Neil Gaiman's $450,000+ Payout From Todd McFarlane
If, like me, you’re one of the many
who is now wondering, what the resolution of the Neil Gaiman vs Todd McFarlane
lawsuit really means in financial terms, here’s your first clue. Not only did Gaiman win 50% of the copyright for Spawn
issues #9 and #26, along with the Angela mini-series and the introduced
characters within all (Angela, Medieval Spawn etc etc), but he’s also scored a
very decent cash payout, not that he’s likely to see a lot of it.
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| You'd be smiling too |
In 2008, as part of his bankruptcy case, McFarlane was ordered to play $382,000 into Escrow to offset any possible losses that might arise in the Gaiman suit. Now that McFarlane has lost, the entire
amount, with interest, has been released.
The upside of this is that, based on a reasonable average interest
of 5% after four years and a bit, Gaiman can expect to see about $464,000, give or take a few thousand (hey - I'm no good at maths, so if you can do better by all means do so) - and that'd be the start. There's still an accounting of Angela and Co to happen yet. The flip-side to this is that both sides have to pay their own attorney fees and
costs, and when you realise that this case has been going on since February
2002, you can imagine what those costs would be. You can only hope that the settlement between the pair included an extra sum to cover those very sizable fees. It probably won't hurt to give McFarlane's store a bit of a plug - he might need the extra cash.
Hello cash, goodbye cash!
Comments
Only two points: 1) I don't think the interest was anywhere near four percent if the escrow account was in the US; rates were near one percent at the start of the financial crisis and are now half that. But hey, even at one percent it's another 38 grand!
2) WTF was Neil doing in Wisconsin?? No one moves from England to Wisconsin. Especially not award-winning authors with major Hollywood caché. Maybe it was a temporary address or he was sleeping at the CBG offices when this started? ;-)
Anyway, thanks again for the great reporting, as usual!
--Mike Pascale
Neil Gaiman not only wasted 10 years of his own life (Court sucks period) to be part of the worst story I have ever read. Thanks Neil -You proved to your fans your retarded!!!!
Dustin Pennington -Se7en-
It seems The Rhyme Maidens is finally going to be published but the price is brutal!
Upcoming4.me The Rhyme Maidens by Neil Gaiman to be published