DuBay v King: Deposition of James Stenstrum, January 06, 2018
There's depositions and then there's depositions! The DuBay v King case is far more interesting for what has been said during the depositions than anything else. The last deposition I posted, that of Stephen King, was a delight for all who read it, albeit long - but I can't help with that. These are what they are, and they take as long as people want to keep talking. The deposition of Jim Warren was one that people seemed to miss, but, take it from me, it's well worth a read. And now we have James Stenstrum.
One thing that people have noted is that, at times, Benjamin DuBay seems a bit out of his element. That's perfectly understandable really, taking a deposition is a long, arduous and tiresome process, and the fact that Ben DuBay is acting for himself, makes it even harder. That he can keep on top of most things said is a miracle in itself, and, win or lose, he will come out of this a far better educated man than he walked in.
Knowledge is power Ben! I salute you!
Until the next deposition, sit back, put the kettle on and read as James Stenstrum slowly pulls people apart. You can almost see the sarcasm dropping off the page as Stenstrum pours acid onto some of his replies. It's brutal in parts, but, that's what can happen during these things.
For those wanting to know, Vincent Cox is acting on behalf of the defendant, Stephen King, and Ben DuBay is acting on behalf of himself.
More to come.
EXAMINATION BY MR. COX: You're here
today in connection with a lawsuit filed by Benjamin Dubay against my clients. For
how long have you known Benjamin Dubay?
A: Ben contacted me I think a
couple, three years after Bill Dubay died and he wanted some help on some Bill
Dubay stories. He really didn't know what to do with them and he just wanted
some advice and so he emailed me. I think it was around 2014, something like
that. I'm not sure.
Q: So the -- let's -- let's go back
to your education and what was your formal education?
A: High school.
Q: And when did you graduate from
high school?
A: 1968.
Q: And what did you do after high
school?
A: No, I did not actually -- I'm
sorry, I did not actually
graduate. I went all the way through, but I was short a couple of credits and
did not graduate. Oddly enough, it was art and writing, the only things I've
ever made money on.
Q: And so at that point, what did you
do next when you left high school?
A: Oh, just -- there was working at
Porky's Drive In, working at a fireplace equipment shop. I got into the
National Guard in 1969 and put in basic training and such there. Really not
terribly anything interesting. I sold my first story to Warren in September
1971 and then I was just a freelance writer for them for about ten years.
Q: Were you ever on salary at Warren?
A: For a very brief time in 1981
for about a month when I was made editor briefly.
Q: And what was the -- were you -- when
were you in the National Guard, were you on active duty?
A: Only for those four months
that's considered active duty. The rest of the time is stateside. I spent most
of my time in Minnesota.
Q: And what were your National Guard
duties?
Were they full time when were you
--
A: No, no.
Q: -- when you were stateside?
A: The National Guard is something
that you go to two weeks a year, go to summer camp and then you have a weekend of
meetings every month. But other than that it's really just sort of a reserve
force and you play soldier for six years and it was that or Vietnam, I chose
that.
Q: Okay. And so now what kind of jobs
did you have while you were in the National Guard unrelated to Warren or
writing?
A: Only one. Clerk typist.
Q: And so other than your National
Guard work, beginning in 1971 you became a professional writer and artist?
A: Yes.
Q: And have you been a professional
writer and artist continuously since that time?
A· Yes.
Q: Have you had any other jobs since
that time, other than writer and artist?
A: When I got discouraged with
Warren, I worked at a can factory for about a week and then I quit that and I realized
working for Warren wasn't so bad after all.
Q: And about what year was that?
A: 1974.
Q: And so for -- did you work for Warren
from about 1971 to --
A: 1981.
Q: 1981?
A: Yes.
Q: And did that end at the time that
Warren went into bankruptcy?
A: No, that ended before that. That
ended -- well, due to the Harlan Ellison situation.
Q: Okay. I'll come back to that just
to -- Now, after you left Warren, what was your next employment in terms of
writing or the industry?
A: Hanna-Barbera. I worked as a
design artist.
Q: And for what years did you work for
Hanna-Barbera?
A: It's -- it's a little strange
because Hanna-Barbera was bought by Turner which was bought by Warner Bros. and
so I just sort of moved from then to then. I worked for -- oh, the entire
stretch was probably from '71 to 2000 and then I moved over to SD Entertainment,
which is also an animation outfit, and then I moved to Warner Bros. again, and
then I moved to Universal where I am now. Universal animation is on the Dreamworks
lot. Universal Animation bought Dreamworks Animation and so they are all one
big company now.
Q: All right. I think you might have
misspoken in your last answer.
A: I'm sorry.
Q: When you said that it was -- your
work at Hanna-Barbera started in 1971.
A: I'm sorry, '81. I did misspeak.
Q: Okay. So what was the nature of your
work at SD Entertainment starting in 2000?
A: Design artist.
Q: And what was it that you
designed?
A: Various television shows that --
I would do designs for My Little Pony, Care Bears, whatever shows came through
there. Angelina, the ballerina. A number of -- a number of things. I was there
for about three, four years.
Q: Was SD Entertainment in the
business of producing animated entertainment for children?
A: Yes.
Q: All right. Then at some point
thereafter you left for Warner Bros. again.
What year was that?
A: Probably around -- let's see,
probably 2010.
Q: And what projects did you work
on at Warner Bros.?
A At Warner Bros. it was Scooby
movies. It was Scooby made-for-video movies.
Q: That's Scooby-Doo?
A: Scooby-Doo, yes.
Q: And when did you transition to
Universal Animation from Warner Bros.?
A: I moved over to Universal in the
middle of 2016.
Q: And what kind of work are you
doing now at Universal?
A: I'm a design artist on Curious
George.
Q: Is that a --
A: That is a --
Q: -- theatrical?
A: No, that is a television series
for Hulu.
Q: Has that gone into distribution
yet or --
A No, that won't go into distribution until
2020.
Q: I see. I see. So it's a work in progress?
A: Yes.
Q: And one thing that I didn't get from
you was the projects that you worked on at Hanna-Barbera?
A: Oh, Hanna-Barbera, boy,
everything under the sun. You name it: Scooby-Doo, Flintstones, The Jetsons,
The Smurfs, Pac-Man, The Little Rascals. Oh, my God, I can't even keep track.
You could check my entire list on IMDb.
Q: Okay. And over the years one thing
I've noticed in your IMDb profile, that was a little unusual, is that you had a
significant exposure to both writing and art?
A: Yes.
Q: Has that -- has that always been
true about your career?
A: Pretty much, yes.
Q: And is that – is that customary
or is that a little unusual?
A: Unusual.
Q: And --
A: Most -- most people can't do
both. I'm one of the lucky few.
Q: And so when you started work at --
when you sold your first work to Warren --
A Uh-huh.
Q: -- did you sell them a pros work,
a text work or did you sell them the artwork?
A: It was a -- it was a finished
script. A finished comic book script and that's where everything is broken down
by panels and dialogue.
Q: And did you do the -- did you submit
to them the artwork for that finished script or was it just words?
A Not for that -- well, actually I had.
I had done some artwork which that was rejected, but it was kind of a
complicated process because originally I -- this was in 1971. I had hoped to be
a writer -- I'm sorry, an artist over at -- at Warren Publishing and I had -- I
had sent them some drawing samples that were not very good, but I thought they
were pretty good at the time.
And ultimately, Archie Goodwin was
the editor at the time and he sent it back to me with some very nice notes and
he said he liked the artwork, but he said that the story didn't make any sense,
though, and he was right. He said these monitors appear in the jungle for no
reason at all and he was right.
But being a cocksure kid, I went
ahead and a few months later I rewrote that script and just sent the script in
without the artwork. And there was another editor at that time, John Cochran,
and he actually bought it and it's still not a very good story, but he did buy
it.
Q: What was the title of that work?
A: It was called "Forgive Us
Our Debts."
Q: And if you could just briefly summarize
what it was about?
A: It's a revenge story of a man
who was cheated out of a cocaine -- no, a heroine deal. The plane crashed in
the jungle and he goes out after the fellow that ripped him off and -- and then
there's monsters in it.
It's not a good story.
Q: All right. Over the years how many
freelance scripts did you sell to Warren Publishing?
A: Oh, over the years 60, 70 sounds
about right.
Q: And did there come a time when you
met an individual at Warren by the name of William Dubay?
A: Oh, yes.
Q: When -- when was that?
A I had been selling stories
freelance to Warren for like a couple of years, not too many. Three, four,
something like that. And then John Cochran, the editor who originally took me
on, he had moved on and Bill Dubay took over both the editing chores and the
art directing chores from Billy Graham and John Cochran. And I had sent Bill a
script called "Everybody and His Sister," and I didn't hear from Bill
for a long time and I sent him a bunch of stamps and I said, "If you don't
want the story, please send it back." Anyway, he sent back a very nice letter,
but he says that, "This story is crap and I can't use it," but -- and
so I thought that was pretty much the end of things over at Warren. This was in
'72 and but...
Q: And you were still living in Minnesota
at the time?
A: Yes. And the only reason that I
continued to do anything for Warren at all is later on he had sent out a Xerox
copy to a number -- apparently, he had a lot of freelance writers working for
him and he wanted to sort of winnow down the number of guys that he had working
for him and so he had kind of, I guess, as sort of a test, he had sent out this
Xerox -- it was a cover -- it was a painting by -- about this -- this pilot who
was old, he was decayed and he was -- he was a mess and everybody was supposed
to create a story based on this cover.
And so at first I wasn't going to
bother and then I thought, oh, what the hell? And I already had an idea for a
story that I was thinking of using anyway and so I -- I knocked out a synopsis for
– it was called "An Angel Shy of Hell," and that was the story that I
wrote.
And to tell you the truth, it
really didn't have that much to do with the cover. I knew that everybody would
use that cover imagine for the shocking finale and I wanted to get it out of
the way right away and I governed that image on the first page. And then I went
on to do the story I really wanted to tell, which was about a mercenary in post-apocalyptic
Kansas. Anyway, Dubay loved it and he thought that was great.
It was right about this time --
this was about the middle of July 1973. I had made up my mind to come out to
New York and I had artist samples and I was going to check out DC and Marvel,
which were really just about the only comic companies going at that time.
And I wanted to be a comic book
artist and -- but I also knew that a fellow Minnesotan, Tony Tolan, who had
been hired as Dubay's assistant had quit and I thought, oh, maybe there's an
opening over there and I can -- at least I have a couple of sales over at
Warren, I have sort of an in there so I'll try it over there.
And anyway, I met Dubay and there
was -- there was one story that he really liked that I had done called "The
Third Night of Morning," and he went on and on about that one, he liked
that quite a bit. And he was very kind and he hired me as an assistant editor
over there and I stayed there for a few months until -- oh, until I was fired.
Q: So you were actually -- this modifies
some of your earlier testimony. You became an assistant editor on salary for
Warren?
A You are right, I'm sorry. Yes, I
was for a brief time for a few months an assistant. I was on salary at that
time, you are right.
Q: And was that in about 1974?
A That was from July 1973 and I
think Dubay canned me at -- right at the end of 1973.
Q: And why were you, as you say, canned?
A Well, it was very embarrassing
and it's still a sore point with me today. Dubay had accused me of stealing his
wallet. Dubay had a habit of leaving his wallet all over the place. He often
put it into his desk drawer. I've seen him leave it at restaurants and -- anyway,
he was absolutely certain that I had stolen his wallet and I couldn't believe
it. My jaw dropped down to the floor. I could -- I was absolutely gobsmacked
and I couldn't believe it then and he fired me. I was so shocked I couldn't
even say anything. I said, "Listen, that's not something I do."
And a couple of days later he came
back and apologized. I don't know if he ever believed that I did it or not, but
there was also -- at that time there was a woman in the front office who was stealing
money from -- fans and readers of Warren Publishing would buy things through --
in the back there there was a catalog of things that he sold: Posters, toys,
back issues of magazines and things like that. And back then it wasn't unusual,
since it was just a couple of dollars or something like that, for people to put
money into -- into the envelope and then they would send them the magazine or
whatever the order.
Well, this woman who was -- it was
her job to open up mail and, you know, take the orders and hand that off to the
guys in the back – apparently was stealing. And the way they caught her was
they sent her some money themselves. They mailed something to themselves and
they caught her and fired her.
I have no idea if she had anything
to do with it, if it was the help or Bill just lost his damn wallet. I don't
know. He did apologize a couple days later and say, "Why didn't you punch
me in the face," and believe me I really wanted to, but I did not.
Q: So --
A: And then he let me continue to
work after that, although he had already hired a new assistant. I believe that
was Jeff Rovin after me.
And so there was no job waiting for
me. He quickly replaced me and I was back to just doing freelance. And then --
I don't know. The whole thing just kind of was a mess. It just left a sour taste
in my mouth.
I moved back to Minneapolis in a
couple of months and said I'm going to get a regular job like everybody else. I
went to that can factory that I was telling you about, I worked a week and I
said, "Bill, can we do some more stories?"
Q: So then did you move back to New
York right away?
A: No, no, no, no, I did not. I
worked from Minneapolis.
Q: For what years did you live in Minneapolis
while -- while freelancing for Warren?
A: It might be easier to put it the
other way around. It's -- I worked mostly from Minneapolis, but there was a
period of -- from July 1973 to February of 1974 I was in New York. From July
1976 to January of 1977 I was working with Bill Dubay and Budd Lewis in
Ridgefield, Connecticut and we'd go back and forth to New York from there.
And lastly was, I think -- it was a
very short time -- June 1981 to like early August 1981. Every -- every -- the
rest of the time I was in Minneapolis.
Q: When you were doing your work for
1984 Magazine, where were you living?
A: In Minneapolis.
Q: And for the record 1984 Magazine
was a magazine that began to publish in what year?
A: 1978.
Q: And for how many years did it publish?
A: I -- I'm not sure how long it
went. I don't know if it went all the way to -- to the bankruptcy. I think it
probably wound up about 1982. I'm not at all certain.
Q: All right.
A: Ben could probably tell you
that.
Q: Yeah. In any event 1984 Magazine
was not a magazine that was ever published in the year 1984?
A No, never made it.
Q: Yeah.
A: Never made it.
Q: And on your work for Warren what
percentage of your work was writing and what percentage of your work was art?
A: Almost entirely writing. I had
done a few pieces of artwork, but the art part of it I – it didn't interest me.
I really didn't like drawing my own stuff. It bored me.
Q: All right.
MR. COX: You have given -- we have
had them marked as Exhibit Nos. A through Z and I am going to -- now that
they've been marked, I'm going to have them photocopied at a short break, and
the witness has brought some documents with him and just so we can distinguish from
your exhibits and the witness' exhibits, I'd like to have them marked as Exhibit
Nos. 1, 2 and 3 and I'm going to -- I'm going to email them to you at a short
break so you can see them, Ben. So would you mark them as Exhibit Nos. 1, 2 and
3.
And then exhibit -- pardon me. The
exhibit, that I'm going to mark as number four, was also brought by the witness
and is too large to photocopy and email. It's the book "Rip Hunter... Time
Master," the Showcase Presents edition and it's Volume One, compilation
copyright 2012 DC Comics.
Exhibit No. 2 is a packet of documents
produced by the witness, the front page of which is a Gene Autry poster.
Exhibit No. 3 is a packet of documents,
the front page of which is a mock-up of an Eerie cover.
And Exhibit No. 4 is the title page,
copyright page and table of contents pages of a work entitled "Showcase Presents,
Rip Hunter," dot, dot, dot, "Time Master," which is copyright
2012 and the original copyright of the underlying works is listed as 1961,
1962, 1963, DC Comics.
Now, Mr. Stenstrum, we're here today
relating -- in a lawsuit that relates to a work entitled "The Rook."
When did you first hear of a work
entitled "The Rook"?
A I was in Minneapolis doing
freelance stories for Warren and it was early '76, maybe March or something
like that.
Q: And who did you hear about "The
Rook" from?
A: From Bill Dubay.
Q: And what did he tell you?
A: He was on the phone and he said –
he called me and he said, "Listen, we have Budd Lewis here and we're
putting together The Cartoon Factory in" -- I don't know if they had it
set up yet but -- and he said he was -- he and Budd were working with Jim
Warren and this toy guy -- and I guess that's Peretz? I don't know. I always
heard him referred to as "The Toy Guy."
And he said -- this toy guy came to
Jim Warren and he said, "Listen, you are doing it all backwards. You have
a comic book and then you come out with merchandise" or something like
that. And I think what his idea was was to do it simultaneously or even somehow
put out toys and such ahead of the comic book and that -- somehow that would
help the sales on the books and one would help the other, the
cross-pollination.
And Jim Warren, he was thrilled
about it. It sounded like it was a very -- it's going to be very profitable
with toys and posters and maybe a movie -- didn't know. And so he said,
"Why don't you come to join us out in Connecticut and have a look and see
what we're doing?" And he says, "We have something together called
'The Rook'."
And it was an idea of Budd Lewis'
that had nothing, as far as I know, to do with cowboys or time travel or
anything. And I -- I don't know what it was about. Maybe a superhero. Maybe a
detective. I don't know.
Budd Lewis had shown me a little
photograph that he had of himself in Shreveport where he came from and it was
the castle with a rook bird superimposed on it and -- but beyond that I don't think
anybody had any clear ideas.
What was going on with the meetings
with Bill and Jim Warren and The Toy Guy was The Toy Guy was absolutely certain
that Westerns were going to come back -- make a big comeback. He was a big Western
fan apparently and he was positive that Westerns were going to make a comeback,
so the one thing he insisted on was that whatever character we produced it be a
cowboy.
Well, Bill and Budd and I, we
didn't want to do a cowboy. It sounded just boring as all get out. And we
determined between the three of us to have a science fiction element to it and
that – I guess the idea was to put him in a cowboy outfit but to make the
stories a little more interesting than just being stuck in 1880s Dodge City or
something.
And so, yeah, that's --
Q: And was this in one conversation
or a series of conversations, just so we have sort of a record here?
A Oh, probably only a couple of conversations.
I mean, we might have been talking about stories at the time. He might be
saying where's -- more than anything he would call me and ask me, "Where's
that damn story?" And that was essentially how our conversations went. And
I had -- I think I had told him, "Listen, I'm planning on moving out to California,"
and I wanted to maybe get some storyboard work or something like that. I was just
sick to death of Minnesota winters and he said, "Well, why don't you come
on out to see what we're doing over at The Cartoon Factory?"
The Cartoon Factory was the thing
that I was interested in because it sounded like it would be like an
interesting studio and it was an idea for the three of us to get work.
The only problem was it was based
in Ridgefield, Connecticut, it was way away from New York and it wasn't easy to
pick up work. And we only had one phone so it became -- it was a studio. Who
gets to answer the phone? Who gets the jobs?
And it was never a very clear
business plan and it kind of dissolved within a couple, three months after I
arrived there.
There was no business plan at all.
Q: All right. Well, you said a -- you
said a number of things. Let me go back to the first conversation where Bill
Dubay raised this issue of "The Rook" with you.
A: Uh-huh.
Q: Did he indicate to you what role
you would play with respect to "The Rook"?
A: No, not at that time.
Q: And did you have any interesting
as to what role you were going to play?
A: No. Again, "The Rook"
was a minor part of it. I was more interested and he was more interested in
getting me to be a partner in The Cartoon Factory.
Q: And when did you became -- did you ever become
a partner in The Cartoon Factory?
A Yes, it was -- again, briefly,
there were no papers or anything like that, but it was agreed that it was a
three-way split.
Q: And it was a three-way split among
William Dubay, Budd Lewis and you?
A· That's correct.
Q· And did you move from
Minneapolis?
A· I did.
Q· When was that?
A In like mid-July 1976.
Q· And what was the status of
"The Rook" at the time that you made this move east from Minneapolis?
A It was very amorphous. There was
no -- they hadn't put it together yet. When I got to Ridgefield and we started talking
about "The Rook" and he started -- when I say he, I mean Bill Dubay.
He said -- essentially says, we got
this toy guy and he explained the whole thing about wanting to turn it into --
but the toy guys had apparently done some sketches of what kind of a character
they wanted and they were horrible. They were really horrible.
I remember one sketch that was kind
of a part cowboy with a mesh shirt, you know, that muscle guys would wear. It
was bizarre. And the drawings were obviously drawn by somebody who had no idea.
