Erik Larsen vs. Marvel Comics: Obama in Yr S00perhero Comics.

[ourchair]

So apparently, the whole Barack Obama appearing in Amazing Spider-Man, as well as being on the cover business has drawn some ire from Erik Larsen, former Image President and creator of Savage Dragon.

Fanboys have been complaining that Marvel essentially plagiarized Erik Larsen. Larsen featured Obama in the pages of Savage Dragon as well as the cover, some months before he won the election, as both a publicity stunt and as a personal endorsement from Larsen and Ol' Finhead.

Now the debate has escalated to a point where both Marvel and Larsen are joining the discussion. From Larsen's end:

I can't help but feel very betrayed. They duplicated the incentive cover—and preempted my upcoming one—and even used the "terrorist fist jab." Clearly those in the "house of ideas" looked at what I did and found inspiration.

I hear that they're even doing a story similar to the one I did four years back, where an image-altering villain disguises himself as the President (in my story the Impostor replaced President Bush and took his place for a speech—in theirs the Chameleon, the shape-shifting villain, is going to spoil a speech being given by President-Elect Obama). The whole mess just feels really underhanded. I feel betrayed and, frankly, ripped off and in the real world—the one outside our funnybook bubble—Marvel will spin themselves as these great innovators who came up with this terrific publicity stunt—instead of the thieves they are.

And I know what they're saying when they're called on it—"Presidents have appeared in comics before" and "Erik didn't create Barack Obama" and blah, blah, blah.

The thing that Marvel is attempting to do is to frame the argument. To say "we've featured presidents in the past—this is what we do—it's part of a pattern." But that's a false argument. The "stunt" was an alternate cover featuring Obama— which was something no publisher had done with any president in the past and one that received a lot of press when I did it. If Marvel had done alternate covers with Bush and Clinton or any of the others— they could legitimately claim that they were following a pattern and doing what they've done in the past— but that wasn't the case. And theirs is not simply the appearance of a president in a comic book but one on an alternate cover— and one concocted to try and get some of the same attention that got. I did not create Obama— I did, however, have a character endorse him, long before he was elected while Marvel played footsie with Stephen Colbert— a joke candidate.

"House of ideas" my ***.

From Spider-Man group editor Steve Wacker:

Marvel DOES regularly show politicians and we have for years. That's the whole point. In fact, Marvel has spent the past year putting a fake presidential candidate in most of our books. The idea that we'd follow that up by putting a Spidey-fan-made-good on our cover can't really come as a huge surprise to anyone smart enough to be a publisher... And Eric's notion we stole the idea of the fist bump from him is also absurd. We actually stole it from reality. Like he did. Duh!

...The idea that this was off-limits because the President-Elect had appeared on another comic cover (or that we wouldn't have had this idea without Erik Larsen) is beyond preposterous. I suspect this is more of an overall "Marvel would be better if I were in charge!" bone to pick that Erik seems to carry around — which, if you get me on the right day, I completely share. But that bone doesn't mean that anyone at Marvel's "betraying" him as Erik dramatically puts it.

I'm a company stooge, so I don't expect Erik's going to care too much about what I think, but at the very least the writers and artists who are busy not stealing from him don't deserve his mewling accusations.

Discuss.

 

[ProjectX2]

Simple: both of them stop pandering to another audience and don't even put Obama in your comics.

 

[Void.M]

Simple: both of them stop pandering to another audience and don't even put Obama in your comics.

Except putting Obama in a comic has made Marvel money.

Seriously though, it seems Larson is just pissed he didn't get as much attention.

 

[ourchair]

I understand that this is just arguing about pandering and publicity hoo-ha, but at the heart of the matter is who came up with the pandering first.

I'm with Larsen, but barely. I think the difference is that Marvel's thing with Spider-Man was basically a editorial/marketing decision that yes, got a lot more attention than Larsen's pre-election publicity --- in effect, a failed maneuver because he attempted to capitalize at the wrong time --- but with Larsen, it was more like a personal endorsement.

It was basically using his own comic to endorse his candidate of choice AND make money, but one determined by an individual rather than an editorial/marketing consensus, not much ethically worse than Mark Millar's self-promoting shenanigans.

 

[McCheese]

They're both being stupid.

Erik can't lay claim to the president by getting there first. He's not the moon, you can't put a flag in him.

