ass kicking elf or whatever?
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Bamfette
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Post by Bamfette »

... rant coming up. i see this all the time at Dave's forum. whining about how unfair it is that he can't do anything about Nightcrawler now and blah blah blah. and yeah, i agree it sucks that, for instance, he wasn't so much as mentioned on the X2 DVD (Chuck tried, he really did, but they edited out all mention of Dave's name) but... come on...

No. Dave does not own Nightcrawler, Storm, or any other character he designed for X-Men (or Legion, for that matter) they are property of MARVEL (DC in case of Legion...). Nor should he. Dave designed them as work for hire. He was payed a fee to draw. He drew. If X-Men was his book and he was self publishing, Dave's word would be all we need. But he doesn't own the rights to any Marvel character. When Dave put NC on the X-Men, Nightcrawler became Marvel's intellectual property. Dave is not permitted to sell anything of Nightcrawler, either, aside form *original* artwork.

Though it was not the case when Dave was working for Marvel, and yes, that sucks for him, today artists and writers get royalties on characters. A small percentage of profits gained by using those characters, if they earn over a certian ammount of profit for Marvel. but they still give up rights to them.

It's not unfair. No one is robbing anyone. This is the way it is done everywhere with company owned properties, at Marvel, DC, CrossGen, etc. Dave knew beforehand that this would be the result when he put NC in the book. If Dave regrets it, he shouldn't have used a design he was so attached to. Every artist or writer getting into this buisness knows that if you want rights to your own character, you MUST self-publish (Mike Kunkel's Herobear and the Kid. i know it says published by 'The Astonish Factory' but that company is just Mike Kunkel and his wife...). Or if working for a publisher, at the very least, work on an idea independednt of a company owned shared universe, and make SURE it is written in your contract that you own rights to the characters (like Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is published by Slave Labor Graphics, but the characters are copyrighted and trademarked by Jhonen Vasquez. or Fables is published by DC/Vertigo, but copyrighted by bill Willingham. Vasquez and Willingham retained ownership of their ideas despite working through a publisher. but both ideas are completely seperate from a shared universe of any kind. if they werent, if Fables was in DC's main universe in some way, Willingham would have given up rights to the characters. i guarantee it.).

Look at this from Marvel's perspective. If they didn't do this, every writer or artist who ever created an X-Men character for them could go out and use the popularity they gianed in the X-Books to make THEMSELVES money by selling either a new book no published by MArvel with that character, or merchandise. Great for the writer/artist, yeah. but sucky as hell for Marvel. And sucky for fans who want linear continuity for characters, as Marvel would be under no obligation to follow events in this independently produced comic, and visa-versa. That's money MARVEL could be earning. So it is in their best intrest do do this. it's just the way it works, always has, always will.

Look. I have designed a lot of company owned characters. a LOT. More than Dave has, believe it or not (tho i am sure he whoops me hands down for characters in general. i am talking ones owned by comapnies). They may not be as famous as NC, but the simple fact of the matter is i have designed DOZENS of characters that are company owned properties. I was a professional mascot designer for 3 years. during that short time, I designed characters for the Denver Broncos, Philadelphia Eagles, Yale University, Canada Customs, Red Lobster, Chicago Cubs, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Columbus Bluejackets, the list goes on. they differ in that they have no story to accompany them, but the art was mine, the design is my work. But it would be ILLEGAL for me to sell anything with those characters on them, plain and simple. I would be sued so fast it would make my head spin. Every mascot drawing I publish on my site, I have to put the disclaimer 'Copyright Street Characters Inc.' and it should be obvious to anyone why it would be illegal, and why i have to state the art is someone elses property. And i am fine with it! hey, i was hired to draw, i drew. I retain ownership of the original drawing, but am not allowed to reproduce it aside for display in my personal portfolio. If i wanted to use a character later, it was quite simple: i would NEVER EVER use them for an official SC design. i would save them for my private use. this is the EXACT same thing. do you think the character designers at Disney have any ownership of the characters they design? do you see the characters Mike Kunkel designed for Hercules apepar in Herobear? hell no.

Stan Lee's name on the books is a homage, a nod to what he did for the books, but no he does not personally own any rights to the characters, either.
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Post by Ult_Sm86 »

Well thank god about that I was kind of always wondering why Dave didn't ever get his name there. (why doesn't he get a nod once in a while?)

So how come stan lee can edit hulk but not spider-man and x-men or Punisher?
And I see what you mean jill sorry for making you rant. Al thought you can't say he doesn't deserve a nod at least. If someone were to do another kurt series (mini or not) i'd personally hope they'd have it read Dave Cockrum presents: The Swashbucling (or whatever) Nightcrawler. But that's just me. And that's just opnions not buisness ethics. :D Didn't mean to bush buttons jill.
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