It was toy guys. Toy guys have a whole different sense and everything they do is
to create toys.
And so I'm sure I was not privy to
any of the meetings between Bill Dubay and Jim Warren and The Toy Guy, so
everything I know about it was through Bill Dubay.
Q: All right. And so what was the develop
-- and did you move to Ridgefield, Connecticut?
A: I did.
Q: And were you living at Bill Dubay's
house?
A: I was living in his guesthouse. He
lived in Danbury, Connecticut. He had a lovely home up on a hill there and he
let me stay in his guesthouse.
Q: And where was Budd Lewis?
A Budd Lewis was in Ridgefield. He
and his wife were in an apartment complex and his wife was the manager of those
buildings so they managed to stay there rent free.
Q: And at the time that you moved out
to Connecticut in July of 1976 was Bill Dubay freelance at that time or was he
--
A I think he must have been because
Louise Jones was the editor at that time, so I believe he was working out of
his home and out of his studio and -- yeah, I believe he was strictly freelance
during that time.
Q: And was Budd Lewis freelance at that
time?
A: Yes. Yeah. Budd was always
freelance. I don't believe he ever had a regular position over at Warren.
Q: And what was the compensation arrangement
as between Warren and Lewis and Dubay with respect to "The Rook" as
of July 1976?
A: That I cannot tell you. I was
not privy to any of those meetings.
Q: And can you give me an overview of
the development process on "The Rook" from the time you moved out to
Connecticut in July of 1976 up until the time that you first put pen to paper
to create something?
A: Okay. All right. So Bill Dubay
picked me up at the airport. We went directly to The Cartoon Factory in
Ridgefield and there I met Budd and it was a basement of -- I don't know -- a
little strip mall or something like that. It was just a little, three-room
thing.
And we were all talking about the
various projects that we were planning on doing. I had a couple of things
myself and would either present to Warren or other places.
"The Rook," though, was
the thing that seemed to be catching fire with the talks with Jim Warren and
The Toy Guy and they really wanted to move forward on this so -- they told me
that it was just a mess. When I say, "they," Bill mostly but Budd as well.
They would -- they said it was a
mess and that they really didn't know what they wanted to do and they had --
they were absolutely stubborn about this cowboy concept.
And so the three of us over the
next, maybe week or two, we just sat down together, the three of us in The
Cartoon Factory and we just banged out some ideas. We all knew that it would --
we didn't want to do a Western and the only thing we could think of was to do
it in, again, a science fiction sort of a venue which would at least -- and
with "The Time Machine," we would at least be able to get to different
eras and to be able to tell more interesting stories than horse thieves in
Dodge City.
Q: Now, as part of those discussions
were there -- were there any -- incidentally, had you ever done any time travel
studies before?
A I don't think so.
Q: Were you familiar with other time
travel stories as of that time?
A: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Q: Can you give me some examples of
some of the time travel stories that were sort of --
A: Are you talking --
Q: -- as of 1976?
A: Okay. Are you talking about
Warren specifically or are you talking about just the media.
Q: No, the ones that -- the ones that
you were aware of --
A: Okay.
Q: -- and that were sort of front of
mind as you were working on this?
A: The three of us: Bill Dubay and
Budd and I, we all loved the George Powell 1960 film "The Time Machine."
We -- all of us, we absolutely adored that film.
But time machine stories were very
common throughout literature, particularly in comics and pulps and movies.
Comic books had been doing time travel stories probably since their inception
since the forties. And some of the examples I brought you "The Flash"
going back and forth, he would often visit the past or the future.
Superman was always cracking the
time barrier. Some of my favorite stories were on "The Twilight
Zone." Several issues -- I counted 19 different time travel stories. And
"The Outer Limits," there were some famous time travel stories.
There are a couple by Harlan
Ellison "Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand."
Regular science fiction "The
End of Eternity," "Westworld," there was no shortage of time travel
or interdimensional stories as well. They were all over the place.
Q: All right. Well, now you brought
with you today a packet of documents that we've marked as Exhibit No. 1. I'm handing
you Exhibit No. 1. Would you identify each of the pages on Exhibit No. 1.
A: All right.
Q: And give me some idea about its --
A: Okay.
Q: -- relationship to "The Rook,"
if you could?
A: "The Time Machine" is
the page one here. It's the poster from "The Time Machine." Again,
it's a film that the three of us adored. And I believe Bill used Morlocks and
H.G. Wells in Rook stories.
And, let's see, the second page is
"The Time Tunnel." "The Time Tunnel" was a series, I think,
around 1966 and every week the these two guys, that you see on the cover
jumping on the Nazis, they would go into this time tunnel and they would -- well,
actually no. They went in once and there was a glitch with the machine and it
would keep sending them to this place and that place and oddly enough it was always
key times in history. It wasn't -- it wasn't like 1908. It was when the -- the
Titanic went down and the next page you'll see is they actually went and found
themselves in "The Alamo" and they save a girl there.
And then the next page is numerous science
-- cheap -- cheapy time movies would come out. "The Time Travelers"
actually wasn't bad.
"Beyond the Time Barrier"
was bad. And "Planet of the Apes," of course I think that came out in
'68 and that was revealed at the end that they had actually gone through time
to earth's future.
And of course "Doctor Who."
He was --
Q: That's the next page. It's "Doctor
Who"?
A: Yes.
Q: Okay.
A: Where it says, "Tom
Baker" on it and he -- that was started as a BBC series, although it was syndicated
here in 1963 and every week he would travel to some new spot in his TARDIS.
Q: Which was his time machine?
A: That's the time machine, the
police box back there. So every week he would go either to the distant past or
to the far, far future, but he would also travel through space as well as time.
And the next one, of course, is the
famous Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever," where
Kirk and McCoy -- I'm sorry, Kirk -- McCoy. I'm getting mixed up here.
McCoy is -- is -- he's under a
drug. He's gone out of his mind and he jumps into this time machine and the --
Spock and Kirk have to follow him and they all wind up in early 20s. I believe it
was 20s -- no, it was around the depression.
Q: Bootleggers?
A: So early --
Q: Was that the bootlegger episode?
A: No, no, no, that was yet another
one.
Q: Okay.
A: And to try to save McCoy. Anyway,
it's a classic episode written by Harlan Ellison. The next one is "Weird
Science Fantasy." There were a lot of time -- as I said, a lot of time stories
-- time travel stories. This particular one is based on a famous Ray Bradbury
story called -- oh, shoot -- "A Sound of Thunder" and is about an
outfit that would -- for money they would send you back into time and you could
hunt dinosaurs.
Q: The next page is "The Flash"?
A: The next page is "The
Flash" as you can see on the cover they go both -- back into the distant past
and to the future.
The next one is one of several
cases in which Superman goes through time. Many, many, many stories.
The next one, of course, is
"Rip Hunter...Time Master" and the same thing. They get into their
time machine, a time sphere it's called, and they were around for a few years
before their comic canceled.
And, of course, the next one is the
fabulous Mr. Peabody and Sherman and they would go through the WABAC machine
every -- every week on "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show" and -- trying
to fix a time.
The next one is just pages of a
list of "The Twilight Zone" episodes. There are -- a fellow was able
to find 19 of them that had to do with time travel, but there were actually
more that had to do with interdimensional travel.
I can think of "Little Girl
Lost" that -- excuse me. She -- one morning the parents wake up and find
their daughter missing, but they can – they can hear her and they look under
the bed and she's nowhere to be found and they realize that she has slipped
into a different dimension.
Q: Is that the Richard Matheson story
that was the basis for the film "Poltergeist"?
A: Oh, I don't know if that was
necessarily the basis of it, but I believe it was a Matheson story. You know, I
never thought of that. It is possible that they used some of that. Well, it
makes sense, yeah. Yeah.
Q: Okay. Now, of these works that are
referenced here in Exhibit No. 1, which ones were you aware of as of the time
were you having conversations with Budd Lewis and Bill Dubay in 1976?
A: All of them.
Q: And now, again, looking at page one
of Exhibit No. 1, there is an indication that the protagonist is fighting the
monsters, the Morlocks.
A: Uh-huh.
Q: Was it unusual to have a protagonist
time traveler who would fight monsters when he would go back or forward in
time?
A Oh, in those early cheapy time
travel movies -- this was not a cheapy -- but the other two: "The Time
Travelers" and "Beyond the Time Barrier," they always had some
hideous mutant that they would be fighting, otherwise it wouldn't be much of a story.
Q: Would you characterize that as a
cliche of time travel stories --
A: Sure, absolutely.
Q: -- as of that time?
A: Absolutely.
Q: And you noticed that the hero is
brave in the first page of Exhibit No. 1. He's bravely confronting the
monsters. Was it a cliche that the hero would be brave?
A I believe in most fiction --
MR. DUBAY: Objection; leading the
witness. He can't make a speculation that he seemed brave. I completely
disagree with that analysis. I strike -- I move to strike for leading the
witness.
MR. COX: Well, let me -- let me
rephrase the question.
BY MR. COX: Would you characterize it
as unusual or would you say that it was a cliche to -- that a hero in a time
travel story would be brave?
A: I'm -- I'm -- I'm a little
befuddled by the question because the protagonist is almost always a hero in
any fiction and -- and a hero is, therefore, brave.
Q: You'll notice from the poster here,
that's Exhibit No. 1, that the hero seems to have some sort of relationship to
a beautiful young woman.
How common was that in the context
of time travel stories as of 1976?
MR. DUBAY: Move to strike. You are leading
the witness. How do you know that they had a relationship?
MR. COX: Okay. You've made your
record -- you've made your objection.
Go ahead and answer, please.
THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, I don't
know what the question is anymore.
MR. COX: Okay.
BY MR. COX: To what degree was it common
that the hero in a time travel story would have a romantic relationship with
the woman?
A: Put it this way: In science
fiction movies it was -- it was, I would say, like 99 percent of all science
fiction stories, movies at that time, forbidden planet and things like that.
They always had a gorgeous gal in there.
Q: And --
A: However, in the case of
"The Time Machine" that -- that woman, Yvette Mimieux, that's part of
the original story, the original H.G. Wells' story that we know was the
character in the original book.
Q: Yeah. And to just make it clear,
in the H.G. Wells novel, Weena was one of the people who were called Eloi,
E-l-o-i; correct?
A: Eloi, yes.
Q: And there is an emotional relationship
that's formed between the time traveler in the
H.G. Wells' story --
A: Yes.
Q: -- and Weena?
A Yes.
Q: And did the works that were -- that
are referred to by Exhibit No. 1, were they the subject of any conversations
between you and Budd Lewis and Bill Dubay during that creative process of
several months in connection with "The Rook"?
A: We did not specifically mention
any. We did not talk about H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine." We did not
talk about any movies – anything specific.
When we said -- when somebody
brought up "The Time Machine" we knew what that was. We didn't have
to say, oh, you mean like that thing that he traveled in, the time machine. No.
It was a very common storytelling device and we all knew what it was.
Q: And in terms of the shape --
MR. DUBAY: Move to strike the last statement.
I'm not sure how Mr. Stenstrum would know what everybody else knew because of
what he knows, not what everybody else knows.
MR. COX: I understand that. Did you
ever have conversations with Bill Dubay in which you talked about the -- his
knowledge
A: Not at the time we were creating "The Rook."
Q: Was there any -- was there any time
where you had such conversations?
A Of course during -- when we were
-- I was the editor of the -- assistant editor in '73. I remember that he was
trying to help an artist, Reed Crandall, to make some money. The poor guy was
really a mess. He was an alcoholic. He was a mess.
And so Bill kindly gave him some
work and the thing that he gave him to do was an adaptation of "The Time
Machine" and Reed Crandall had drawn several pages, but it was -- it was
very hard for Jim to do it and eventually I don't think the story was ever
published and it was -- it was pretty bad stuff, but it was really more of the
kindness of Bill's heart that he was helping Reed Crandall.
Q: Well, looking at the first page of
Exhibit No. 1 again, did any part of the images from the time of the --
"The Time Machine" motion picture from George Powell that was
released in 1960 enter into your creative process with respect to "The
Rook"?
A: Yes, at -- yes, I -- when we --
they were having a lot of trouble designing the costume and there was nothing
that -- that was presented by The Toy Guy. I don't know who else was involved,
but nothing was working.
And I was with Bill and I was
dropping off a story at the -- at Warren to Louise Jones and Bill went in to
talk to Jim Warren. I don't know if The Toy Guy was there.
And then he came back and he said,
"I need you to do a costume for 'The Rook'. I need you to -- Warren wants
to see what 'The Rook' looks like." And I had no -- no clue what to do. I
knew it was a Western so I just in a matter literally of a few minutes I drew
-- I just grabbed things that I remembered from the past.
There was the vest and the shirt
from Rod Taylor and it was -- the hat I had remembered from a TV show. I'm not
sure if it's the proper one, but it had a very interesting look. It was a -- it
had these kind of disks that were put together to form kind of a band and it
was --
Q: Is that called a Concho band? Just
in case you -- have ever heard of that?
A: I have no idea what it's called.
Q: Okay.
A Anyway, I had taken that and I
threw that
Q· And who designed the manors?
A I guess I did. That together and
-- and the black I took from -- I always like Paladin from -- the big old hat
from "Have Gun - Will Travel. So I made him pretty much all black except
for the white shirt and I don't have that drawing anymore. I have no idea where
it is.
Q· And did you base that on
anything?
A· I did.
Q: Well, showing you Exhibit No. 3.
A: Uh-huh.
MR. COX: Do you have that, Ben?
That's
Q: Looking at the first page of Exhibit
No. 3, can you indicate whether any part of the first page reflects work done
by you?
A It was all done by me, with the
possible exception of Eerie, I believe it may have been colored by Bill as
well, but I had done the drawing underneath and these were just characters that
were based on discussions between Bill and Budd and I and they wanted to know
what Rook castle would look like, what the manors would look like, what the
time capsule would look like. And that's supposed to be Gat Hawkins up there. I
never cared for him. They went a completely different way. I think they kept the
mustache, but that's about it. And I know I did this, but I don't think I colored
it and I may not have put the Eerie up there. I don't recall.
Q: But the -- the time machine, is that
the time machine in the lower right-hand corner of the image?
A: Yes.
Q: And --
A: And that would be -- that would
be my version of -- oh, what was his great, great, great, great grandfather? I
forget.
It looks nothing like how we ended
up but that was supposed to be his great, great grandfather, the one that he
saved from The Alamo.
Q: And how did you come up with the
design elements of the time machine that you have there in the lower right-hand
corner?
A: It's pretty simple. It's --
everything we had was based on Rook either as a chess piece or a bird and, you
know, it seemed pretty simple but that would be the way to go with that.
Q: And how did -- who came up with the
idea that the time machine would be about eight feet tall?
A: No, it's complete fake. Just out of my head.
Q: And in the background to the upper-left,
what -- what is that?
A: That's supposed to be the Rook's
equivalent of a Batcave. That's his -- his headquarters.
Q: So long as we have Exhibit No. 3
in front of us, would you describe the other pages in Exhibit No. 3? The second
page appears to be a picture of Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux, I believe?
A: That's correct.
Q: What is that from?
A That is from "The Time
Machine" and I --I -- this specifically shows the -- the vest and shirt
that influenced me in the designing of "The Rook" costume.
Q: And what is the next page?
A: The next page was to -- if you
guys hadn't heard of Paladin from "Have Gun -- Will Travel." He was a
cool cowboy that always dressed in black and that was essentially why Rook I
made all black except for the white shirt.
Q: And what is the next page of the
exhibit?
A The next page is from a TV series
called "Hotel de Paree," and I seem to remember -- I'm not one
hundred percent certain about this, but I seem to remember that this is where I
got the idea from the -- for the disk band -- contraband.
Q” Is it actually called
contraband?
Q: Concho, C-o-n --
A Concho band okay. Contraband
seemed odd. And I always loved that and that's, again, why I -- I threw that
together on the -- on "The Rook."
Q: And then what is the next page?
A: The next page is a fantastic
hero who was very popular during the '40s and then he was brought back in the
'60s with a paperback series called "Doc Savage." And these covers,
these gorgeous, gorgeous covers were all done by James Bama and he had kind of completely
changed Doc Savage. Doc Savage originally looked more like Clark Gable. And what
he did is he paid more attention to the original books, the original
description of Doc Savage.
And you'll see here in -- in
virtually every book and there was like over a hundred of them, Doc Savage's
shirt is always torn. Every single one. It was a trademark virtually of Doc
Savage and everybody loved it and -- but I -- I noticed that on the next page
that Bill loved it also and he -- virtually every Rook cover his shirt is also
torn.
Never his pants. Never missing a
boot. Never a hole in his hat. It's always the shirt.
Q: And what is the next page of the
exhibit?
A: That is "The Rook"
covers that I just explained --
Q: And --
A: -- in which every -- you'll see
on every page, every cover there -- there are more – his shirt is torn Doc
Savage style. My point being that Bill was influenced by a number of other
sources.
Q: And I'd like to mark as Exhibit No.
5, a still from the film "The Time Machine”. This is the still in which
Rod Taylor is seated and you see in the left foreground two wine glasses.
Do you recognize Exhibit No. 5 as a
still from "The Time Machine"?
A: Yes.
Q: And now I notice in your -- your
drawing, that's the first page of Exhibit No. 3, that there is no torn shirt.
Did you later do drawings of
"The Rook" that did have a torn shirt?
A: No, I never drew "The
Rook" in a torn shift. That was Bill Dubay. He did that with the first
cover of the Rook's appearance in Eerie. He did that himself.
Q: All right. Now, you also brought
with you a packet of documents relating to certain other works.
But before I get there you made a distinction
earlier in your comment about "Little Girl Lost" about there being a difference
between time travel stories and parallel universe stories.
A: Uh-huh.
Q: Can you -- can you explain what that
difference is?
A Well, time travel stories are
basically linear. They -- the past that we know of on the planet earth that is
time travel, going to another point in our own history, in human history. However,
you can time travel -- if you were on a different world, you can time travel to
--
MR. DUBAY: Objection.
THE WITNESS: -- to whatever that
world looked like. So time travel is -- has to do with our universe and our set
of laws and that specifically.
When you get into interdimensional
travel, then you are dealing in other universes. You are traveling from our
universe to some other complete universe. Sometimes similar. There are many theories
about being the -- you know, multi universes were there are similar -- there's
earths that are very similar in other dimensions and so on like that.
Or they could completely have --
more likely a completely different set of laws.
"Doctor Who," for
instance, would travel through time but he would also travel through dimension.
BY MR. COX: Q: So some --
MR. DUBAY: Excuse me, for a moment
if you don't mind, Vince.
MR. COX: Sure, please.
MR. DUBAY: Move to strike that
entire answer. He's not qualified. There's no foundation. He's not an expert.
He has not testified that he is an expert, he has not testified that he is a physicist
nor did you ask him if he is those two things.
If you would like to qualify him
and then reask the questions, I'm fine with that.
BY MR. COX: Now, when you were describing
the difference between time travel stories and interdimensional stories, were
you describing something that's a standard definition or were you just giving
your own understanding of what the difference is?
A I can only say that all the
science fiction comics and movies and so on like that I think is a pretty
standard definition.
Q: All right. And looking now at Exhibit
No. 2, would you -- I'll hand it to you here.
A: Okay.
Q: Would you describe the first page
of Exhibit No. 2?
A Okay. This is -- my entire point
of this group of documents is that science fiction and Westerns were -- the
match-ups were not uncommon. This -- "The Phantom Empire" there were cowboys
and then down below his ranch, I believe, there was science fiction, a whole
other world down there and it was -- it was the first example that I'm aware of
of a science fiction and Western crossover, but I understand there are earlier
ones. I don't know what they are. And the next page is "Valley of
Gwangi" all three of those pictures. And that takes place in the old west
and they are fighting dinosaurs. There's a whole kingdom of dinosaurs and small
horses and you can see that they are fighting dinosaurs there. The next page is
merely an example of comics. "Rawhide Kid," to try to get any sort of
ratings, would always -- not always but would often use science fiction
elements -- in this case a totem pole -- monsters and things like that. I don't
believe ever like spaceships or anything like that.
But I believe Rawhide Kid and
Two-Gun Kid – in comics -- and don't often but you would find western characters
on occasion fighting monsters and things that are supernatural.
