Tom Batiuk responds to Funky blog take down order at The Daily Cartoonist

Tom Batiuk responds to Funky blog take down order The Daily Cartoonist

Let me tell ya, snarkers, it’s not as dramatic as the headline makes it sound, but TB is officially on the record regarding last Friday’s legal action, with a rather terse, two-sentence comment. It’s linked above, but I might as well share this bit of intellectual property right here:

“When asked why he felt he needed to take legal action to take down the blogs, Tom [Batiuk] responds:

‘I fought a lawsuit to regain ownership of my creations and, as a result, I take my intellectual property rights including trademark and copyright very seriously, and will enforce my rights when I find them being infringed. That includes someone reprinting the work in total without permission or compensation.’”

The man has spoken. And without admitting any guilt on my part, I will say I respect and understand what TB (and his lawyers) have to say. This whole affair has been quite an education for yours truly. At the Daily Cartoonist site, comics luminaries including Comics Curmudgeon’s Josh Fruhlinger and My Cage cartoonist Ed Power have weighed in, with most of them (Ed excluded, bless his heart) have come down on TB’s side. “Caricaturist” Dave Stephens, whose work includes a cartoon of JFK getting his head blown off, calls me a “bad egg”.

A number of folks are following this turn of events and wondering if this may have a “chilling effect” on other comics blogs. I hope it will not, and I don’t expect that it will. It’s time to get back to the business of snarking. Let me offer my thanks once more to everyone who has voiced their support for Son of Stuck Funky: most especially Sgt Saunders for his intellectual property expertise, and to David O for covering the cost of the domain name, and everyone who emailed me when the heat came down. Lastly let me welcome those who’ve discovered this blog as a result of all the fracas! Stick around and enjoy Westview through our eyes.

Stay Funky, y’all!

TFHackett

The Girls of Sum' Mo'

Here’s a link to today’s strip.

The She-Goats return to the hardwood to resume the un-forfeited game. How exactly does “TEAM ON ONE” work? “One—TEAM!” Isn’t it usually “on three“? Admittedly, I never played team sports, so I could be ignorant… or this could be just another thing that Batiuk Gets Wrong. But even TB must face the fact that someone with a torn ACL can’t suit up for a game the day after. Yet even on crutches,  Sum’ Mo’ finds herself at the center of all the attention.

SoSF in the News (Updated)

The Daily Cartoonist site reports (sort of) on the recent legal kerfuffle:

Batiuk lawyers force down Funky commentary blog

By “sort of” reporting, I mean that they couldn’t be bothered to email me to comment, but instead lifted their quotes from my post. They didn’t reach out to Batiuk for his thoughts either. I was extremely humbled, however, to have SoSF described as being “similar to Comics Curmudgeon”

UPDATE: I take back the “sort of”. Alan Gardner of the Daily Cartoonist not only emailed me for comment, but posted my reply to the site mere minutes after I hit “send”. A tip of the SoSF Stetson to the Daily Cartoonist! Alan also has contacted Batiuk, who probably will reply through his legal team.

Koo Koo Ka Chew

Here’s a link to today’s strip

As he struggles to stow Summer’s crutches in the back of their tiny Batiukmobile®, Les halfheartedly opines that maybe a basketball career isn’t in the cards for his daughter. Plucky Summer sees through his BS, and shuts him up with a non-sequitur which I’m convinced Batiuk found over at tvtropes.org. I was so excited when I saw this that I posted to the forums there, only to have the tropers dismiss me as a n00b.