holytoastr | Yay! He won!!!

UPDATED - [Reached for reaction to Thursday's verdict in his case against Todd McFarlane, Neil Gaimen responded with this statement...
"I appreciated the jury's decision enormously, and also their hard work. I'm grateful to my legal team who really worked very hard. I regret that it became necessary."]

Comics Buyer’s Guide ’s Maggie Thompson is reporting in an email published by the magazine that on Thursday, the jury in the Gaiman vs. McFarlane case has sided with the plaintiff Gaiman on his lawsuit decided against McFarlane. All the verdicts in the case were decided unanimously, in accordance with the instructions of Judge John Shabaz.

According to CBG, the verdict form presented jurors with a number of questions which had to be answered, including if Gaiman had copyright interest in the characters Medieval Spawn, Cogliostro, and material that appeared in Spawn #26. The jurors agreed on all three points that he did.

”The jurors did not agree that a reasonable person in Gaiman’s position would have discovered prior to Jan. 24, 1999, that the McFarlane defendants were claiming to be the sole owners of copyright interests in Medieval Spawn, Cogliostro, Angela, the Angela mini-series, Spawn #9, and Spawn #26,” reports Thompson.

”The jury agreed that Gaiman and McFarlane entered into a contract in 1992 and 1997 and that McFarlane breached both those contracts.”

”The jury agreed that McFarlane’s failure to identify Gaiman as a co-author of Spawn #26, Spawn #27, and ‘Pathway to Judgment’ was a false representation of the work, and that Gaiman said that this misrepresentation was likely to damage him.”

According to CBG’s report, the jurors also ruled that they did not believe that Gaiman consented in writing to the use of his name and biographical information on Angela’s Hunt, or that Gaiman made. misrepresentations or omissions of material fact to McFarlane concerning his DC contract during the negotiations of the 1997 contract.

Judge Shabaz also reportedly immediately moved to the damage portion of the trial, which he intends to have completed by the weekend.

As the court was going into recess, Thompson reports McFarlane’s attorney called the verdict ‘the nightmare we feared’, to which Shabaz replied, “Not unless you make it one.”

The damage portion of the trial began shortly before 6pm EST and testimony was expected to extend into the evening hours.”

For more coverage of the trial, check out a new edition of Comics Buyer’s Guide and their website as well as ICv2’s coverage.
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