And the next page is
"Westworld," which of course is the famous Michael Crichton novel and
that is the whole Western town that people go to. In this instance it's like
Disneyland, but it's made up of like the Old West and you can go there and
shoot robots if that is what you want to do. You get to pretend to be in the
Old West.
Q: All right. Now, you brought with
you a book that is too voluminous to attach as an exhibit. We've made the
cover, the title and copyright page and the table of contents as Exhibit No. 4.
And then would you explain what that book is?
A: "Rip Hunter...Time
Master" was a terrific series that DC had published. It started, I think,
around 1959 as a tryout in a comic book called "Showcase" and it was
about -- Rip Hunter was this scientist and his team -- I don't remember if it was
-- if he was related to -- I think that was probably his girlfriend here that
you see on the cover. I don't remember who the boy is. It's been years since
I've read this.
But they have developed a time
sphere and they have adventures through time. And the series was around for
30-ish years or something like that. And then he's been brought back in various
forms since then. I think he's in the CW version of the Arrowverse where they
have all the DC heros. I think he's kind of the leader the band there.
Anyway, it was a great series and I
have no doubt that Bill Dubay was aware of that because he was a comic book
expert. He knew more about comics than I did and he would often tell me about
artists and things like that.
MR. DUBAY: Move to strike.
MR. COX: Please go on, Ben. I
couldn't hear you.
MR. DUBAY: I move to strike, Mr. Stenstrum,
unless --
MR. COX: Okay. Well, why don't you
let him finish the answer --
MR. DUBAY: Okay.
MR. COX: -- and then move to
strike.
MR. DUBAY: Great.
MR. COX: Please -- please continue.
THE WITNESS: No, I --
MR. COX: Let me -- let me stop you
there.
THE WITNESS: Sure.
BY MR. COX: Did Bill Dubay ever talk
to you about his knowledge of science fiction?
A Oh, yes, absolutely. I mean
"1984" was a science fiction magazine and we had discussions – in fact,
early on when we were putting together "1984," he had wanted to
enlist some high profile authors to do stories or at least use adaptations of
their works. Kurt Vonnegut, Harlan Ellison, John Varley and a number of other
names were -- but he quickly realized that it was going to be too expensive to
even adapt these stories and he determined – Bill determined at that time that
he would just use his regular guys.
BY MR. COX: And did Bill Dubay talk
to you about other time travel works that he was familiar with?
A: Not particularly, no.
Q: Now, looking at Rip Hunter you'll
see he's got a time sphere. How was Rip Hunter's time sphere different from the
time travel machine used by "The Rook"?
A: I cannot truthfully answer that
because it's been so long since I read Rip Hunter. I cannot tell you.
I presume it was a regular time
machine. Just lots of controls and things like that inside. And I don't think a
great deal of effort was put into either determining what was the inside of
Rook's device or Rip Hunter's device.
Q: Well, looking at the outside --
A: Uh-huh.
Q: -- what was the difference between
the outside of Rip Hunter's time sphere and the outside of the Rook's time
travel device?
A: Well, the -- there was a stark
difference. I mean, it is a sphere here on Rip Hunter and it's called a time
sphere and the Rook used something that looked very much like a rook chess
piece. A large, oversized chess piece.
Q: Now, the -- let's mark as Exhibit
No. 6, a copy of Eerie No. 82, consisting of the front cover and the inside of
the front cover and then pages five through 23 -- five through 24, excuse me,
and the inside back cover and the back cover.
MR. COX: So if you happen to have a
full-on copy of Eerie 82, Ben, you can follow along on that. We'll have it
marked as Exhibit No. 6.
Q: And I have a copy -- in case the
reproduction is not good, I have a copy of Eerie 82.
I just wanted to ask you some questions
about it.
On the cover of Eerie 82, are there
any parts of that cover that reflect your creativity?
A: The Rook's costume, although it
was drawn by a better artist than I, Manners over on the upper right. The -- I
forget what the fellow's name, Bishop Dane, I think, over on the left looks
nothing like what I had imagined. A much better job actually.
And so that is really the essential
-- essentially it. The costume and the manners of the robot.
Q: And then in terms of the story for
"The Rook" that you see at pages five to 24 of Eerie 82, did you have
any kind of collaborative participation in that particular story?
A: The three of us talked about the
first couple of stories and we were all sort of hashing ideas out. And I think
Budd brought a lot of the -- the Western feel to it. He created the names like Gat
Hawkins. I think he came up with the name Restin Dane and -- he had a better
feel, coming from Louisiana, than we did for -- Gat was from, like, Gatling
gun.
And Bill, I think he came up with
the name Manners, I guess that's nuts and bolts there, that was probably more
his doing. For myself I was trying to lead them into a more logical sort of
storytelling. I found it – I found the whole series kind of absurd and it just
-- I just didn't think that it was based in anything close to science and
anything close to reasonable logic.
I had a lot of problems and so I
did not contribute a lot to the actual story. The first one is really pretty
much all Bill but a lot of Budd -- Budd Lewis influence as far as The Alamo
goes. And I believe the next story is written by -- no, it's not here -- by
Budd Lewis where I think the guy's name is Gat Hawkins. He says he is going to
go over the wall in The Alamo.
Q: Now, on the -- on the page five of
Eerie 82, you'll see in the upper left-hand corner the robot Manners along with
two other robots. Do you remember their names?
A: I think they are called
"Nuts" and "Bolts," but really it's been ages since I read
it.
Q: Now, as of the time that this was
– this was published in January of 1977?
A That sounds about right.
Q: Were there any other robots that
this was based upon or influenced by so far as you know?
A: No. The Manners that I -- I just
completely faked it. I just drew whatever I could remember from old movies. It's
just essentially about a humanoid tin can. I had -- I don't think I had
anything to do with designing Nuts and Bolts.
Again, these were drawings I
knocked out, literally, in a few minutes to keep Warren happy.
Q: Okay. Were there any aspects of The
Rook's character that you felt were not customary within the genre in which you
were working?
A: No, he seemed like a comic book
guy. A comic book hero. There was nothing special about him other than he liked
to dress up as a cowboy.
MR. DUBAY: I move to strike.
There's no foundation. You haven't asked the witness if he was an expert or
provided any credentials of him being an expert or how does he know that
there's nothing distinctive about "The Rook" or Restin Dane.
MR. COX: Thank you.
BY MR. COX: As of 1976 what was your
background in science fiction?
A: My background, I was just an
avid reader and an avid fan of science fiction movies and science fiction
comics and so on like that. But 1976 I think I had written one science fiction
story.
I had mainly been a fan of science
fiction and in comics and in books and – and I think in 1973 I wrote a science
fiction story for Warren and it was published called "Unprovoked Attack on
a Hilton Hotel." That's essentially my experience. It's mainly as a fan,
as a reader.
BY MR. COX: Well, was there -- do you
have any understanding about elements of a genre that are generic and elements
that are unusual? Do you have -- do you have that distinction in mind? Are you familiar
with that?
A: Well, yeah, science fiction is
different than regular fiction in that it has unusual -- usually science-based
elements that are not used in regular fiction, such as time travel, such as
space travel, such as devices that are created that are beyond our -- our
science today.
Q: But now within -- were you familiar
as of 1976 with the genre of time travel science fiction?
A: Of course.
Q: And were there any elements of "The
Rook," other than the Western costume that you did not recognize as being
generic?
A : I have to tell you that I've
read very few of "The Rook" stories. I really didn't like the series
and -- I read the first couple, but I had pretty much jumped ship on "The
Rook" before they were even published so I cannot expertly tell you what
might have -- to me at least the first couple of stories struck me as usual
comic book fair.
Q: And you have Eerie 82 in front of
you, so let me restrict my question to Eerie 82.
A: Uh-huh.
Q: Were there any elements of "The
Rook" in Eerie 82 that -- other than the Western costume for the time
travel hero that you regarded as something other than generic within the time
travel genre?
And, please, take your time and go
through it if you'd like to refresh your memory.
A: I'm a little vague on what your
question is though, I'm sorry.
Q: I'm trying to find out what elements
-- you've identified that there was one element of "The Rook" that was
unusual which was a time travel hero who was dressed as a Western cowboy.
A Yeah.
Q: And I'm trying to find out if there
were any other elements of "The Rook"?
A: Are you looking for things that
are unique?
Q: Yes.
A: Oh.
Q: Things that are -- things that are
out of the ordinary.
A: I've seen robots in any number
of comic book stories. I mean, it's -- it's always a – we take a little there,
we take a little there, we throw it all together. I cannot say that there's
anything particularly unique about "The Rook" from other science
fiction.
MR. DUBAY: Move to strike.
Foundation. The witness has testified that he has not read but a few stories of
"The Rook." He's also testified that he cannot remember "The
Rook." He has not testified that he as an expert and he has not testified
that he has read all comic books pertaining to time travel.
MR. COX: Did you ever read any of the
Stephen King books entitled "The Dark Tower"?
A: Yes, I read all of them with the
exception of -- I think he did something -- at the very end there is a shorter
book, but I've read -- I think it's eight volumes. I don't recall. Virtually
every one of them, but he added a little story at the end.
I don't recall. I haven't had a
chance to read that one yet.
Q: And when was it that you read "The
Dark Tower" books?
A: Excuse me, let me put this
microphone on. I believe that's how it goes. I would say over the last eight
years, eight to ten years, in audio version. A friend of mine had the series on
audio book and he lent me the first -- I don't know -- three books and I
listened to those. I listened to them at work. And the rest of the books I
picked up myself. I liked the series a lot and as they came out I would buy
audio versions of them.
Q: And did you recognize any similarities
between "The Dark Tower" books and "The Rook"?
A: No. In all the time that I was
reading these books, "The Dark Tower" books, it never even occurred
to me that it had any similarity at all to "The Rook" until Ben Dubay
sent me an email telling me that he was starting a lawsuit, which surprised me.
MR. DUBAY: Move to strike. I'm not
sure how Mr. Stenstrum is able to compare the works when he did not read
"The Rook" to begin with.
BY MR. COX: Q: Looking at Exhibit No.
8, the first page in the artwork, do you recognize any similarity between the
image on the right of the individual holding a rose and the individual on the
left?
A: The Rook on the left is -- it's
just a head shot and so all -- the only similarities would be they are both
wearing a hat, but they are different styles of hat.
Q: And is the -- is the face similar?
A: Not that I can see, no. The face
on the left is thinner and more weathered and more weary looking.
MR. DUBAY: Move to strike.
BY MR. COX: Q: Now, the -- you are going to have
to speak up with your motions, Ben. I heard you say, "Move to strike."
I hope the court reporter did. I just want you to be getting, you know, your
objections on the record.
BY MR. COX: Q: Then on the next page,
the plaintiff on the left-hand column characterizes Restin Dane as being tall.
Do you know if Restin Dane was tall
or not?
A: Do I know whether he was tall? He
seemed average-sized to me.
Q: Is there anything --
MR. DUBAY: Foundation.
BY MR. COX: Q: In 1976 was there anything
unusual, in your experience, with having a hero who was tall with medium length
and unkempt dark hair and sideburns?
A: I do not believe that that was
unique to The Rook, no.
Q: Well, was it unusual?
A: There were all sorts of
different types. I mean, there were bald heros. There were, you know, half cyborg,
half human characters. There were a lot of variations on heros.
Q: All right. Then the next factor here
is cowboy at number two.
How was it that the -- The Rook was
shown to dress as a -- as a cowboy?
A: That was a requirement that was
given us in the creation of The Rook from Jim Warren and the Toy Guy.
Q: And so what clothing was needed in order to
make him look like a cowboy?
A: A hat and in the case that I
chose, I chose a vest, a shirt, pants, a holster with a gun.
Q: Was a holster with a gun a generic
element of a cowboy as of 1976?
A: Oh, absolutely.
Q: And there's a reference here to Restin
Dane being a gunslinger. Was Restin Dane a gunslinger in Eerie 82?
A: No, I think that's a misnomer. I
do not believe that a gunslinger fits him because there are no -- there were no
gunslingers in 1970s America. Gunslingers were in the 1800s, early 1900s.
There were gangsters. There were
police. There were no gunslingers.
Q: Was the -- was Restin Dane a scientist?
A: He was a scientist who dressed
up like a cowboy and that again was -- was kind of forced on us.
Q: And was he also somebody who was
portrayed as wealthy?
A: I believe so, yes. He would have
to be in order to -- yes, yes, I believe in the first story that there is an
origin of him hiring various scientists and that to help him, but they – they never
were told the exact same -- like you were building a bomb or something like a
-- but he – I believe he was a -- a scientist, a very good scientist and he
surrounded himself by scientists.
Q: And were there any other comic book
heros in the 1970s that you were aware of who were scientists?
A: Most of them were.
Q: Were you familiar with a comic book
hero named Tony Stark in the 1970s?
A: Tony Stark is Ironman.
Q: And was Tony Stark a wealthy scientist?
A: He was.
Q: Now, on the next page of Exhibit
No. 8, the plaintiff states that Restin Dane possesses no superpowers but is a
crack shot.
Was that an unusual feature of a science
fiction hero as of 1976, having no super powers but being a crack shot?
A I can't think of -- again, I
can't even determine why he would be a crack shot. He's in 1970s America. He
obviously learned -- I don't know that it was ever put into an origin of why or
how he became a crack shot.
Ben could probably tell you more on
that. I -- I don't know.
Q: Are there -- can you think of any
heros who -- in science fiction who are bad shots?
A: Bad shots?
Q: Who are not good shots. The opposite
of a crack shot would be somebody who has poor marksmanship?
A: Nothing comes to mind, but it's
-- it's a funny idea and I think it probably has happened, yes.
Q: But being a -- having poor marksmanship
would be an unusual element of a hero; correct?
A: Absolutely.
Q: Was there any -- the next one is
paragraph six in which plaintiff alleges that Restin Dane's primary weapon is a
Colt .45 single-action revolver.
Looking to Eerie 82, was that true,
that The Rook's primary weapon was a Colt .45?
A: I could not tell you. I -- I
just threw a gun into a holster and Budd and Bill chose whatever were the
weapons.
My interest flagged after they
brought a Bushmaster machine gun to The Alamo.
Q: Well, that was my next question.
Isn't it true that in "The Rook" that The Rook uses modern 20th
century weaponry in context like the 19th century?
A: Yes. In the stories that I've
read that was true, yes.
Q: And the next -- the next element,
number seven states that he is -- that Restin Dane is skilled in hand-to-hand
combat.
Was that something that was part of
"The Rook" at the time that you were working on it?
A It's kind of an assumption for
heros. You would be very hard pressed to find a comic book hero who was not
good at hand-to-hand combat.
Q: And --
MR. DUBAY: Move to strike.
BY MR. COX: Q: Well, is -- can you think
of any comic book heros as of the 1970s who were not skilled in hand-to-hand
combat?
A Oh, sure. Sure. I mean, there
were odd little characters usually, you know, minor characters that might be --
have other skills and -- or have no skills really at all, I mean. But a lot of
these things would be people who are fairly ordinary.
In other words, there are comic
books about everything and there are comic book heros that rely on powers and
not hand to hand.
Metamorpho, for instance, he was a character
that had -- he could change into any number of different elements and things
like that. He never required hand-to-hand combat. He would just engulf you in
swamp moss.
Q: But if you have a macho hero is he
going to be skilled in hand-to-hand combat or unskilled in hand-to-hand combat?
A: In comic books, by and large,
that was the case, yes, he was usually skilled in hand to hand.
Q: And the next paragraph states that,
"A black bird companion fights by his side in the origin story arc,"
referring to Restin Dane.
Does that occur in Eerie 82?
A: Yeah, I did take the time to
read – reread the first couple of stories and, yeah, there is -- well, it would
be Rook because -- believe me if there was a rook cheese and a rook wine, we
would be putting that in there as well.
So we -- we put a rook bird in
there and I think that was largely Bill Dubay's work. I think he used -- there
was a piece of this time machine that was taken by The Rook, but there was a
point to it.
And so -- yeah, he was -- I don't
know that he was necessarily a companion. I cannot say. I'm no expert on that.
Q: All right. But do you recall in Dark
Tower that there was a hawk that was used by Roland Deschain to fight his --
his teacher, Cort?
A Well, I notice here that Ben
specifically points out the magazine of "Fantasy & Science Fiction."
That is not one I've -- I've read "The Gunslinger." I do not know if
"The Gunslinger" was revised a great deal from the first appearance
of -- I presume this is the first -- 1981. No, "Slow Mutants," I
don't remember when that came in.
The only thing that I remember
about a – I believe it was a raven, not a rook -- in the first Gunslinger story
is a character called "Zoltan" and he -- the hero in Dark Tower, Roland,
his mule dies and this raven eats the eyes of his dead mule.
And other than that I don't think
there's a great deal of black bird going on in "The Dark Tower."
Q: Now, that take care of my question
regarding number nine. Number ten, it states that in the parallel column
plaintiff alleges that both Restin Dane and Roland Deschain are romantic.
Would you -- would you characterize
Restin Dane was being romantic?
A: Again, virtually every comic
book hero was to some extent or another. It was a -- it was a necessary tenet
of just comic book storytelling.
Q: And would you say that Roland Deschain
in "The Dark Tower" was romantic?
A Yes. Again, being a hero he would
be romantic, but I believe he had a relationship with Susanna and -- but again,
it's throughout fiction that's a very common tenet.
Q: And then number eleven points out
that both of them at different times fight monsters.
Was that an unusual element in the
1970s for science fiction heros?
A: It was extremely common.
Q: And then number 12, it's pointed
out that he was an adventurer. Was that an unusual element for science fiction
heros in the 1970s?
A: Again, very common.
Q: And then number 13 says that, "His
adventures through time, other worlds and alternate realities span American history
and fantasy lore."
Was that a common element of time
travel stories in the 1970s?
A: Yes, very common.
Q: And plaintiff states that in the
-- "The Rook" that, quote, the tower is the linchpin to these worlds.
Was -- in the stories of "The
Rook" that you have read is the tower the linchpin to other worlds and
alternate realities?
A: Only in that that's where all
the equipment was. It's quite different than "The Dark Tower" in the
-- in the books which was more of a supernatural nexus. I don't see any -- I
don't see any similarities there.
Q: Then number 14 refers to his nemesis
as the man in black.
A: Uh-huh.
Q: Was it unusual for a science fiction
hero to have a nemesis as of the 1970s?
A No, I think -- I think it was
necessary just for basic storytelling.
Q: And was it unusual that the nemesis
would be male?
A: Usually male because they're
usually more and forceful
Q: And was it unusual that the nemesis
would have a black costume?
A: Black costumes have been kicking
around for a long time. The second Sergio Leone movie, the man -- "For a
Few Dollars More" he was being pursued by a man wearing black, Lee Van
Cleef.
Q: And in the back-and-white format
of Eerie comics, how many colors did artists have available to them to depict
characters?
A: I'm sorry, how many colors?
Q: Yes.
A: I'm sorry, the book is black and
white. There are color covers.
Q: I see. I see.
A: Okay. I mean, we could -- there
have been inserts of color -- color stories, but that's a very costly
four-color process that is done separately. Warren rarely used color other than
covers. It's just too expensive.
Q: The next paragraph, number 15, refers
to the fact that both Restin Dane and Roland Deschain are the main protagonists
of their works. We'll pass over that.
A: Okay. It seems pretty obvious.
Q: Okay. Number 16 says, as to both
characters, "He possesses a strong sense of bravery."
Was it unusual that a science
fiction hero would possess a strong sense of bravery as of the 1970s?
A: No, he would have to be in order
to be the hero.
Q: And I'll pass over number 17, which
is pointed out that he is heroic. The next -- the next one is number 18 that says,
"He descends with from a quasi-immortal." As of the time that you
were working on "The Rook," was there an origin story that explained the
descent of The Rook?
A: No, I have -- I have not read
this book. I have no idea what it's about.
Q: And when you say, "this book,"
what do you mean?
A The Eerie Magazine, January 1979.
Q: Okay. And you don't know who the
character Quarb is?
A: As I remember, Quarb and Warball
were names of characters that were created by fans. There was a contest and
they -- "The Rook" had a contest, you know, name -- give us the names
of some interesting characters and we'll put it into the book. And the winner
-- I don't know if it was two winners or one winner. Quarb, I believe was one
and Warball was another.
