Around thirty years before the Walt Disney Company bought Marvel Entertainment (Dec 2009) they threatened a trademark lawsuit against Marvel due to the similarities between their own duck superstar “Donald”, and Marvels irreverent “Howard” character. At the time in the 1970’s this was big news among comic book fans, but in the decades that have passed since this legal “battle” took place I had forgotten about this, well that was until I purchased a new copy of “Howard the Duck” Magazine issue 8 which discussed this very subject (cover to issue 8 below).
It was around 1977 when the Walt Disney Company threatened to sue Marvel claiming that Howard the Duck infringed on their Donald Duck trademark, so in order to avoid a legal battle Marvel's management team signed an agreement with Disney regarding the design of Howard the Duck. According to the Marvel article that appeared in issue 8 the original Howard the Duck, to be known as "the 'old' Howard the Duck" would never be used again, except in reprints. Instead Howard would be replaced by a new design that included bleary eyes, a new shape of his head, a swollen beak and most important of all Howard had to wear trousers. The above design sheet seemingly created for Marvel by John Romita, was sent to Disney for their approval along with the letter below that was sent to the Marvel creative team that worked on Howard.
Steve Gerber (Howards co-creator) wasn’t happy with Disney's meddling and satirised this episode in “Howard the Duck” #21 (1977) in the story S.O.O.F.I (Save Our Offspring From Indecency).
Later in issue 2 of the "Howard the Duck" magazine (1979) Bill Mantlo addressed the issue of the Disney redesign less discreetly in the excellent story “ Animal Indecency” with the character Sidney Land. Although Disney and Marvel remained in communications over this issue and with Disney issuing a final cease and desist letter in the late 1970's, Howard's popularity had faded and the Magazine ended in 1981 with issue 9. At the end of the day despite all this back and forth and with legal threats being issues, Marvel never did fully implement any of Disney’s changes.
Strangely with Disney now owning Marvel and Howard they still seem intent that he should not look like his “real” 1970’s design, instead the more duck like image is what they plan to use - It's not a great look for such a cool comic character.
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Howard the Duck was a lightning strike of a character, hitting the pop culture mind at just the right moment. Steve Gerber's acerbic satire doesn't age well in some places, often being too heavy-handed, but when he was writing Howard the Duck he was in his comfort zone, with a character so silly that the hard social commentary felt less oppressive to the narrative. The modern Presidental race is so much more absurd than anything Gerber could imagine.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, while Frank Brunner was properly lauded for his Howard work, Gene Colan did some fabulous work on this series, his strange realism being ideal for the blend of Howard and the rest of the world. The later renditions of Howard have not found the sweet spot that Gerber, Colan, and company were able to find back in the 70's. Howard was a cynic, and maybe we're all Howard now.
I loved Brunners short run on Howard but Gene took the character to a different level . Very true state!ent about today's US Presidential election (and more) life imitating art imdeed.
ReplyDeleteThis post is presently showing in my blog list as having been published 19 hours ago, but 19 hours ago this post was NOT in my blog list. I know, 'cos I was looking at my blog list 19 hours ago to see if you had any new posts and it was only showing the previous one.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, on the subject of Howard, I don't think anyone would ever have mistaken him for Donald (or vice versa), so Disney was fretting over nothing - or merely throwing their weight around for the sake of it. The best-ever Howard The Duck story? Issue #3 - 'Master Of Quack-Fu'.
No idea why there's the case Kid. My favourite HtD story was probably "Howard saves Christmas" from issue 2 of the black and white magazine.
ReplyDeleteI certainly collected the colour comic of Howard the Duck back in 1976, but have no recollection of getting the Black & White magazine the following year, of even being aware of it at the time.
ReplyDeleteWas Howard the Duck the last attempt by a mainstream publisher to put out a colour comic book with a focus on social satire? I can't image the big corporations publishing something like Howard today.
I think I only became aware of the black and white magazine arou d issue 7 when it appeared in my local specialist comic shop . Im not sure on if there have been any social satire comic by mainstream publishers Ian. There is a really nice one from AWA that I picked up as it had Mike Deodato Junior on the art called Not All Robots
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