Twist settles for $5-million
After seeing his first award of $24.5 million tossed out, and a subsequent one of $15 million upheld, former St. Louis Blues enforcer Tony Twist has settled for $5 million in a suit over his depiction in a comic strip.
The settlement between Twist and insurance companies for Todd McFarlane Productions Inc. was approved in bankruptcy court in Arizona...
The litigation began when McFarlane, creator of the comic series "Spawn," used Twist's name for a violent, mob boss character. The first jury award came in 2000.
by James Mirtle @ 12:15 PM
Trackbacks
| Permalink |
5 comments
5 Comments:
...but does he get an action figure made of him as part of the sttlement!
Often these lawsuits are rather bogus, but on this one I think Tony Twist had a fair point. McFarlane would have spent far less money, and had far less grief, had he simply approached Twist before the fact and offered him a piece of the action on this particular offering. Twist probably would have said yes for the right offer.
I remain a wee bit skeptical of Twist's claim that his mother was distressed by the actions of the "Tony Twist" character. Are we meant to believe she was really reading Spawn?
But McFarlane didn't do himself any favours by admitting he named the character after the hockey player when the character first appeared.
It was painfully obvious, though, where he found the inspiration for the name. To claim otherwise would have made a judge even more ticked off.
Twist would have had no concrete proof he was the inspiration for the character's name, had not McFarlane gone around in interviews telling everyone where he got the name. (IIRC, the character's real name was Antonio Twisterelli or something like that, shortened to Tony Twist.)
Without that, McFarlane could have claimed it was a coincidence, and maybe got lucky with a gullible judge (they do, sadly, exist).
But McFarlane played his own executioner here.
Post a Comment
<< Home