Q: All right. Now, paragraph 19 asserts
that both Restin Dane and Roland Deschain are born leaders. Was that an unusual
element of a science fiction hero in the 1970s?
A Most
comic book heros are born leaders.
Q· The next one, number 20, states,
"He is determined." Was that an unusual element of comic book heros
in the 1970s?
A· You would have to be determined
in order to be a hero.
Q· On number 21 it state, "He walks
straight into danger without giving forward thought." Was that an unusual
element of science fiction heros in the 1970s?
A· That is what a hero does and
that is the definition of bravery.
Q· On number 22 it states, "He
can endure injuries that would otherwise kill an ordinary man." In the
1970s was that an unusual element of a comic book hero?
A: No. Comic book heros would take
a beating every -- every issue and come back swinging.
Q: The next element states, "He
puts himself in harm's way in order to save his family and team members." Was
that an unusual element of comic book heros in the 1970s?
A: Again, that's hero, brave, et
cetera.
Q: Number 24 states that both Roland
Deschain and Restin Dane are people who contemplate to himself. "Often
talking to himself out loud." Was that something that you observed during the
time that you were working on "The Rook" that that was an element of
this character?
A: That is -- I'm sorry, that is a very
common storytelling device, particularly when a character is alone and you need
to get information across to the reader, either through thought balloons, you
need to get the information about the story to the reader and there's nobody to
talk to and writers in regular fiction -- Stephen King does similar things
himself. Most writers do that.
Q: And then number 25 states, "He
is not a patient man, particularly when he is stressed." Was that an
unusual element of comic book heros in the 1970s?
A: Some characters were not
patient. Tony Stark was certainly not patient, but I can't say that that covers
all comic book heros, no.
Q: So some were and some weren't?
A: Some were and some weren't. However
the character -- whatever was necessary for the character.
MR. DUBAY: I would like to move to
strike every line of questioning, lack of foundation, specifically the witness
testified that he has no advanced education. He did not obtain -- instead of art
and writing, he has no college degree. He is not an expert in comics. He also
testified to not having read "The Rook."
Further, he testified to only
listening to the audio books of "The Dark Tower" series.
MR. COX: Let me just take a -- take
a second and look at my notes. Yeah, there are one or two other things I need
to go into.
BY MR. COX: During the time that you
were working with Bill Dubay in the 1970s you received an assignment to work on
"1984 Magazine" in connection with a project that started with
"A Boy and His Dog." Are you familiar with that?
A: Yes.
Q: Can you --
MR. DUBAY: Leading. You can restate
the question.
MR. COX: No, that's fine. It's a preliminary
matter. That's all right.
BY MR. COX: Can you explain what Bill
Dubay said to you about what you should do about the "A Boy and His Dog"
project?
A: All right. I was living in
Minneapolis at the time and on occasion every, oh, month or so I would get a
big pile of original art from Bill and these -- he wanted me to rewrite these
stories. Usually he did not send the script along and which kind of forced me
to just sort of cobble together whatever sort of a story I could figure out from
the artwork and it was not something I enjoyed doing. I -- in fact, I hated it,
but it paid the same as writing a regular story.
And all of those stories I wrote
under a pen name Alabaster Redzone because these were not my stories, I would
not have written them so I – some of them were not bad, but I just could not
take credit for something I did not fully create.
And one time -- let's see, when
would this be? 1979, something like that, I received a big package. It must
have been about five, six stories by various artists. Again, this is original
art and with -- you know, I talked to Bill many times over the phone and the
understanding was -- is that I would rewrite these stories and I would send
them back to him but with a new dialogue. A new dialogue and captions.
One of the stories that I noticed –
there was a story by -- that was illustrated by Alex Nino and -- and it did
have a script attached -- I was kind of surprised -- and I didn't pay attention
to it at first, but then I looked at it a little bit later and it was Gerry
Boudreaux' original adaptation of Harlan Ellison's "A Boy and His
Dog" and that surprised me because I had heard from Bill that that story
was junked, because Harlan Ellison had screamed and hollered and he was not
going to allow him to have the rights.
And so I surprised to see that
there, but then as the looked at the script it was "A Boy and His
Dog," the original Gerry Boudreaux script, but wherever it said
"Boy," it had been replaced with "Girl," and wherever it
said "Dog," it was replaced with "Monster."
Everything else about it was
absolutely the same and it was -- it was an exact adaptation of Harlan
Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog" and -- I'm sorry, did you have more
questions on it?
Q: No. Basically, I wanted to ask you:
What did Bill Dubay ask you to do with that material that he sent you regarding
"A Boy and His Dog"?
A He told me to -- to rewrite the
story, to take out anything that would be considered plagiarism and, you know,
the entire story was plagiarism when I got it.
He wanted me to rewrite it and I
didn't like the idea and I protested and I really, really didn't want to get
involved in it. He says, you know, "You can do it. I know you can. I got
to – I know you can pull it off." And I said, "Well, why aren't you
rewriting yourself?" He said, "I don't have time. I don't have
time."
So I -- he put pressure on in, you
know, saying -- essentially saying, you know, do you like working at Warren. I
knew what he meant by that.
And anyway, ultimately, I said,
okay, I'll do it. If anybody I think can -- can change this enough to make it
unidentifiable, I think I can do it. And so I -- I took the artwork for it, I
went over to the library, I made photocopies of the thing and it was -- I don't
remember -- about 12 pages, I think it was.
And I mixed and matched --
fortunately, all the panels were exactly the same size. They were very long and
tall and there were four panels to a page and I would mix and match and really
turned into a really big puzzle. And then I just worked as hard as I could to
take everything out of it that looked anything like "A Boy and His
Dog." I even started it out on the moon and there was some artwork changes
on the first page and I did everything.
There was not a single line from
"A Boy and His Dog" left. It was -- I just pulled out anything that
looked like plagiarism and by the time I finished it up, I thought I did a
pretty good job, but I would -- I did have trouble in that Alex Nino's artwork
was so strong -- I mean, it still -- I said, oh, jeez, I don't know, it still
looks like "A Boy and His Dog," because it was still a human and a beast,
in this case a creature, walking along together in this post-apocalyptic world
and they were talking to each other.
A big thing in "A Boy and His
Dog" is that his dog was telepathic and -- I didn't have him being telepathic,
but I did have him speaking to the girl. Instead of a dog it was a mutated· --
actually, it was one of her -- one of her ex-husband's that had been mutated
into this creature and he was able to talk to her, but he -- he was able to
talk to her and I -- I could have, I suppose, made him completely mute, but
then she wouldn't have anybody to talk to for page after page after page. And
the panels, they were obviously looking at each other and talking to each other
and I -- you know, ultimately it didn't work.
I did not do a good enough job and
it was discovered a couple of years later by a writer from a comics journal. I
thought we were safe, but we weren't.
Q: And did somebody sue?
A Harlan Ellison found out about it
and he sued.
Q: Referring to the document that's
been previously marked as Exhibit I, which is the cover and table of contents
and selected pages from the -- I believe it's the October 1978 issue of
"1984 Magazine."
Would you identify from the table
of contents of Exhibit I what story was -- you've been testifying about as to
having relied upon "A Boy and His Dog"?
A: Okay. The title page here it
would be under Magilla. The full title of it was "Mondo Magilla."
Q: And turning to the next page of the
exhibit, what is that next page?
A: That's the first page of
"Mondo Magilla," the story that I tried very hard to un-plagiarize.
Q: And what is the next page of
that exhibit?
A: Oh, that's Rex Havoc.
Q: And what is Rex Havoc?
A: Rex Havoc is a character I
created in 1978 and was -- he was briefly -- he had four – four issues in -- he
appeared in four issues in 1984 and I think that was it.
Q: And did you have -- when Warren Magazine
or Warren Communications declared bankruptcy, where were you living?
A: When he declared bankruptcy I
was in California.
Q: Did you have any connection with
the bankruptcy proceedings at all?
A No, I didn't hear about the
bankruptcy until much later -- months later.
Q: And who told you about it?
A: I think I heard it through the
-- the comic book grapevine. You know, it might have been a fan that told me or
I might have read it in some sort of comic magazine. I do not remember.
Q· Did you -- it sounds as though you
did not a lot of time on the premises at Warren Communications?
A· No.
Q· Would that be correct?
A· No.
Q· Were you aware of the name of Jim
Warren's secretary?
A: His personal secretary?
Q: Yes.
A: I think her name was Liz
something.
Q: Okay. And do you have any
understanding as to why it was that Warren Communications went bankrupt?
A: As I understand it, it is not
the story that Jim Warren tells everybody about him being sick.
I don't know for a fact, but I can
only tell you what Bill Dubay told me and that is that Jim Warren, frankly, just
got bored and he stopped coming in and -- he enjoyed having parties on his -- I
think it was in Long Island and I remember the story about him spending $10,000
in fireworks. Again, all of this from Bill Dubay himself. And he would miss
meetings with distributors.
I think he was more interested in
maybe moving into movies and things like that. But as far as I can determine,
he was just bored and -- I mean, when I was hired as editor for the -- and Bill
was moved up to assistant publisher, I never saw him not once. He never came
into the office.
Q: And your information about Jim Warren
comes from what you were told about Jim Warren from Bill Dubay; is that
correct?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q: And did Bill Dubay have a friendly
relationship with Jim Warren during the time that you knew Bill Dubay?
A: It was a very complicated
relationship. I think that Bill envied him -- envied Jim Warren. I know that he
hated him at times. I think that he also tried very hard to emulate. He thought
that Jim Warren was a good businessman, a successful businessman and I think
that was kind of what Bill wanted to be as well.
Q: Did Bill Dubay ever talk with you
about any transactions that he had with Jim Warren pertaining to ownership in
"The Rook"?
A: No.
Q: Did Budd Lewis ever tell you about
any transactions that he had with Jim Warren relating to ownership of "The
Rook"?
A: Again not specifically. My
impression was that there was a deal with Jim Warren that they would get a
piece of it. I do not know the details. I cannot -- I cannot say that.
Q: And what did your impression come
from?
A From Bill Dubay.
Q: And are you aware of an individual
by the name of Nicholas Cuti, C-u-t-i?
A: Oh, Cuti.
Q: Cuti.
A: Nick Cuti, sure.
Q: Did you ever have any contact
with Nick Cuti after you left Warren?
A: Yes, Nick works, I believe,
occasionally in the animation industry. He still works in comics.
He -- I know him. I can't say that
we're great friends or anything, but I've run in to him from time to time.
Q: Where does he work now?
A: I think he's in Florida. I think
he is busy doing his -- his cheap little science fiction movies that he sells
online.
Q: And do you know what the name of
his company is?
A: I couldn't tell you.
Q: Do you know where he is in
Florida?
A: I don't know.
Q: If you were going to look for
him, would you go to IMDb?
A: No, no. I can probably find him
on the Internet somewhere.
Q: All right. Do you know if Bill Dubay
had any interactions with Nick Cuti?
A: About what?
Q: About copyright ownership.
A: I think there was something
going on about The Fox. It was a
character that Nick created and I do not know the details of that.
Q: All right. Well, I have -- I have
no further questions of the witness right now.
Ben, it's your turn to ask
questions.
MR. DUBAY: I appreciate that.
EXAMINATION BY MR. DUBAY: The first
question, Mr. Stenstrum, that I have -- the first few questions I'm going to go
through are simply background questions and then we'll get into the exhibits
and try to move through those fairly quickly since you have testified on some of
the questions I have.
The first question I have today is
did you discuss your testimony with defense counsel prior to today?
A: Did I -- I'm sorry, did I speak
with the defense counsel about testimony? You mean like did he coach me or
anything?
Q: No, no, not anything specifically.
Did you discuss your testimony with defense counsel?
A Not -- not the testimony
specifically, no.
No, he had -- he had mentioned that
he would be asking me questions about -- he didn't even say that he would be
asking questions.
He was just curious about,
specifically, the H.G. Wells' time machine and -- but beyond that there were --
there was no off-the-record sort of talk.
Q: Did you discuss any of your exhibits
with the defense counsel?
A: No, I just made the exhibits
shortly before I came here. He has seen it for the first time --
Q: Now did you have any of those exhibits
in your hand at the time you drew any sketch of the work at any time? Did you have
any of those exhibits that you produced today --
A: Yes.
Q: -- in your possession at the time
that you drew any preliminary sketches of "The Rook"?
A: Oh, no.
Q: Okay. Were you ever an employee of
Warren Publishing Company or Warren Communications Corp?
A Yes, for a brief time. Are you
talking a freelance position or are you talking full time?
Q: An employee. I understand the difference.
But, let's say, an employee such as assistant editor as you testified earlier?
A: Yes, yes.
Q: An employee?
A: Yes, I was assistant editor for
a few months in 1973 and then editor for -- I don't think it was even a full
month in 1981.
Q: Were you paid a weekly salary --
A: Yes.
Q: -- as assistant editor?
A: During that time, yes.
Q: Were you paid a weekly salary as
an editor?
A Yes.
Q: Did Bill Dubay hire you as assistant
editor for various magazines?
A: Yes.
Q: Did Bill Dubay promote you to editor
in 1981?
A: Yes.
Q: Was that for Rook Issue No. 11?
A: Oh, you mean specifically what
did I work on? Again, it was a very short time. I specifically worked on
editing. I do not believe it was "The Rook." I believe it was an
issue of "Creepy" and an issue of "Eerie." I do not believe
I had anything to do with "The Rook."
Q: Was Bill Dubay promoted to co-publisher
of Warren Publishing Company at any time?
A: Yes, I believe he was. He told
me that he was, yes.
Q: What authority did he have as co-publisher?
MR. COX: Objection; calls for a
legal conclusion but go ahead.
BY MR. DUBAY: To the best of your knowledge,
what authority did Bill Dubay have while he was co-publisher?
THE WITNESS: Well, again, I believe he pretty
much took over the chores that Jim Warren didn't want to do anymore and he
would be overseeing magazines but on top of which he would be overseeing the
entire business, I believe.
MR. DUBAY: Okay.
BY MR. DUBAY:
Q: When did you quit Warren Publishing?
A When did I quit?
Q: As an employee.
A: One time I was fired and the
second time I quit because of the whole Harlan Ellison debacle.
Q: Would you like time to give that
some more thought because my next question -- let's skip that for now. When was
your last story published at Warren Publishing as a writer?
A Probably 1980 -- it was either
late '81 or '82. There was one story that I still owed to Warren Publishing and
I -- I took that original art with me back to California. It was a five-page
thing called "Star Force 5." And even though I no longer worked for
Warren, I still finished the story and I sent it back to Bill, so that was probably
the last story, probably appeared in '82.
Q: Did you have a work-for-hire contract
with Warren Publishing Company?
A: No.
Q: Did you have any written agreement
with Warren Publishing Company?
A: No.
Q: Did you have any written agreement
with Bill Dubay?
A No.
Q: What rights did you grant to Warren
Publishing Company?
A: None. Well, I -- let me revise
that. I -- my impression was, as it is very common in book publishing, is that
first American -- North American rights were all that Warren should be --
should be buying. I don't subscribe to the fact that he had any right to
reprint it overseas or reprint it at all and he certainly, to my mind, did not have
any rights to the characters beyond common core publishing, characters or
stories.
Q: How did you grant the rights that
you did grant to Warren? Did you just send him a script? How does that work?
A: Let me tell you with my very
first story "Forgive Us Our Deaths," 1971, I -- I sent in completely
unsolicited an 18-page story and I sent it along with a self-addressed stamped
envelope and I sent it to Warren -- I didn't even know who the editor was at
the time and I got it back within a few days and I -- I got it back so quickly
I thought that I had actually mailed it to myself.
And then I opened it up and I was
surprised there was a little just one or two lines from the editor saying that
he liked the story and that he'll buy it if he -- if I could change it to 12
pages. It was 18 pages. He wanted it reduced to 12 pages. I then sent back that
story -- that same story. I looked at it and I found no way that I could reduce
it to 12 pages. I said, "Listen, I'm sorry. This is the way it's got to
go. I cannot reduce it to 12 pages." And he said, "Okay. Fine." And
that's the extent of it.
And then I got a check for $50
within a couple of weeks. There was no -- there was no Social Security or any
other monies taken out of it for taxes or anything else. It was just a straight
check for $50.
Q: So then who owned the rights to your
work?
MR. COX: Objection; calls for a
legal conclusion but go ahead.
THE WITNESS: Well, to --
BY MR. DUBAY: Who do you feel owned
the rights to your work?
A: I'm sorry, Ben, I didn't catch
your question.
Q: Who did you feel owned the rights
to your work?
A It is still my impression that I
own the character -- my stories since I have never -- I have never signed any
sort of document at all, I've never signed a contract, I've never signed a work
for hire and without such my impression is that the – all stories are mine.
Now, the copyright laws and legal
people may determine differently, but that is my impression.
Q: Has Warren Publishing Company ever
violated your understanding of the rights you granted to them?
A: I was not crazy about when Bill
decided to reprint Rex Havoc and rip off "Raiders of the Lost Ark," which
was a new movie out at that time. This was 1981. And he went through and
changed – the character was originally the -- the series was Rex Havoc and
"The Asskickers of the Fantastic." And he changed it to Rex Havoc and
"The Raiders of the Fantastic."
And I was absolutely furious, but I
felt I didn't have much bargaining position because I was dead broke and I was
just brought in as editor and I didn't think ultimately it made that much
difference because my original work still stood.
Q: Do you recall what month and year
that took place?
A Well, it would have happened
within a month or two of the release of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Bill
and I both went to -- Bill was kind and he took me to a preview at a nearby
theater of it and we both loved the film. And Bill wanted very much to – Bill was
always looking for ideas to ingratiate himself with Jim Warren and he thought
that this would be a good way of making quick bucks off of "Raiders."
And again, it was a reprint so it cost only what it cost to print. It wasn't a
big deal. And Jim Warren loved the idea, but I -- I protested it every inch of the
way and I -- it, in fact, is published as written by Alabaster Redzone.
Q: And the month and the year that it
was published?
A: I don't have that information
right here. I told you it was a couple of months after "Raiders of the
Lost Ark" was released.
Q: Pertaining to "The Rook,"
did you give your ownership rights back to Bill and Budd?
A: Yes.
Q: Well, before giving those rights
back, what was your expectation of your financial participation in "The
Rook"?
A: It was very vague. I think we
just were talking about a three-way split. I had no idea. There were no
contracts. There was nothing that was put on paper. By the time we ended, I'm
sure Jim Warren would have a cut. The Toy Guy would have a cut.
By the time it would probably come
out to not too much for me personally, but it was -- it was very vague.
Q: You testified just a few seconds
ago that The Toy Guy would have a copy and Jim Warren would have a copy?
MR. COX: Would have a cut.
THE WITNESS: Would have a cut.
MR. DUBAY: Oh, I apologize. I
thought you said, "copy." Was your original agreement with Bill and Budd
or was it with Bill, Budd and Jim or was it just with Bill?
A No, it was with Bill and Budd. We
had formed, without any sort of paperwork, a partnership called The Cartoon
Factory.
Q: Was your agreement verbal then?
A Yes.
Q: Were you ever party to a written
agreement pertaining to "The Rook"?
A: No.
Q: Was your agreement with Bill and
Budd subject to the agreement that Bill Dubay had with Jim Warren? What I mean
is was it prearranged that Warren would participate as a publisher and co-developer
of "The Rook"?
MR. COX: Objection; foundation but
go ahead, please.
THE WITNESS: I'm -- I'm sorry, I'm
a little baffled by the question. Could you repeat, please?
MR. DUBAY: Sure. Was it prearranged
that Warren -- that's Jim Warren or Warren Publishing Company would participate
as publisher and co-developer of "The Rook"?
MR. COX: Objection; no proper
foundation. Ambiguous.
THE WITNESS: Yes, I -- Jim Warren
would certainly be involved and I believe so was The Toy Guy.
BY MR. DUBAY: Do you recall The Toy
Guy's name?
A: Is the Howard Peretz? I don't know.
We always referred to him as The Toy Guy.
Q: Was there at any time a joint project
between The Cartoon Factory and Warren Publishing Company concerning "The
Rook"?
MR. COX: Objection; vague.
THE WITNESS: I'm -- I'm not aware
of any.