Marvel did see that his stunt made money and got him publicity so they duplicated his success. The House of Ideas didn't live up to their name in this case.

BOTH of them should stop pandering and get back to telling interesting superhero stories.

 

[Ice]

Simple: both of them stop pandering to another audience and don't even put Obama in your comics.

They're both being stupid.

Erik can't lay claim to the president by getting there first. He's not the moon, you can't put a flag in him.

Marvel did see that his stunt made money and got him publicity so they duplicated his success. The House of Ideas didn't live up to their name in this case.

BOTH of them should stop pandering and get back to telling interesting superhero stories.

What they said. They nailed it.

 

[Dancanread]

Marvel is money-grubbing, and Larsen is a cry-baby.

It is not plagiarism, even if someone at Marvel did get the idea from Larsen. There is a long history at Marvel of using presidents in their comics, as Wacker says. And, like McCheese says, if not in these words, you can't copyright a living person. And there's such a mania surrounding Obama in the media that I think this idea would've come to Marvel regardless of whatever anyone else did in any other comic. It's not that much of a stretch.

As a side note, Marvel's greed is even more glaring when you look at the extent to which Joe Q has been in the media plugging this thing, compared to how surprisingly quiet DC has been about what happened in Final Crisis 6.

 

[E]

Wah.

I don't really care for the sense of entitlement that any (or most) of the Image founders. They are all (or mostly) prima donnas. Larsen and McFarlane seem like they are by far the worst.

The funny thing here is that almost everything that Image came out with was a rip off of something that already existed, mostly Marvel I believe. Pitt = Hulk, Spawn = Venom (in part), etc. etc.

So yeah, I don't feel bad for him. Did he get clearance to put Obama in his book in the first place?

 

[Gemini]

The only solution is to have Obama kick Osborn's *** in next weeks Thunderbolts

 

[Random]

The debate between these two is just silly.

Also personally I don't mind if Marvel has an issue with Obama in it.

 

[Gemini]

The debate between these two is just silly.

Also personally I don't mind if Marvel has an issue with Obama in it.

He's actually in T-Bolts next week....on a plane....with Norman Osborn....and

Spoiler

Doc Samson

. Obama's not going to be in the cover, and I doubt it'll get any fanfare but he's actually going to be in the story.

also Image is trying to replicate the ASM succes with February or March's issue of Youngblood

 

[Void.M]

Marvel is money-grubbing, and Larsen is a cry-baby.

It is not plagiarism, even if someone at Marvel did get the idea from Larsen. There is a long history at Marvel of using presidents in their comics, as Wacker says. And, like McCheese says, if not in these words, you can't copyright a living person. And there's such a mania surrounding Obama in the media that I think this idea would've come to Marvel regardless of whatever anyone else did in any other comic. It's not that much of a stretch.

As a side note, Marvel's greed is even more glaring when you look at the extent to which Joe Q has been in the media plugging this thing, compared to how surprisingly quiet DC has been about what happened in Final Crisis 6.

What's wrong with them promoting their product?

 

[Dancanread]

What's wrong with them promoting their product?

Nothing, in and of itself. My thought was incomplete. It's just that the amount of time Joe Q has been plugging this, combined with the slap-dash, rushed-feeling quality of the Obama story, combined with, well Jeph Loeb, is all just further evidence to me that Marvel cares more about money than making good product.

Every major Marvel event of the last 3 or 4 years has been majorly pimped out to the press, and in many ways to the detriment of the regular readers. The biggest plots get spoiled by newspapers and CNN before you can even get to your LCS, and poor people like Captaincanuck can't get their regular issue because everyone and their mother snaps them all up, not because readership is expanding(as Joe Q would say), but just to make cash on ebay.

I look at the close to zero coverage of something much more monumental to DC in Final Crisis 6, and I just find it a classier way to go.

BTW I mention Jeph Loeb because his work is blasted critically by consensus, but continues to do good business, so I'm sure we're stuck with him.

 

[mike3717]

He's not the moon, you can't put a flag in him.

The whole thing is stupid.
The important thing is...I got me a Obama variant. :rockon:

 

[Bass]

I find it hard to believe that Marvel ripped off Larsen. The idea of having a shape-changing villain screw up an important political speech is hardly original.

People only complain about plagiarism when someone's making a lot of money.