BY MR. DUBAY: Now, did you write any
stories for "The Rook"?
A No, I did not.
Q: Did you create any published artwork
or expression for "The Rook"?
A Publish, no.
Q: Who made the creative decisions for
"The Rook"?
A: The creative decisions were Bill
and Budd and ultimately Jim Warren. Everything had to go through Jim Warren.
Q: So, in other words, the three of
them would discuss things and decide things creatively?
A: Not the three of them. Bill --
Budd never talked to Jim Warren. Bill and Budd and I, we would talk over
various ideas and direction we wanted to take "The Rook" and then
Bill would take that information and talk to Jim Warren.
Q: So Bill sort of acted as the trustee
for "The Rook"?
MR. COX: Objection; calls for a
legal conclusion.
THE WITNESS: He was certainly the
liaison.
MR. DUBAY: He was the liaison. Perfect.
Any agreement that Bill would have had with Jim Warren would you and Budd be
subject to it?
MR. COX: Objection; vague and
ambiguous.
THE WITNESS: I would think so, yes.
BY MR. DUBAY: If we can look at the
exhibit marked Exhibit A, Eerie Volume 82 cover, title page and page five.
MR. COX: Here's Exhibit A.
MR. DUBAY: I think we can move
through this pretty quickly.
MR. COX: Good. Let me get the --
let me get the --
THE WITNESS: I have the original
comic book here, Ben. Does that help?
MR. DUBAY: If you have the original
comic book, that's fine.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
MR. DUBAY: The other questions only
become relevant depending on how the first question is asked -- or answered. Do
you know, Jim, who created the image of Restin Dane, also shown as "The
Rook" on the cover of Eerie 82?
A: Who did the actual drawing.
Q: Who did the drawing, correct.
A: That was definitely Bill Dubay.
Q: You testified earlier that you came
up with the costume or designed the costume?
A: That's correct.
Q: Did you also design the shirt in
that image?
A: In this image, the torn shirt,
no. I created a white shirt that Bill Dubay tore to make it look more dramatic.
Q: You testified earlier that Restin
Dane, aka "The Rook," appears often with a torn shirt?
A: On the covers of various Rook
magazines, yes.
Q: And you had nothing to do with creating
that torn shirt; correct?
A No, that was all Bill Dubay.
Q: Is it better stated, then, that you
participated in the designing of the costume for Restin Dane?
A: I -- I pretty much -- I created
the costume for Restin Dane. Bill Dubay only tore his shirt on that cover.
That's all he did.
Let me revise that. I never drew
his pants. In any drawing that I ever remember, including the original one that
I don't even think exists anymore, it was a full length body of "The Rook,"
but I don't think I ever bothered to get down to what his boots looked like and
the -- so if you're looking to give Bill some credit here, I would give the
pants -- the bell-bottom pants that he looks -- which is bizarre that was -- I
believe that was Bill Dubay's doing.
Q: Okay. So let's make sure we're accurate
on this. You did not design the shoes?
A: Boots, I believe.
Q: The boots?
A: Yes.
Q: And you did not design the pants
or boots?
A: Yes.
Q: And you only partially designed
or influenced the design on the shirt.
MR. COX: Objection; ambiguous.
BY MR. DUBAY: Is that correct?
A: No, this is wrong, Ben.
Q: Okay.
A: The shirt is torn only I believe
during the act of some adventure. He does not wear a torn shirt all the time.
Q: Okay. So looking at the cover of Eerie 82 you
credit yourself with designing the vest, designing a white shirt and designing
a hat; is that correct?
A And the belt and the -- I don't
recall if I gave him gloves or not.
Q: Okay.
A: Yes.
Q: So is it better stated then that
you participated in the designing of The Rook's costume?
A: Okay. If that is what you need,
yes.
Q: If we could look at Exhibit No. 2
titled "Warren Presents," number two, "The Rook"?
MR. COX: I'll hand the exhibit --
BY MR. DUBAY: Mr. Stenstrum, are you
familiar with this document?
A: I seem to remember -- I don't
know where it's from. I think I read it. Is this the one where he says that I
had more to do with the design of "The Rook" than anybody else? Yeah,
here it is. And so "The Rook" was born but not without -- Jim
Stenstrum assisted with the burgeoning first story line, true.
After dozens of rough sketches were
prepared -- well, they weren't our sketches. They were The Toy Guy's -- and
round filed a tentative costume was settled upon, more the brain child of
Stenstrum than anybody else, yes, that is correct.
Q: So are you familiar with the reporting
-- the report "The Making of a Comic Book Hero"?
A The entire article, I read it
years ago. I do not know what all is in here.
Q: Would you like to take some time
to take a look at it?
A: Is that necessary?
Q: That's up to you, Mr. Stenstrum.
MR. COX: Well, no, if you have a particular
question, it would speed things up to tell him what the focus is of the next question.
MR. DUBAY: No problem. Do you know who
wrote it, the report?
A: I'm presuming it was Bill Dubay,
but I don't know if it's signed.
Q: What was The Cartoon Factory that's
mentioned in this report?
A: That was a studio that was put
together by Bill Dubay and Budd Lewis. Largely this was Bill Dubay's doing and
I think he brought in Budd Lewis and then later on I came aboard.
It was really already established
or close to being established. The furniture was just coming in and so on. And
I was immediately made a third partner in it.
Q: Do you know when that was?
A: Yes, July of 1976.
Q: Now, was Bill the founder of The
Cartoon Factory?
A: I cannot tell you that. The
Cartoon Factory was already kind of a going concern by the time I got there. My
impression would be that Bill was largely responsible for its creation, yes.
Q: Did Jim Warren own The Cartoon Factory
or participate in ownership in any way, to your knowledge?
A: No, I don't believe he had a
thing to do with The Cartoon Factory.
Q: Where was The Cartoon Factory located?
A It was in Ridgefield, Connecticut
in the basement of -- I think it was like a strip mall or something. It was
like three rooms we had and – I don't know -- upstairs, I remember there were other
-- I think there's like a gift shop upstairs and it was -- it was a nice little
pad.
Q: So it was -- it was in a commercial
facility.
A: Yes.
Q: Correct?
A: That's correct.
Q: Was anything else produced out
of The Cartoon Factory for clients other than Warren Publishing Company?
A: Yes, there were a couple of very
small projects. There was a -- some fellow from Dupont came by and wanted a --
I don't know -- sort of a -- he wanted a character to sort of promote safety at
the Dupont plant. And Bill and I -- not Bill and I -- it was really Budd and I
really sort of put that together and -- I don't know -- I think we got 40 bucks
for it. Something like that. I don't know if they ever used it.
And also at one point Bill had
brought in a lot of fashions, dresses. Somebody somewhere had wanted us to do
-- back then it was not uncommon in newspapers and such to have illustrations
of fashions and then publish that and the -- Dubay -- Bill had said that he --
I don't know -- he had a car full of clothes or something, but because we
couldn't do it quickly he had lost that particular account.
Other than that there was nothing
else that was produced by The Cartoon Factory while I was there, and I think
Budd was also not involved in it about the same time as me. It sort of kind of
collapsed because of rivalries, a lot of arguing and so on. It just kind of all
fall apart within a few months of my arrival.
Q: Do you know when The Cartoon Factory
went under, so to speak?
A: I didn't know that it did. Oh,
you mean that version of it, I don't know that it actually ever went under. I
think Bill just sort of kept it and both of us just sort of went our own way,
but I think Bill continued to keep The Cartoon Factory going as an art studio
with his own stuff.
Q: Was The Cartoon Factory around, then,
in, let's say, 1981?
A: Yeah, he considered that
guesthouse of his to be the headquarters of The Cartoon Factory out in the back
in Danbury.
Q: Were you a partner at that time?
A No, I had nothing to do with it.
MR. DUBAY: If we can show Mr.
Stenstrum Exhibit C, The Cartoon Factory promotional piece.
THE WITNESS: Is that this here?
MR. COX: Yes.
THE WITNESS: Is that a mock-up of
the Eerie cover introducing a bold new concept? There it says, "The
Cartoon Factory." Yeah, that's -- I would say that was doubtlessly Bill's
work.
BY MR. DUBAY: Do you recognize this
piece?
A: I don't know that I ever saw it
to tell you the truth but I can tell that it's Dubay's artwork. He had a very
definite way of drawing gritted teeth.
Q: Does this look like something that
was produced at The Cartoon Factory?
A This -- again, I don't know
anything about The Cartoon Factory after I left. I don't know what Bill used it
for.
I can tell you only that this looks
definitely like it was done entirely by Bill Dubay.
Q: Okay. Did Bill ever discuss with
you why he chose to make The Rook a cowboy?
A: We already knew. It was a
requirement of anything that we were to work on. That was the stipulation. It
had to be a cowboy. The Toy Guy was positive that Westerns were going to make a
comeback.
Q: Did Bill ever discuss with you that
Jim Warren or Howard Peretz wanted to reuse the cowboy toy mold from Mattel?
A: The cowboy what?
MR. COX: Toy molds from Mattel.
THE WITNESS: You know, I don't
think that I was -- I don't think that I knew that, no. It makes sense, but I
don't know the particulars of The Toy Guy and then what his association was
with the project. I never met him.
BY MR. DUBAY: Now, you mentioned the
name – you mentioned the name Howard Peretz. Have you ever heard the name
Elliot Rudell.
A: Elliot Rudell?
MR. COX: That's correct. That's
what he said.
THE WITNESS: I do not know that
name.
MR. DUBAY: Okay. If we can see or
show Mr. Stenstrum Exhibit D, "The Rook" number one, cover and title
page. Mr. Stenstrum, do you recognize Exhibit D?
A: Well, I remember the comic book
when it was published, yes.
Q: Does this appear to be the comic that you
recall?
A: Sure. It's a lovely Rich Corben
cover.
Q: If I could direct your attention
to the title page. Do you see under "Art Production" or above, excuse
me, "Art Production" that The Cartoon Factory is listed.
A: Uh-huh.
MR. COX: You need to say
"yes" or "no" for the record.
THE WITNESS: My apologies. Yes, I
see -- did you ask about The Cartoon Factory art production?
MR. DUBAY: Correct.
THE WITNESS: Yes, I believe that
Bill used that -- that name occasionally or maybe all the time after a certain
date, I don't know.
But he would do the art production
out in his guesthouse at The Cartoon Factory, so I think he just rather than
putting his name down as also the art production, I think he just put down The
Cartoon Factory. Perhaps he thought it was good publicity. I don't know.
BY MR. DUBAY: If you look down that
same column, do you know why there is a dedication with undying gratitude to
Budd Lewis, Howard Peretz and Jim Stenstrum?
A I can only believe it has to do
with us being involved in the creation of "The Rook."
Q: So, to the best of your recollection,
all three parties were involved in the creation of "The Rook"?
A: I know about me. I know about
Budd. I do not know about Howard Peretz.
Q: Thank you.
MR. DUBAY: If we can please show Mr.
Stenstrum the Gmail which is Exhibit E, Gmail Press Comments.
THE WITNESS: All right.
BY MR. DUBAY: If I can draw your attention
to page one to the response dated July sixth, 2014.
A: July sixth. Okay.
MR. COX: At what time? At what
time? There are three messages that date.
MR. DUBAY: Give me one moment, I'll
give you the time. The time I'm referring to is 3:47 --
A: Okay.
Q: -- p.m. Does crediting you as
being instrumental in the development of the first story ever overstate your
contribution?
A: Probably, yes.
Q: Does crediting you as the designer
of "The Rook overstate your contribution?
A: No.
MR. DUBAY: If you can show Jim
Stenstrum the exhibit marked F, Howard Peretz to James Warren, a letter dated
October 12th, 1976.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
BY MR. DUBAY: Do you recognize this
letter?
A· No, never seen it.
Q· To your knowledge, was "The
Rook" being developed for toys by Package Play Development?
A· Okay. You are going to have to
back up. Package Play Development, I do not know who that is.
Q· Package Play Development is a --
the president of the company was Howard Peretz.
A· Okay. And, I'm sorry, what was
your question?
Q· I'll rephrase the question. Do
you know, to your knowledge anyway, was "The Rook" being developed
for toys by Howard Peretz?
A· I believe that was the
intention, yes.
Q· Is that why you called him The Toy
Guy?
A· Yes.
Q· The Toy Guy?
A· That's how we referred to him. Even
Bill referred to him as The Toy Guy.
Q· Do you recognize the handwriting
on this document? And it begins on page, specifically what I'm referring to, is
page six through page seven.
A· That looks like Bill Dubay's
writing, that is -- that seems to be his style of writing, yes, although I've
never seen this before but that is his style.
Q· Okay. If we could go back to page
two for a moment?
A· Okay.
Q· Page
two under item B?
A· Item
B, okay.
Q· Is
this -- does this section item B or under item B discuss there being a possible
problem with registering entertainment services regarding the mark "The
Rookies"?
A· Are you asking do I know of any
sort of conflict at the time?
Q· I'm asking, one, if it states that,
but then I would follow-up and ask you if you know of any conflict?
A: You know, I vaguely remember
Bill talking about "The Rookies," but I don't think it was anything
that anybody worried about. I mean, they're two entirely different things.
Q: Does that discussion concerning "The
Rookies" that you had with Bill Dubay confirm that there could be a
problem with these registration of the entertainment services regarding a mark
of "The Rookies"?
A: It's possible. I have to tell
you I don't know.
Q: Were any of the details described
in this document -- and feel free to take however much time you will need to
review it.
Were any of the details described
in this document ever discussed to you as an original partner in "The
Rook"?
A I'm sorry, I -- would you please
repeat that? I didn't quite get that.
Q: Of course. Absolutely. Were any
of the details that are described in this document ever discussed with you --
A: Oh, okay.
Q: -- aside from the complexities concerning
"The Rookies"?
A: I would have to read the
document. Do you want me to read the document? I've never seen this before.
Q: Take your time?
A: Okay. I'm laughing that every
cowboy has a horse. I don't -- I'm sure we resisted anything like that. I'm up
to Bill's notes here. Let's see. Okay. I've read it.
Bill's notes, it's hard for me to
know what he's talking about without specific references. These are notes to
himself about the notes that the -- about the various things that The Toy Guy
-- The Toy Guy always wants some ridiculous things.
I am kind of surprised that they
are very specific about the firearms that they wanted. They wanted a Jurras
auto magnum pistol, .44 caliber, with magazine auto load.
I never heard any of this stuff. I
didn't know that all of this was going on with Bill and The Toy Guy.
Q: So other than "The Rookies"
comment that I pointed you to on page two --
A: Yes.
Q: -- under "Registration Problems"
--
A: Yes.
Q: -- Bill did not discuss anything
else?
A: I don't think so, no.
Q: Okay.
MR. DUBAY: If the we could hand Mr.
Stenstrum the -- Exhibit G, Howard Peretz and James Warren letter dated July
30th, 1976. Mr. Stenstrum, have you ever seen this letter?
A No,
I have not.
Q· Did
Bill ever discuss with you Howard Peretz' ideas of a bulletproof mesh shirt or
any of the ideas mentioned?
A· Is that what that shirt was? I
saw a drawing of it. I didn't realize it was bulletproof. It just looked
bizarre.
Q· Not to be argumentative, Mr. Warren
[sic], but was that, yes, that did he discuss with you the mesh shirt?
A: He showed me a drawing of it. He
did not -- I do not believe he told me what it was about. We all laughed at it.
Q: Did you have a conversation about
the drawing.
A: Yeah, we all said it was stupid.
Q: Are there any other items discussed
and mentioned in this letter that you recall discussing with Bill at the time?
A: Of this letter, I have not read
it yet. I'll read it.
Q: Thank you.
A: Oh, wow, this is nothing like
what Rook ended up being. This is -- this is wild. He was bald originally?
It seems to me I do remember a
drawing of him being bald.
The special glasses, blinded as a
child?
Jeez, I don't remember that at all.
This is all toy guy type stuff.
Anything that will be turned into toys, they really don't care how it affects
the story. They just want to make toys.
Q: Other than -- other than "The
Rook" being bald and other than the mesh shirt, do you recall any other
details that you may have discussed with Bill --
A: No.
Q: -- that's contained in this
letter?
A No, I never saw the letter. I
never discussed any -- no, I don't remember any of this stuff.
Q: Other than the bald guy and the
mesh shirt; correct?
A: Yeah, yeah, I guess he was bald.
It was just strange. He looked like a wrestler.
Q: But you did discuss that with
Bill, a bald guy?
A: Briefly, we all laughed when we
saw the picture and said, well, we ain't going this way.
Q: Very good. On page two if I
could bring your attention to that, Item No. 4, does it refer to the next step as
to register name?
A: Okay.
Q: Does it describe the next step being
to register the name?
A: It does, yes.
Q: That's all I have for this exhibit.
Thank you, Mr. Stenstrum.
MR. DUBAY: Mr. Cox, if you could
hand Mr. Stenstrum Exhibit H, "Comic Book Babylon," pages 210 through
211.
THE WITNESS: I have it.
BY MR. DUBAY: Have you read "Comic
Book Babylon" before?
A: No, I haven't. Is that where
this is from?
Q: That's where this is from.
A: Okay.
Q: I would like to point your attention
to page two --
A: Okay.
Q: -- beginning approximately line five.
A: Line -- line five?
Q: Line five.
A: Line five -- one, two, three –
or paragraph five?
Q: Line five.
A: Where it says,
"Details."
Q: Yeah, right after the word, "Details,"
period, it begins with quotations of Harlan Ellison.
A: Sure.
Q: And really the question is this --
if you need to review this document, feel free -- but were you aware that
Harlan Ellison and Jim Warren had prior dealings?
A Oh, yes, absolutely.
Q: Do you know what those were?
A I know about what everybody else
knows is that what you read here. Harlan, himself, when I spoke to him, he told
me that Jim Warren had introduced him to his wife and I don't know how that all
-- all wound up. I know that they were at war with each other, I don't know
why.
Q: But you were aware that they were
at odds or at war, as you put it?
A: Yes.
MR. COX: Objection; vague as to
time.
MR. DUBAY: Okay. Was Harlan Ellison
upset at James Warren for not selling him Neal Adams artwork for "Rock God"?
And if you'd like to review Mr. Ellison's statements in this.
A I can't comment on that because I
never heard of it.
Do you still want me to read this?
Q: Does this describe that event? Yes,
I would.
A: Okay. Okay. I've read that
paragraph.
Do you want me to go to the end?
Q: The question is: Was Harlan Ellison
upset at James Warren for not selling him Neal Adams artwork for "Rock
God"?
MR. COX: Objection; no proper
foundation.
THE WITNESS: I have never heard of
this, Ben. However, I do notice at the end of that paragraph that Ellison is
wrong. He -- I don't know where he cobbled something together in his own head. What
I didn't know was that he had already commissioned Alex Nino on the sly and
hired Gerry Boudreaux to adapt the story. That's wrong. That's out of order.
Gerry Boudreaux was approached and
so was I by Bill at the beginning of "1984 Magazine" before it was
created and he said, "Listen, I want -- I want some adaptations by some big
names like" -- and then he shows -- Boudreaux said that he knew Harlan Ellison
and that he wanted to do "A Boy and His Dog," and I guess he
guaranteed that he would be able to get the rights of that story from Harlan
and based on that Bill said go ahead.
And for me, I had chosen a story by
Kurt Vonnegut and I had told Bill at the time that, "Listen, if you can't
get the rights to the story, you still got to pay me." And he said,
"Sure, sure, sure." And I wrote the story -- the Kurt Vonnegut story
and he called, I believe, Kurt Vonnegut personally and Vonnegut told him that,
"Listen, you know, it's not worth it to me. It will cost me more in lawyer
fees than I would get in payment from you," and so he turned him down.
And so my story -- the Kurt
Vonnegut story, that was thrown into the slush pile and I had – I guess when
Gerry Boudreaux told Harlan about "A Boy and His Dog," that he was
going to adapt it, I guess -- I guess that Harlan hit the roof and he called --
he put in a couple of emergency calls to Bill at his home in Connecticut and
just screamed and hollered and told him that you do not have permission to do
this and -- but ultimately, Bill went ahead and did it anyway.
He did not plan -- in his defense,
he did not plan for this to turn out to a plagiarism thing.
What often happened was when we'd
run out of the scripts, we would use things from the slush pile which was
things -- which were stories and artwork that we thought we would probably
never use but kept it because they were paid for and we would use them in a
pinch.
Now, the thing was is that Alex
Nino was his absolute best artist. He was faster than anything. He could knock out
a story in a few days, so he was a show eater -- he would -- a story eater and
he was absolutely the best guy that Bill had and he was -- he knew that if he
couldn't keep feeding the beast, if he couldn't keep finding scripts for him
that Nino would go someplace else to DC or to Marvel. And so it was really a
desperation play on Bill's part because he wanted to -- he was desperate to
keep Alex Nino on board, so he grabbed "The Boy and His Dog" script
and he quickly made those changes that I spoke of earlier, changing a boy to a
girl and the dog to a monster.
And then he thought he would revise
all of that and it would be unrecognizable by the time we were through. It was
never intended to be plagiarism not by Bill and certainly not by me.
But after he got the artwork back
he realized that, oh, crap, now I've got 12 pages of expensive Nino artwork,
now I've got to use it. I don't know why he didn't choose to rewrite it himself.
Perhaps he thought I could do a better job of hiding it. I don't know. I always
regret saying yes to him, though.
And anyway --
MR. DUBAY: Can I -- I don't mean to
cut you off, but it's unresponsive. I was asking a different question and you
gave a different answer. I'm just going to move to strike that answer and it's not
to be disrespectful. I appreciate you taking --
THE WITNESS: I'm not quite finish,
though, Ben.
MR. DUBAY: Okay. I apologize.
THE WITNESS: The other thing that
Harlan says here is he did this without permission and when he was turned down
by me, Harlan, he had Alex change it at his own expense. That's not true. Alex
did not change any of the art. And I'm done. Thank you.
MR. DUBAY: Okay.
BY MR. DUBAY: The question was -- I'll
just rephrase the question.
A: All right.
Q: Are you aware that Mr. Ellison and
Mr. Warren had a beef?
A Had a beef?
Q: Let's say, that they had a history
of problems. You testified earlier that they were at war?
A Yes, yes.
Q: Were you aware that they had a history
of problems?
A: Bill Dubay had told me about it,
yes.
Q: Okay. Thank you.
MR. DUBAY: If you can hand Mr.
Stenstrum Exhibit I.
MR. COX: Oh, Exhibit I was
previously -- oh, yes, I see it. Yes. It was previously testified to.
MR. DUBAY: It was.
MR. COX: Yes, I used that as an
exhibit for "1984 Magazine" instead of the whole Magilla article. But
anyway, Exhibit I is already here but please just -- the witness identified
each page of Exhibit I just so you recall that.
MR. DUBAY: Excellent. Now, was "Mondo
Magilla" printed in "1984 Magazine," volume four with a cover
date of October 1978?
A: That's correct.
Q: What duties did you perform on "Mondo
Magilla"?
A I took the original artwork that
had been sent to me and I threw out the script. I knew the script was useless
to me and I just tried to reconstruct as different a story as I could put together
and that required juggling panels around and doing everything I could to throw
everybody off the scent that it was originally "A Boy and His Dog."
Q: Who is credited as writer on "Mondo
Magilla"?
A Alabaster Redzone.
Q: Is Alabaster Redzone your pen name?
A: It is.
Q: Were you paid as a writer for the
story "Mondo Magilla"?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you recall what your page rate
was?
A At that time probably about, I
would guess, around $30 a page. I don't recall exactly. I know it topped out at
$40 a page when I left.
Q: Was that your typical freelance page
rate?
A: Yes.
Q: Were you credited as writer for Rex
Havoc?
A: Yes.
Q: Were you paid as a writer for Rex
Havoc?
A: The story was brought from me. Yes,
I was paid as a writer.
Q: Would you consider Rex Havoc your
magnum opus?
A: No.
Q: How many books have you written for
Rex Havoc in the past five years?
A: Novels you mean? Is that what
you are talking about?
Q: Yes.
A Two.
Q: Who was your publisher?
A Myself.
Q: So incurred the costs of publishing
and distribution?
A: Well, it's through Amazon so it
is print on demand and the ultimate person that ends up spending money on its
production is the person that buys it. They are literally printed one book at a
time as the money comes in.
Q: Now, you testified earlier when you
were paid as a freelance writer, you were not an employee; is that correct?
A: I don't see how I could have
been.
Q: So is that correct?
A: That is correct, yes, I was not
an employee.
Q: Thank you.
Were you credited as assistant
editor in "1984," volume four.
A: Oh, it's possible. I think it
was a bone that Bill Dubay threw at me. The only thing that I really did -- and
it was for no money at all -- I would give him suggestions. What -- title
suggestions. I would often give him like maybe an idea for a character or, you
know, the name of the letters page, incoming telemetry, that was something I
gave him. It didn't amount to much and I wasn't paid for it.
Q: You testified earlier that when you
were an assistant editor, you were an employee of Warren Publishing Company; is
that correct?
A: You are mixing it up. I was
assistant editor in the -- 1973 where I was literally -- I was on staff. But
the assistant editor that you are talking about later on for "1994"
was just something that Dubay threw on there. I was not given any money at all.
I was not an employee.
Q: You testified earlier that when you
were an assistant editor you received a weekly salary; is that correct?
A: In 1973, yes.
Q: Did you also receive a salary when
you were an editor in 1981, just to clarify?
A: Yes.
Q: Now, what responsibilities did you
have as assistant editor of volume number four, "1984"?
A: Nothing. Again, this was just
something Dubay put onto the masthead for my help. It was just sort of a thank
you. It meant nothing. I was paid no money for it.
Q: What were some editorial responsibilities
that another editor may have had on this issue of "1984"?
A: That another editor -- the
editor was Bill Dubay. I believe he was the editor for most of the
"1984" magazines.
Q: Do you know what his responsibility
was as editor?
A: Well, sure, yes, he would start
by getting -- he would solicit stories or stories would come in freelance and
he would put together scripts and then he would put together what he thought
was a -- whatever scripts he thought were good enough to be illustrated, they
would be sent out to artists. Usually he would use his own guys. It was rare
that he would use somebody that he wasn't already familiar with.
And then the artwork would be
created and then it would be brought back to Warren and the -- the production
department in the back there, they would -- they would take the script and turn
– apply word balloons and captions onto the comic pages. And then Dubay would
decide which stories were good enough to go, he would decide what order and
then there was -- and then he would choose a cover for it and he would put
writing on the cover, blurbs, whatever he thought would look good for the
magazine.
He was very good as far as
particular covers. They were excellent. And he then would put the whole book
together, what he would call putting it to bed, send it off to the printer,
which was, I believe, Sparta, Illinois. It would be mailed off there. And then,
oh, I think a couple weeks later we would get back what was called brown lines,
which was a mock-up of the book that Bill had sent.
And then Bill would get on the
phone with the fellow at Sparta and he would go over the entire book page by
page and say there's a spec here, a letter has fallen off here, the artwork is
not exactly straight here and essentially nitpick the entire issue and that was
required for every single issue, but it was -- it was called brown lines because
it came back -- it wasn't in black ink. It was in actually brown ink.
And then he would do -- he would
send out -- eventually they would come to terms with the changes and they would
take care of it and then they would send -- I believe a cover would come back first,
that was a four-color thing and then – I think then we'd get the whole book
back. I don't know if we got -- yeah, I think we got the whole book back and by
and large they did a fantastic job.
Q: As editor, would Bill rewrite stories?
A: All the time.
Q: Would he make editorial revisions
to the panel or art?
A: Sure.
Q: Would he rearrange things to make
it express how he wanted it expressed?
A· Yes.
Q· Would he rearrange the art and panels?
A· Yes.
Q· As editor?
A· Yes.
Q· Thank you, Mr. Stenstrum. If you
can hand Mr. Stenstrum the public catalog. It's Exhibit J, Public Catalog from
"1984," No. 4.
MR. COX: Exhibit J. Oh, the public
catalog.
THE WITNESS: Is this it?
MR. COX: Yeah, I think that's it.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
MR. COX: He has Exhibit J in front
of him.
MR. DUBAY: Thank you. Mr. Stenstrum,
if you can take just a moment to review it?
A: Uh-huh. Yes.
Q: Is the previous registration in 1978
TX94, dash, 430?
A: The previous what? I'm sorry, I
don't understand your question.
Q: The previous registration?
A The previous -- oh, I see it,
yeah, down here. Okay. 1978 TX94-430. Okay. Yes.
Q: Is the registration TX94-430 for
the entire content of the "1984," No. 4 October 1978 magazine?
MR. COX: Objection; foundation.
THE WITNESS: I believe that is so.
I do not know.
BY MR. DUBAY: Do you recall what the
copyright notice is for the "1984 Magazine"? You can refer back to Exhibit
I, if you'd like.
A It's a little fuzzy.
"1984" is published six times a year by Warren Publishing Company editorial
subscription -- I'm sorry, what am I supposed to read here?
Q: Well, does it state that the entire
contents are copyrighted by the -- 1978 by Warren Publishing Company?
A Entire contents, yes, it says there. Entire
contents copyrighted 1978 by Warren Publishing, yes.
Q: Is that copyright notice correct?
MR. COX: Objection; calls for a
legal conclusion.
BY MR. DUBAY: In your opinion and the
opinion that was expressed to you by your attorney, is that copyright notice; correct?
A: No, it isn't. You can look at
any "Playboy Magazine" and it will say the same thing, but the
individual stories in there are each copyrighted by the particular artist or
author.
Q: Is your copyright notice omitted
in this magazine?
A Yes, it is and that is a sore
point with Bill Dubay because he promised me that he would give me credit, that
he would give me copyright on this -- he promised me before I even started this
and then when it was published and I found out that it wasn't there, I was
absolutely furious. But he said, "Sorry, I can't do anything. I can't
bring that to Jim Warren."
Q: You were furious when you found out?
A Yes.
Q: Now, you testified earlier that you
did not have any written agreement with Jim Warren.
Did you have any written agreement
with Bill Dubay pertaining to that copyright notice?
A: No, I took his word over the
phone.
MR. DUBAY: If you could hand the
witness Exhibit K entitled "Circular 3."
THE WITNESS: Gentlemen, I'm
confused why does my character Rex Havoc have anything to go do with The Rook?
MR. COX: I think it's some sort of
a -- no, I don't -- I don't understand.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
MR. COX: But I can't stop -- I
can't stop him from asking about a car accident you were in.
MR. DUBAY: I can answer any question
you like. It is to determine the credibility of the witness' testimony and we
do you understand that.
THE WITNESS: Oh, okay. So this is
all to diminish me. Okay.
MR. DUBAY: There is only two ways
that I can -- I can only ask two types of questions. One is to bring about
additional facts and the other to determine the credibility of the witness'
testimony.
THE WITNESS: Okay. Proceed,
governor.
MR DUBAY: Do you now have in your
hands Circular 3?
A: Oh, yes, I do.
MR. COX: That would be Exhibit K?
THE WITNESS: Oh, okay.
MR. DUBAY: Circular 3.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
BY MR. DUBAY: You testified earlier
that you do not have a written agreement with Jim Warren at any kind?
A That's correct.
Q: If you notice on page one, let's
call it the second column, maybe third paragraph down it indicates that
copyright notice was required for all works published before March first of
1981; is that correct?
A: That's what it says, yes.
Q: If notice was omitted or a mistake
was made in using copyright notice, did the work generally lose copyright
production?
MR. COX: Objection; calls for legal
conclusion.
BY MR. DUBAY: If you can read the next
few lines if the notice was omitted or a mistake was made in using copyright
notice, the work generally lost copyright protection in the United States.
Is that what Circular 3 in the
copyright notice says?
MR. COX: You are asking what the
document says? I mean the witness --
MR. DUBAY: No, I'm asking -- that's
what I'm asking.
MR. COX: Oh, okay. I'll stipulate
that the document says what it says. Why don't we go from there and find out
what the witness knows?
THE WITNESS: I am not a copyright attorney,
Ben.
MR. DUBAY: I understand.
BY MR. DUBAY: I'm simply trying -- this
circular was sent to you by me in an email and I'm only establishing the
foundation for that later email and those later questions.
But you have Circular 3 and you
have confirmed and defense counsel stipulated that that's what it says, that's
fine by me.
The only question I have related to
this particular exhibit has to do with "1984 Magazine" as well. Was
"1984 Magazine," Volume No. 4 published before 1989?
A: I'm sorry, was it published
before 1989?
Q: Was it published before 1989?
A: Number four, yes, 1979, was it
published? '78? I'm not sure.
Q: Thank you, Mr. Stenstrum.
MR. DUBAY: Can we hand Mr.
Stenstrum the exhibit marked L, Gmail Rook.
MR. COX: It's a 15-page exhibit.
THE WITNESS: Oh, this whole --
MR. COX: Yeah, it's a 15-page
exhibit.
THE WITNESS: All right.
MR. DUBAY: I understand.
BY MR. DUBAY: If I could draw your attention
to page three, Mr. Stenstrum?
A I think I have all 15 pages. To
number what?
MR. COX: Page three of 15.
BY MR. DUBAY: Page three of 15?
A: Okay.
Q: The email that I'm referring to specifically
is an email dated Monday, May the 12th, 2014 --
A: Yes, I see it.
Q: -- at 4:36 p.m. Do you recall
this email?
A: I will when I read it.
Q: Thank you.
A: Okay. I've read it.
Q: Mr. Stenstrum, do you remember
the day when Bill was trying to get the green light from Warren on "The
Rook"?
A I remember only that I was in
Warren offices and I did not see Jim Warren. I was in Louise Jones' office and
I think I was giving her a script to one of the hard John Apple stories and
then Bill had gone off into Jim Warren's office and talked to him and after a
few minutes had come back and he says, "I need a drawing of Rook real
quick." And I had no idea what to do so I just took the tablet paper that
he gave me and I just knocked out what I thought would be an interesting
cowboy.
Q: Okay. Was that interesting cowboy
exhibited on page two of this document?
A: That is not the drawing, no. The
drawing that I did is not here. I don't even know that it exists anymore.
Q: Thank you. Back to page three
and back to that email, in the your opinion were the costume designs by The Toy
Guy horrible.
A: Yes.
Q: And did "The Rook" wear
a fishnet shirt in one of them?
A I believe so, yes. Yes, I do
remember a fishnet shirt.
Q: Did any of the toy costume designs
look cowboy enough for Warren?
A: No, I don't think I saw anything
that looked even vaguely cowboy like. That was – I thought that was very odd.
The drawings that the toy people were coming up looked nothing like a cowboy.
Q: Was that a problem for Warren, if
you recall?
A I don't know if it was a problem
for Warren. It was not what we were told to do.
Q: Okay.
A: We were told to maybe a cowboy.
Q: Did Jim Warren give you and Bill
the green light based upon a rendering of that cowboy that you knocked out in
ten minutes?
A: Yes, he said we're good to go.
Q: Now, back to a statement you made
earlier that you gave your rights back to "The Rook," was that in
1976 or 1977, do you recall?
A I would guess it was the later
part of 1976.
Q: Do you recall if it was prior to
"The Rook" being published?
A: Do I -- I missed that, I'm
sorry.
Q: Did you give your rights back to
"The Rook" before "The Rook" was ever published --
A Yes.
Q: -- in Eerie 82?
A Yes, I did.
Q: Do you presently have any claim to
the character?
A: No.
Q: Did you bow out of "The Rook"
due to Bill and Budd constantly arguing?
A: There were two reasons. It was
Bill and Budd were constantly at each other throats, their wives were
constantly at each other throats and I found myself in between; and secondly, I
found "The Rook" to be lame, it was a bad story and I was not interested.
Q: If I could direct your attention
to page 11?
A: Page 11. What is at the top,
Ben?
MR. COX: It has a page number in
the lower right-hand corner.
THE WITNESS: Oh, it does. Seven of
-- oh, I got you. I'm sorry. Okay. Page 11. I'm sorry, go ahead. Uh-huh.
BY MR. DUBAY: And the email is dated
Tuesday, December 19th, 2017?
A Uh-huh.
Q: If I can draw your attention to that?
A: Right.
Q: Did I send to you Circular 3 as previously
exhibited as evidence of my findings pertaining to Rex Havoc as having fallen
into the public domain?
A: I believe you did, yes.
Q: Did I express my opinion that your
notice was omitted resulting in the public domain status of Rex Havoc?
A: I don't recall. You probably
did.
Q: Did I claim to you that I could write
a book about Rex Havoc because the work had fallen into the public domain?
A: Yes, you did.
Q: Did you take that as threatening?
A Threatening, no, I -- I took it
as a hallow threat, yes. I kind of found it funny actually.
Q: Did you take it as threatening?
A: Threatening, no. I found it -- I
thought you were confused. No, nothing you've ever sent me I find really
threatening.
Q: Can you refer to page 12 at the very
top?
A: Twelve. Okay. "So ease up
on the threats and intimidation, tiger. I'm on your side." Okay. You got
me on -- you got me on semantics.
Q: It's not semantics. I'm just
asking if you felt that it was threatening, that's all?
A: And I say that I'm not
threatened by you.
Q: Okay. Did it upset you?
A: Well, yeah, because it seemed
like a cheap shot.
Q: How badly did it upset you?
A I cried for hours. No, no, I'm
sorry. I'm being silly. It bothered me because it just seemed you were doing
everything you could to attack me.
Q: Okay. Is that why you expressed your
opinion about the case?
A: Oh, in our emails?
Q: In our emails.
A: Yes, I wanted to shake you
loose. I was trying everything I could think of to -- you were asking for me to
sign something and I had no intention of signing anything that I didn't know
what it was.
And finally, it got to the point
that the only way I could get rid of you and get you out of my hair was to tell
you the truth that I thought that your -- your lawsuit is completely absurd.
Q: Okay. Do you feel that you are qualified
to render an opinion in this case?
A To the extent that I'm a partial
creator of "The Rook," yes.
Q: Okay. What are those qualifications
that you have?
A Can you be more specific?
Q: Sure. What are those qualifications
-- what qualifies you to be able to render an opinion about a work that you
testified earlier that you did not read?
A: No, I did read the -- at least
the first couple of issues of Rook and I -- with discussions with Bill and
Budd, I knew the direction they were going and I just thought it was a very
bad, very lazy direction that they were going.
Q: So based upon your reading 40-plus
years ago of a few stories, you determined that qualified you to be able to
render an opinion about how similar "The Rook" was to Roland
Deschain, that qualifies you?
A: It is my opinion only. I've got
opinions about everything. I've got opinions about the color orange. I don't
like pumpkins. They scare me.
Q: My prior question, Mr. Stenstrum,
was do you feel qualified to render an opinion in this case?
A: To the extent that I was
involved in the creation, yes. As a creator, I have certain opinions about the
series and how it went. I do feel qualified, yes.
Q: But you admit that you did not read
but the first couple of stories and not the other 30-plus stories of "The
Rook"?
A Oh, God, no. No, they were -- it
was all I could do to get through the first couple of stories.
Q: And you still feel qualified to have
rendered that opinion?
A: Based on what I was reading,
yes.
Q: Okay. Have you actually read "The
Dark Tower" series?
A Absolutely.
Q: Did you read the 1982 printing of
"The Gunslinger"?
A: Is that the revised gunslinger?
Q: The 1982 printing was not the revised
version, no.
A: Okay. Then, yes, I read
"The Gunslinger" and then I believe a friend of mine gave me the revised
version of "The Gunslinger," which had a lot of changes.
Q: So you've read them both?
A: I believe I did.
Q: Okay. Can you tell me who David
is?
A: Who David is?
Q: Who is David?
A: Again, I am no expert.
Q: I get it, but I'm just asking a
couple of details.
A: Before you get into a lot of
minutia, I am not an expert on "The Rook." I am not an expert on "The
Dark Tower." I am not a legal expert. I've been brought here simply to
answer questions about what I know about the creation of "The Rook"
and it's various influences. I am no expert and I freely admit it, if that will
save some time.
Q: Well, Mr. Stenstrum, what you indicated
was that you were qualified to make and render your opinion because you were a
creator of "The Rook" and that you have read "The Dark
Tower" series.
It's very important that we can
confirm that you actually read "The Dark Tower" series.
A I have read --
Q: Whether you feel it is minor or it
may be minutia, defense counsel has already asked you the question in a
different form and you were unable to answer it and it's a very important
question.
So if you could do your best to
recall, I'd appreciate it.
A I cannot recall -- I recall bits and
pieces out of the series. But the whole thing is 4250 pages long. I do not
recall every little miniscule part of it or every character. I am not an expert
and I told you that.
Q: Do you recall -- I understand. But
whether you've read "The Gunslinger" at all is the question that I
have for you and you answered that you did read "The Gunslinger"?
A: Yes, I have read all the books
of --
Q: And the revised version?
A Okay. Back up. What is your
question?
Q: The question is if you know who David
is? And there's a very clear reason why I ask --
MR. COX: He's already answered the question,
Ben.
MR. DUBAY: Okay. Well, he asked me
what was that question and I was repeating it.
THE WITNESS: I do not know who David is.
MR. DUBAY: Okay.
THE WITNESS: Do you want to know
who a Billy Bumbler is?
MR. DUBAY: I know who the Billy
Bumbler is.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
MR. DUBAY: And I think you have
that information, but --
THE WITNESS: Okay. Do you remember
every book that you've ever read?
THE COURT REPORTER: I need
everybody to stop talking at the same time. It's getting really difficult.
THE WITNESS: I'm sorry.
THE COURT REPORTER: Thank you.
THE WITNESS: This is annoying. I'm
sorry.
THE COURT REPORTER: Please
continue.
THE WITNESS: Go ahead, Ben. I'm
sorry.
BY MR. DUBAY: Mr. Stenstrum, do you
recall the first time Roland Deschain was named?
A: Was named?
Q: Was named.
A: N-a-m-e-d.
Q: Named, correct.
A: Do you mean in the book?
Q: In the book.
A: Was there some sort of a
ceremony in which he was named? I don't know what you are talking about.
Q: Okay. The question was do you recall.
If you do not, then the answer would be no. Do you recall when Roland Deschain
was named?
A: No, I do not. I am not be an
expert on "The Dark Tower."
Q: Have you read the afterward of a
1982 printing of "The Gunslinger"?
A: Very likely I listened to it. Did
Stephen King himself do it?
Q: It was written by Stephen King.
A: Did he audio -- I listened to
the audio books. Did he, himself -- did he, himself narrate it?
Q: I'm sorry, Mr. Stenstrum, you testified
that you read the 1982 printing of "The Gunslinger," but that you
listened to the audiotape of a 2003 revised edition.
Is that not correct now?
A No, no, you are confused. I only
listened to the audio versions which is the same as reading.
Q: Did you listen to the audio version
of the 1982 version of "The Gunslinger"?
A: If that is the first version of
"The Gunslinger," yes, I did.
Q: Do you recall the afterward?
A No, of course I don't.
Q: Okay. Do you recall the forward in
the 2003 edition?
A: No, I did not.
Q: Do you recall if -- does anything
stand out to you about any conflicts between those two that relates to creation
of "The Dark Tower"?
A: I am sorry, you're -- I'm
baffled by your line of questioning here. I do not understand your questions.
Q: I understand. Let me change it to
another topic.
Have you read C.S. Lewis' "The
Dark Tower" that was published in April of 1977.
A: No, never have.
Q: Have you read "The Stephen King
Illustrated Companion"?
A: Of -- of "The Dark
Tower"?
Q: It's a title called "The Stephen
King Illustrated Companion."
A I don't even know what it is.
Q: Okay. So have you read it?
A: Obviously if I don't know what
it is, I haven't read it.
Q: Thank you, Mr. Stenstrum. I'm not
trying to be argumentative. I just need a clear answer. Thank you. Have you
read "The Road to the Dark Tower"?
A: I doubt it.
Q: Have you read "Whispers,"
the Stephen King edition?
A: No.
Q: Did you read the selectively published
journal entries at end of "Song of Susannah"?
A: No. Or if it was an audio, I
probably listened to it.
Q: Do you recall anything --
A: No, of course not.
Q: -- about it?
A: No.
Q: Do you know what Roland Deschain
alias was in "Wizard and Glass"?
A: No.
Q: Would William Dearborn qualify as
a homage to William Dubay?
MR. COX: Objection; vague and
ambiguous. No proper foundation.
THE WITNESS: They got the first
same -- they got the same front name. There you go.
BY MR. DUBAY: William Dearborn and William
Dubay, do you find that there are certain similarities?
A No, I do not see that -- I do not
see that at all.
Q: How about Roland Deschain and Restin
Dane, do you find anything similar about their names?
A: They both got RDs.
Q: Do you know anything about Stephen
King's reuse of initials?
A Reuse of initials? No, I don't
know what you are talking about, Ben.
Q: You don't know that as being a trademark
device that Stephen King uses?
A: No, I sure don't.
Q: Have you read "Danse Macabre"?
A: "Danse Macabre"?
Q: Yes.
A: Is that one of the shorter Dark
Tower books?
Q: No, it was not. It was a -- it was
a book written by Stephen King about -- well, the horror genre in general.
A: Oh, no, I haven't read it.
Q: Have you read "The Horror Market
Writer and the Ten Bears"?
A No.
Q: Have you read "On Writing"?
A Yes.
Q: Are you familiar with the court's
view on how comic book characters are compared?
MR. COX: Objection; calls for a
legal conclusion but go ahead, please.
THE WITNESS: Am I -- what about comic
book characters?
BY MR. DUBAY: Are you familiar -- are
you familiar with the court's view on how comic book characters are compared?
MR. COX: Objection; no proper
foundation.
THE WITNESS: I don't know how to
answer that, Ben. I don't know what you are talking about.
BY MR. DUBAY: Are you aware that in
the detective comics or Brown Publications and since in DC Comics that comic
book characters are held as copyrightable?
MR. COX: Objection; calls for a
legal conclusion. Argumentative. Ben, this is not going anywhere.
MR. DUBAY: I am just simply asking.
You can note your objections if he's familiar with it. You asked for his
opinion several times. I wanted to -- he also -- the witness indicated he was
qualified to render the opinion, there is foundation. You can not your
objection.
THE WITNESS: I am qualified to the
extent that I am a partial creator of "The Rook." You can asking me
any questions about that creation process, but beyond that I admit ignorance.
BY MR. DUBAY: Have you ever testified
as an expert witness?
A No, never.
Q: Okay. Do you consider yourself an
expert on matters of copyright?
A: No.
Q: Have you ever performed a side-by-side
analysis of the characters Restin Dane and Roland Deschain?
MR. COX: Other than in this deposition?
MR. DUBAY: Has Jim Stenstrum ever performed
a side-by-side analysis of the characters Roland Deschain and Restin Dane
outside of this deposition?
THE WITNESS: I read your complaint
and that's as far as I got. I did not go back to the books. I have a life. I
have things to do and spending a lot of time comparing "The Rook" and
"The Dark Tower" is not high on my list of things to do.
MR. DUBAY: I understand. Did you perform
a side-by-side analysis of the characters outside of this deposition?
A: I believe I said no.
Q: Okay. The answer was not no, but
I appreciate it very much. Did you use a reliable process in forming your
previously offered opinion, is there any process that you would have used when
you compared the work?
MR. COX: Objection; vague and
ambiguous.
THE WITNESS: Could you speak up
too, Ben? I really didn't hear that.
MR. DUBAY: Of course. Of course. My
question was: Did you ever use a reliable process in forming your opinions
about the characters?
A: No, I just relied on my own
little brain.
Q: Thank you. Are you aware that
Jeff Rovin has been an expert in copyright matters involving defendant Marvel?
A I knew that he had done that sort
of work in the past, but I was not aware of any particular cases, no.
Q: Thank you. Are you aware that he
has expressed his opinion in this matter?
MR. COX: Objection; assumes a fact
in dispute.
THE WITNESS: I know nothing about
this case.
MR. DUBAY: Thank you. Should a jury
rely on your opinion on matters of copyright?
MR. COX: Objection; no proper
foundation.
THE WITNESS: No, that is for
smarter people than me to determine. You've -- you will present expert
witnesses and I'm sure that they will present expert witnesses here as well.
People a lot smarter than me. This is -- I wouldn't rely on my opinion, no.
MR. DUBAY: Thank you, Mr.
Stenstrum. If we could hand you the exhibit marked M, Warren Companion Cover,
pages 152, 154, 155, 156 and 189 to Mr. Stenstrum.
THE WITNESS: Got it.
MR. DUBAY: Just general questions.
THE WITNESS: Sure.
BY MR. DUBAY: Did you participate in
an interview with Jon B. Cooke that was published in the Warren Companion?
A: Yes, I did.
Q: Did Jon B. Cooke record your interview
on audiotape?
A Yes, he did.
Q: Are you aware that Jon B. Cooke kept
the audio tapes from that interview?
A I would presume he did, yeah.
Q: And if I could draw your attention
to page 152?
A: 152.
MR. COX: This doesn't have page
numbers on it.
THE WITNESS: What is the
illustration on it, Ben?
MR. DUBAY: It's Jim Stenstrum
smoking a cigar.
THE WITNESS: So it's --
MR. COX: The first page.
THE WITNESS: The first page. Okay.
BY MR. DUBAY: Page number two, it's
-- I'm looking at the pages. It may not have been on every page, but it is page
152.
A: All right.
Q: And this pertains to the story "Forgive
Us Our Debts," second column, halfway down.
You mentioned it before. You
testified that John Cochran wrote a note that he wanted to buy the story --
A: Yeah.
Q: -- for $50. Did you sell the
story and all rights related to the story or just the use of the story, for
this particular story?
A: To be honest, nothing like that
was mentioned by either party. I will admit being twenty years old at that
time, completely ignorant of the copyright process.
Q: So would you have included your indicia
or copyright notice on the script that you sent to Warren Publishing for
"Forgive Us Our Debts"?
A: No, no. There was -- there was
no copyright notice on there.
Q: Thank you, Mr. Stenstrum. If we
can go to page 154. It's the story on the bottom left corner. It 154. It looks
like it's cut off a little bit.
A: Illustration, please. What
illustration?
Q: "Thrill Kill" and
"1994."
A: Okay.
Q: It's the very next page in the
exhibit.
A: Okay. Got it.
Q: To your knowledge, was Bill a
most prolific writer for Warren Publishing?
A: Oh, yes, by far.
Q: Second column, halfway down if I
could bring your attention to that.
A: Second column, halfway down.
Q: To your knowledge --
A: Okay.
Q: -- did Bill Dubay rewrite almost
everything that crossed his desk while he was editor?
A: Virtually everything --
MR. COX: Objection; foundation.
THE WITNESS: Virtually everything
with the exception of anything I wrote.
BY MR. DUBAY: Are you saying that he
did not rewrite your work?
A: I wouldn't let him.
Q: Okay. In all of the stories that
Bill published, wrote, rewrote at Warren Publishing Company was he ever charged
with plagiarism?
A: Was Bill Dubay charged with
plagiarism --
Q: Was Bill Dubay ever charged with
plagiarism?
A: Other than the Harlan Ellison
thing?
Q: In all the stories that Bill wrote
and/or he rewrote was Bill Dubay ever charged with plagiarism?
A: No, I don't believe he was.
Q: And the second column, three quarters
of the way down, maybe slightly more did you use the name Alabaster Redzone in
rewriting stories?
A: Yes.
Q: If we could go to page 155 -- marked
155 in the bottom right corner?
A: I see it.
Q: Specifically, starting with first
column, halfway down?
A Okay.
Q: Did you write "Joe Guy"?
A Yes.
Q: Now, did Joe Guy appear in "The
Rook," volume seven in February of 1981?
A: Yes, yes, he did.
Q: Did you file a supplemental filing
with the copyright office in --
A: No, it wasn't necessary because
when we were in The Cartoon Factory there was a newspaper person that had given
us an interview -- perhaps you've seen it. All three of us are on the page to the
local newspaper and in that article, Joe Guy, the illustration was right there
and it says in the illustration, copyright Jim Stenstrum and I got -- there was
a Sunday paper and I sent both copies to the copyright office and it was -- it
was copyrighted 1976 or '77.
Q: Very good. Mr. Stenstrum, were
you originally credited as Jim Stenstrum or James Stenstrum as the writer?
A On -- at Warren you mean?
Q: At Warren. Were you credited as Alabaster
Redzone or your name, Jim Stenstrum?
A: For which story?
Q: Oh, I'm sorry. For Joe Guy that appeared
in "The Rook," volume seven.
A: Oh, no. I believe it started out
with Jim Stenstrum and then after the -- the miserable Harlan Ellison thing
where I fled into the night with half of my belongings, I -- Bill, to be mean to
me, took over the writing on -- and he rewrote one of the Joe Guy stories, I
believe the last one.
I believe he's got -- even just to
be particularly mean to me -- there's a scene where Joe Guy is falling from the
sky. It's called "Airway Express" and he says -- it was never in my
dialogue, but he said -- he had Joe saying that, "I'm falling over Minneapolis,"
and I don't recall what he said but something derogatory about Minneapolis,
because he knew that that was my hometown. It was never in my original script.
Q: It sounds like you and Bill had
a contentious relationship. Were you friends?
A: At first.
Q: Was there a time that you stopped
being friends
A Yes, after the Harlan Ellison
debacle. He threw me under the bus.
Q: How so, Mr. Stenstrum?
A: Do you have time or am I going
to have to -- you interrupted me before when I was telling the story.
Q: I apologize if I did.
A: After I had -- in 1981, Bill was
bumped up to assistant publisher or co-publisher and I was given the job as
editor, he had promised me that I would have full reign, full -- complete freedom
to do with the books what I wanted and he -- and so I moved there and I lived
-- that is when I lived in his guesthouse. Is that the second time? I guess,
for a second time, yeah. No, no, I was actually in the house during -- anyway,
that's not important.
In any case, he had brought me in
as editor and I quickly realized that Bill had no intention of releasing any
sort of control. He asked me what I wanted to do. The first thing I wanted to
do was to change the awful "1984 Magazine" which was so sleazy. It
was so disgusting. And I -- Bill hit the roof.
He didn't like the -- he wanted --
in fact, he wanted more sleaze in there. He told me that he wanted a magazine
that teenage boys would whack off to. And I was so absolutely disgusted by
that.
He tried in every way he could to
get me to put more sleaze and more porn into my comics, but I refused to do it.
And anyway, getting back, so it was
1981 and it had been what? A couple of years since – I think it had been a
couple of years since "Mondo Magilla" was published and we thought we
were off the hook. We hadn't heard anything about it.
But Bill, unfortunately, wanted --
when he became the co-publisher, he wanted more publicity for the books and so
he contacted The Comics Journal and he told them, "Listen, you guys aren't
doing anything about my books. I need some publicity." And they said,
"Fine. We'll do an article about 'Vampirella' and we'll do one about the
rest of the books, including '1984'."
Well, in the research -- I don't
recall who did the actual article -- they -- the person that was doing the
article, he discovered -- it was he that discovered the resemblance between
"A Boy and His Dog" and "Mondo Magilla" and he went
immediately to Harlan and he told him and Harlan hit the roof. ? I guess Harlan
was looking for me and maybe through Gerry Boudreaux he determined that I was
living with Budd Lewis at the time in California. He called it -- Harlan
Ellison called Budd Lewis telling me that -- about the situation, that he
wanted me to call him right away -- me to call Harlan Ellison and I -- so I was
in New York, I was at -- I was at -- sitting at one desk, Dubay was sitting
next to me, I had a typewriter and I got the call and it was Budd and he said,
"Listen, Harlan Ellison wants to get a hold of you." And I said,
"What? What for?" And he said, "He knows about the story. He
knows about the plagiarism." And I said, "Oh, crap."
Now, here's the thing, Bill, prior
to this -- you know, talk about being at war. Bill – Bill had a lot of respect
for Jim Warren, but he also hated him and he particularly was resentful.
I remember the episode -- he told
me that he was expecting this Christmas bonus. He was so looking for this
Christmas bonus that Jim Warren was going to give him and Jim Warren -- it came
Christmastime, he took him into his office and he opened up a mini fridge and
he gave him some bacon and this was his Christmas bonus and Bill was incensed.
He was so angry at him and I don't
know if -- I know that there are -- he -- after that he began – I presume it
was just facetious, but he was telling me about plots on how he could kill Jim Warren
and he said, "Well, I can take a bolt out of his chair or maybe I can put
something in his food or something and" -- never seriously, I must tell
you, but that is how he put it, his anger was that much.
And he had even slipped into one of
the books -- I do not know what the book was, he showed it to me back in 1981. It
was one of the Warren books and he specifically put in something there that he thought
would antagonize Harlan Ellison because he wanted -- he knew how badly Harlan
Ellison hated Jim Warren and he wanted -- he wanted Harlan Ellison to sue him.
And so the reason I mention that is
because when I got the call from Budd Lewis telling me about Harlan Ellison, I
turned to Bill and I said, "Well, you finally got what you wanted. We're
being -- Harlan Ellison is suing us," and the color went completely out of
Bill's face and he was in total shock and -- I thought -- I thought that maybe
he really was trying to do this. I thought he would be saying, oh, okay. I
guess -- okay.
No, but since he had gotten this assistant
-- this co-publisher job, all of it sudden it wasn't convenient to him anymore.
He turned around and he started tapping out a letter. A one-page document and
then he gave -- he ripped it off and gave it to me and he says, "Here. Read
this. Give this to -- and you are going to use this as -- to coach." He
said, "I want you to call Harlan Ellison right now and I want you to tell
him you've never heard of 'A Boy and His Dog' and that it was all a big mistake
and you don't know what he's talking about." And he wanted me to lie and I
said, "I can't do that. I cannot lie about this." I love "A Boy
and His Dog." I've seen the movie. It's a -- if the movie was out at that
time, I loved the story. I'm not sure when the movie came out.
In any case, I liked Harlan's work
and I particularly liked that story and there was no way that I could pretend
that I did not know that story. I would be seen as an imbecile.
But Bill was just -- for the next
three days, the pressure was on and he kept -- he hung around, he just loomed and
he would not let me near the phone unless he was there. And I remember very uncomfortable
train rides back and forth to the city and to home and he -- and then he would
-- at first he was trying to intimidate me and then he said, you know, "I
can -- I can pull out some money for you. I can figure out some way to get -- I
can give you some stories and you can move out to the Midwest and you can just
hide this out and" -- this is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. He was
absolutely panicked. It took three days of this nonstop pressure. They wouldn't
let me have a phone in the guest -- guest room of the guesthouse so I couldn't call
anybody. So when I -- I would go to work with Bill, I would come back with Bill
and I was never allowed to be close to a phone for three days.
And then finally on a Thursday --
now mind you before this -- before any of this even erupted, I was going to quit.
Bill and I were arguing about the books and I was just tired of his yelling. He
yelled at all of the employees and yelling at me and so I planned on getting
the heck out of there that week anyway. I was just waiting for my final check.
And on Thursday Bill, for whatever
reason it surprised me, he decided he was not going to come in with me. He
says, "You take the car in, you go ahead and do the work and I'm just going
to work at home."
So I don't know -- I think what he
was doing was he wanted to make some calls to, I believe, Jeff Rovin and Jim
Warren and the lawyer and I think they wanted to ambush me when I got home,
because I know they were there and I knew that that's exactly what he had in
mind. I did not know the particulars, but I suspected an ambush when I got
home.
And so as it happened, I got my
last paycheck on Thursday and I -- I said, okay, great. Now I have the money to
take a bus home and I went -- I took -- I gave the keys to Tim Moriarty, my assistant,
and I told him the situation. I went over to Grand Central Station where I knew
that the phones weren't tapped and I -- I made a call to Harlan Ellison and I
told him I would be coming in in the next week or so, however long it took me
to get on the bus home and -- so, but I knew that Bill would be waiting for me
when I got home, so I spent all afternoon and in through most of the night
watching movies.
I went to one movie after another
after another because I was not going to be ambushed when I got home. And I had
time to write.
By the time I got there, the place
was dark and Jeff had gone home and the lawyer had gone home.
I don't think Jim Warren, himself, was
there. And I knew that they were there to badger me. I knew that they were
going to try to intimidate me and tell me that they really -- that you need to
be on our side and lie and I was not going to lie.
And later on that night I -- I
grabbed about half of my belongings out of the guesthouse and I dragged it out
to the road around the trees there, I got a cab and I blew out of town and that
was the end of that.
I'm finished.
Q: How did Bill throw you under the
bus?
A: He kept working. He was the one
that ordered this -- he was the one that was responsible for the plagiarism in
the first place in that he took that script and he changed a boy to a girl and
the dog to a monster, and he assigned that to me and it was -- the artwork was
already there. He was already in possession of the plagiarized artwork and I
was the one that had to try to fix it.
Q: Did you testify earlier that Gerry
Boudreaux wrote that script?
A: He wrote the original script,
yes.
Q: What did -- what did Bill plagiarized,
specifically?
A: Specifically, he changed -- as I
said, he took Gerry Boudreaux' script, changed it from a boy to a girl, and a
dog to a monster and then had it illustrated to -- by Alex Nino.
Speaking of which, Alex Nino --
Bill had told me he had on board that he was going to help him pay his down
payment if Alex Nino would come on board and lie for him. And Alex Nino was
willing to do that, apparently. This was from Bill Dubay.
I'm sorry, I lost the thread of
your question. Oh, how was it a plagiarism, in that he ordered that it be made.
Q: Now, did he ever publish that script,
Gerry Boudreaux' script where he marked the boy and the girl and --
A: Publish it? No, no.
Q: Was that ever published?
A No, no, that script -- I don't
know if it exists anymore. I do have the letter that Bill Dubay gave me telling
me how to act on the phone with Harlan Ellison. I gave that to Harlan Ellison's
lawyer in 1981 as part of the deposition.
Q: I'm not sure that had -- my question
is: What did Bill do specifically to plagiarize -- he did not publish a
plagiarized story. He's not the one that did the art.
Gerry Boudreaux, under your testimony,
he went to Bill and convinced Bill that he could get permission, and under that
premises Bill authorized him to write the script, found out that he could not finish
the script or couldn't get permission to publish the script.
He gave it to you to rewrite and
make it entirely different and you rewrote it; is that correct?
A: That's correct, Bill -- Ben.
Q: So what did Bill do -- if Bill asked
you to make all the changes necessary to avoid it from being plagiarism, to
completely change it and you did that, what did Bill do, specifically?
A: You know, Ben, if it had gone to
trial, which it did not, I don't know that it would have come up as a -- it
might have been thrown out, because there was not a line in there that was the same.
I happen to agree with you. I do
not know that any court would find that necessarily to be plagiarism.
Nonetheless, Warren, as I
understand it, made some sort of a payment to Harlan Ellison, so obviously he
was concerned about something.
Q: Do you think it's fair to say that
he was concerned about the testimony that you had given?
MR. COX: Objection; no proper
foundation.
THE WITNESS: Are you talking about
with Jim Warren or Bill?
BY MR. DUBAY: I'm talking about with
Jim Warren. You indicated that Jim Warren had made some sort of payment to
Harlan Ellison?
A: This is rumor. I -- I do not
know how that case wound up.
Q: Okay. If I can ask you -- what actually
took us down that line of questioning -- and that's page 155.
A: Speak up please, Bill -- Ben.
Q: 155. And that's the first column
halfway down, as we discussed.
A: Okay.
Q: The question I have for you: Was
Joe Guy the son of Superman?
A: That was never exactly
presented, no. That was -- that was -- there was an innuendo to that effect,
but I never explicitly put that down, no, I don't believe I did. It was a
satire. It was a parody. It was a satire.
Q: Did Joe Guy have similar powers to
Superman?
A He had a whisper of his powers.
He could melt candles with his eyes. He could jump over a double-decker London
style bus.
Again, it was a satire, it was a
parody and for those that knew what I was doing, I'm sure they got a laugh out
of it. But it was -- nobody had brought -- there was no plagiarism involved.
Page 197
Q· Was Joe Guy promoted as
Superbaby?
A· Superbaby, no.
Q· Superbaby. Specifically
Superbaby for Amelia on the front of a newspaper?
A· Is that -- is that one word
"Superbaby”?
Q· It is.
A: I do not recall it.
Q: Okay.
A: I do not believe that Superbaby
is copyrighted by DC.
Q: I understand. Did you receive
permission from Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel or DC Comics to create a derivative
of Superman?
A: No, you don't need permission to
do a satire or a parody.
Q: Did Bill tell you to create a derivative
of Superman?
A No, he had nothing to do with it.
Q: You testified earlier that you did
not take credit for something that you did not entirely create. Did you
entirely create Superman?
A You are exasperating, Ben. No, I
did not create Superman. Again, it was a parody.
Q: I understand your point. Did you
have the right to create a derivative work of Superman?
MR. COX: Objection; calls for a
legal conclusion and is vague and ambiguous as to what you mean by
"derivative work."
MR. DUBAY: Okay. Second column,
three quarters of the way down, is it true that Bill Dubay had so much
confidence in you that you would send your finished work to the artist
yourself, bypassing Bill Dubay's input, supervision and/or approval?
A: Yeah, toward the end it saved a
step. Bill had a lot of confidence in me and he knew it would be a usable story
and rather than send it -- he's very busy. Rather than send it directly to him,
I would send it directly to -- like Abel Laxamana, for instance, for the Rex
Havoc stuff and -- I think that was mainly it.
I'm not sure if I sent it to other
artists, because I didn't really know where they were.
Q: Okay. If we could keep this
exhibit handy, if you don't mind.
MR. DUBAY: But if we could hand Mr.
Stenstrum the exhibit marked N, Warren Presents No. 14, November 1981.
A: Got it.
BY MR. DUBAY: Do you recognize this
magazine, Mr. Stenstrum?
A Yes, of course.
Q: Was "Raiders of the Fantastic"
the title that you gave it?
A· No, Bill gave it.
Q· Did Bill change the title?
A· For this reprint, yes.
Q· Okay. Who authorized the changes
of all the panels inside the reprint from "The Asskickers of the
Fantastic" --
A Bill --
Q: -- to "Raiders of the Fantastic"?
A Bill Dubay. He was the editor. He
was in charge of everything.
MR. DUBAY: If we could hand Mr.
Stenstrum the exhibit marked O, Circular 1.
MR. COX: The exhibit is before the witness.
THE WITNESS: All right.
"Copyright Basics."
MR. DUBAY: Yes. If we could go to page
two under "What Are the Rights of a Copyright Owner?"
A: (Witness complies.)
Q: Are you aware that the rights to
derivative works is a right of the copyright holder?
A: Derivative works are -- sure, of
course.
MR. DUBAY: If we could hand Mr.
Stenstrum the exhibit marked P, Circular 14.
THE WITNESS: No, let me back up
here. I think you're saying something that is not true.
It says the rights of a copyright
owner, they are able to prepare derivative works based upon the work.
If somebody else creates a
derivative work from my property, they have no rights to it at all.
BY MR. DUBAY: In your view that would
be unauthorized derivative work; correct?
A: That would be correct, yes.
Q: I appreciate you're clarifying that.
BY MR. DUBAY: Okay. If you could let
me know when you have Circular 14, "Copyright in Derivative Works and Compilations"?
A: I have it.
Q: Was "Warren Presents: Rex Havoc
and The Raiders of the Fantastic" a new edition of a preexisting work in
which did editorial revisions or other modifications represent as a whole an
original work now known as "Rex Havoc and Raiders of the Fantastic"
instead of "Rex Havoc and The Asskickers of the Fantastic"?
A I'm not a --
MR. COX: Objection; compound.
THE WITNESS: I'm not a --
MR. COX: Calls for a legal
conclusion.
THE WITNESS: Excuse me, I am not a copyright
attorney. I couldn't tell you.
MR. DUBAY: Thank you. If we can refer back to page
number 155 of Exhibit M?
A 155, one second. I lost it. I'm
getting lost here.
MR. COX: It's the one that says,
"Clutch Escargot."
THE WITNESS: Oh, okay. This one?
MR. COX: It's right there.
THE WITNESS: This?
MR. COX: Yes.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
MR. COX: Look for the one that
says, "Clutch Escargot."
THE WITNESS: I got it. I got it.
MR. COX: You go the it. There you
go.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
BY MR. DUBAY: Is it true that you were
aware that Warren Publishing Company was printing your work for the second time
with such revisions?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you file a lawsuit against Warren
Publishing Company for breach of contract or copyright infringement or for any
other complaint for damages?
A: I had no money to do anything
like that.
No, I did not.
Q: Okay. Thank you. Were you upset that
Warren Publishing Company had reprinted Rex Havoc with these changes?
A: Absolutely. That's why my pen
name is in there, Alabaster Redzone, as protest.
MR. DUBAY: If we could show or give
Mr. Stenstrum Exhibit Q, Rex Havoc's Gmail.
THE WITNESS: Got it.
BY MR. DUBAY: If I can draw your attention
to page – to page two?
A: Page two. Okay. Okay.
Q: Did you beg Bill not to publish the
reprint titled "Rex Havoc and The Raiders of the Fantastic"?
A I did.
Q: Did it bother you that Bill didn't
consider your feelings?
A: Damn straight.
Q: Did it make you furious?
A: It made me furious, absolutely.
Q: Did Bill hire a letterer to make
changes to the emblems on the back of the games uniforms to Raiders in every
panel?
A: Yes. Although there was one
panel that I -- I noticed that the letterer missed and I purposely let it go.
There's a -- a small just -- you can barely see, but it does say,
"Asskick." It was not the full "Raiders." Again, as a
protest, I let that one go.
Q: Did you have a beef with James Warren?
A: With James Warren, no. I didn't
know the guy.
Q: If we look at page three -- at the
top of page three --
A: Page three at the top.
Q: -- second sentence.
A: Uh-huh.
Q: It starts with, "My beef
with Jim Warren is simple."
A: Oh, okay.
Q: And the whole question is --
A: I guess I did have a lingering
beef. "I believe he's a bully who is presently gnawing on the bones of the
many artists and writers who produced stories for Warren Publishing, writers
and artists who do not have the means to fight him in court. That ain't
right."
Sounds pretty smart to me.
Q: Thank you.
So just to confirm, you did have a
beef with James Warren?
A To the extent that he was, I
thought, abusing his artists and writers. I know that there was at least one artist
who he decided not to pay, the fellow had died and that is why Steve Ditko left
because he refused to pay Rocco -- I forget his last name.
He refused to pay him -- since he
died he refused to pay him for the story. And I had also seen what Jim Warren,
himself, had done with the production department at Warren by making people
work late hours for no extra pay and it was -- it was an abusive system there.
Jim Warren could be very charming,
but he could also be kind of a dick.
Q: Okay. How long would you say that
your beef with Jim Warren was going on?
A It wasn't something I thought
about everyday. I had saw what -- how he had been dealing with his employees
back in '73 and I cannot say that I've had a bright spot for him since.
Q: So is it safe to say that you've
had a beef with Jim Warren ever since 1973?
A: Well, you are turning this into
some sort of a grudge match and it is not. I barely thought about the guy.
Q: Okay. Well, in your opinion, did
Jim Warren prominently --
A: Please speak up.
Q: In your opinion did Jim Warren prominently
option Rex Havoc to Dreamworks Animation?
A: I know for a fact that he did,
yes.
Q: Did this upset you?
A Yes.
Q: Is it reasonable to believe that
Jim Warren felt that he owned the character Rex Havoc?
A: That is possible. It is possible
that he, in his interpretation of the copyright law -- which was plainly wrong
-- he thought that he owned it, but I don't think he cared.
I think he looked at all of his properties.
I don't think he cared whether it was copyrighted by somebody else or not. If
he thought he could get away with it, he wanted to sell it.
And I believe Jeff Rovin was also
involved in that -- in selling Rex Havoc because there's an interview where the
two of them are slapping each other on the back and saying that there are big things
coming from Warren and that they just sold an option to Rex Havoc to Dreamworks
Animation.
Q: Okay. Were you aware that I had dealings
with Dynamite Entertainment pertaining to Vampirella Archives? And that's on
page four.
A Yes.
Q: Were you aware that I pulled the
infringing material out of the marketplace --
A: Yes.
Q: -- specifically Vampirella Archives,
Volume 10?
A: Yes, you told me about that.
Q: Were you aware that Dynamite Entertainment's
attorney was Michael Lovitz?
A Oh, I did not know that.
Q: Are you aware of any agreement between
myself and Dynamite Entertainment?
A: No, Ben.
Q: Okay. If we can hand the exhibit
marked R, TX0007-179-063 to Mr. Stenstrum.
THE WITNESS: Okay. Got it.
BY MR. DUBAY: Are you familiar with
this document?
A: Yes, this was the -- that was
the copyright notice for Rex Havoc that my lawyer got for me.
Q: Was your lawyer, Michael Lovitz?
A: Yes, he was.
Q: Is this the corrective filing or
supplementary filing for the "1984 Magazine," Issue No. 14, made
under your direction?
A: He said that it was necessary to
do this, so I said, "Sounds good to me." I don't know that I made any
sort of particular directive because I don't know enough about copyright law to
make sort of – I don't -- I don't know.
He went about -- he told me that he
was going to do this and I said, "Great. Sounds good to me." I've
been having trouble in this area so --
Q: If I can draw your attention to the
copyright office notes.
A: Copyright office -- is that the
same document?
Q: On page two of the same document.
A: Okay.
Q: The copyright office notes, "Regarding
author information: Ideas not copyrightable, authority 17 USC 102(b)."
Do you know why they made this
decision?
A I haven't a clue.
Q: Thank you, Mr. Warren -- excuse me,
Mr. Stenstrum.
MR. DUBAY: If we can hand Mr.
Stenstrum the exhibit marked S, the Gmail, "Daddy and the Pie."
THE WITNESS: Okay. Got it.
BY MR. DUBAY: Q: And this is just to
-- because I did exhibit it and you indicated a moment ago that it was Jeff
Rovin who orchestrated the sale of Rex Havoc to Dreamworks; is that correct?
A: That was my impression. I do not
know the details.
It was Jeff and Jim Warren, they
were both being interviewed and they -- I don't know which one of them told
them that Rex Havoc had been optioned. I suspect that Jeff, being more
Hollywood smart than Jim Warren, was probably used by Jim Warren to sell these
properties that he had just recently gotten back from Harris.
Again, that's all just conjecture
on my part. I have no absolute information on that.
MR. DUBAY: If we can hand Mr.
Stenstrum Exhibit T, Gmail, "Hello."
THE WITNESS: P?
MR. COX: "T" as in
"toy."
THE WITNESS: "T" as in
"toy." I'm sorry, I got it. All right.
BY MR. DUBAY: I know this is a body
of emails, but do you recall this string of emails?
A: Yes, that's when you first
contacted me. You were wondering -- you wanted to connect with me and later on
we got to talking about Bill's stories and you had some plans in mind.
You had picked out a couple of
stories and you were going to -- I don't know if you were completely clear what
you were going to do with them.
I felt kind of bad for you because
I know that all of that stuff had just been kind of thrown in your lap so I --
I wanted to help you.
Q: Thank you. How long did you work
for Warner Bros.?
A: Warner Bros., off and on, it's
hard to say exactly because Hanna-Barbera was bought by Warner Bros. and then I
went back to Warner Bros.
If I want a number of years, it's
really off and on. I worked around the beginning of the century when
Hanna-Barbera became -- Hanna-Barbera was bought by Ted Turner, Ted Turner was
part of Warner Bros., and I was there for a few years and then later on I went
back to Warner Bros. to work on "Freakazoid."
And then later on I came back to Warner
Bros. on some Scooby movies.
Q: On page three, if I could draw your
attention to that.
A Page three, uh-huh.
Q: Did you understand that Bill and
Budd own "The Rook" outright?
A Well, since I left, yes, that would make sense.
Q: To the best of your knowledge, was
there a signed contract between Bill and Jim Warren to that effect?
A I don't know. I have no idea.
Q: Do you know what Bill's agreement
with Jim Warren or Warren Publishing was?
A: What his agreement was?
Q: What his agreement was pertaining
to "The Rook"?
A: No, I don't.
Q: Were you and Budd, as original owners,
intended to be beneficiaries of this agreement that Bill had with --
MR. COX: Objection; calls for
speculation. No proper foundation.
THE WITNESS: I didn't quite understand
the question, Ben.
BY MR. DUBAY: Were you and Budd originally
intended to be beneficiaries of an agreement between Bill and Jim Warren
pertaining to "The Rook"?
MR. COX: Same objection.
THE WITNESS: We were going to be
partners three ways with "The Rook," yes. Bill was going to do the
first story, Budd was going to do the next story, I was going to do the third
story and we could continue to leapfrog.
Why that didn't continue to
leapfrog with Bill and Budd, I have no idea. It seemed to me that Budd only
ended up doing three or four stories and Bill, for whatever reason, did the
lion's share.
BY MR. DUBAY: Well, did Bill hold your
interest and Budd's interest in trust in his dealings with Warren?
MR. COX: Objection; vague and
ambiguous. Calls for a legal conclusion. No proper foundation.
THE WITNESS: There was no
paperwork, Ben.
MR. DUBAY: Okay.
THE WITNESS: Not between us, not
between the three of us.
BY MR. DUBAY: If I can draw your attention
to page six?
A: Okay.
Q: Were you very much impressed with
my tenacity and dedication and my principles and sense of fair play with
dealing -- when dealing with new comic companies: Dynamite and Dark Horse?
A: You've lost me. Could you speak
up a little louder, please.
Q: Absolutely. On page six --
A: On page six.
Q: -- were you -- were you very much
impressed with my tenacity and dedication to my principles and sense of fair
play?
A: Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah, you
were a tiger man.
Q: Thank you. Was "The
Goblin" produced at The Cartoon Factory that you were a partner of?
A: No, that appeared much later. Bill
had told me about it in passing that he had this new character and he told me
about how it would suddenly appear when he lifted up his hand, but I had
nothing to do with it.
Bill had -- that was strictly
Bill's property. I don't know what sort of arrangement he had with Jim Warren. But
as far as creation, I know that he wrote it. He wrote, I guess, all of
"The Goblin" stories and Lee Elias, I think drew it. I don't know if
there was any arrangement between him and Lee Elias.
Q: If I could bring your attention to
page seven?
A Page seven, got it.
Q: The very top seems to be a prior
inconsistent statement to the one you just made.
It says, "I do not" --
or, "I do not know what Bill" -- you know what? I think I read that wrong
-- "what deal Bill had with 'The Goblin'." Do you know if there was a
contract on "The Goblin"?
A: No, I have no idea.
Q: Also, on page seven, did James Warren
steal Rex Havoc?
A In my opinion, yes.
Q: I'm going to draw your attention
to page seven through nine?
A: Through nine, okay.
Q: In your opinion, do you think that
Jim Warren would have qualms about lying on the stand?
A: Do I think he would have qualms
about lying on stand?
Q: Correct.
A I do not know the man. I have no
idea what he would do. I wouldn't put it past him, but I can't say one way or
the other whether he would or not.
Q: I'm going to draw your attention
to page nine, the email dated Friday, February seventh, 2014 at 9:12 p.m. in
the top paragraph?
A: I did say that. Well, there you have my estimation
of Jim Warren.
Q: I'll restate my question only because
there's a follow-up question and I wanted to make sure I got you right.
Do you think that Jim Warren would
have qualms about lying on the witness stand?
MR. COX: Objection; calls for
speculation. Improper opinion.
THE WITNESS: It says here
specifically, "And Jim Warren, in my humble opinion, will have no qualms
about lying on the witness stand." That is my opinion and I'm entitled to
it.
BY MR. DUBAY: I asked you why. Why
do you feel that way?
A Why do I feel that he would lie,
is that your question?
Q: Yes, it is.
A: My impression from Bill Dubay
was that he was less than honorable. One of the tenets -- one of the things --
the truisms I remember him saying -- and he had many stories about Jim Warren
and he -- there was a truism that Bill told me. He said, "Listen, Jim
Warren will never give you your final check. If you give your notice, you are
not going to see your final check."
And that is why I did not give
notice that final week because I needed that money to get on a bus to get to
California and Bill has always made it clear to me that Jim Warren is not an
honorable man.
Q: Thank you.
If I can draw your attention back
to Exhibit M and we're still on page 155, which is the bottom right corner of
page 155.
A· Okay.
I'm sorry, what page?
Q· Page
155 --
A· 155,
I have it.
Q· --
of Exhibit M.
A· I
have it.
Q· And
were you an editor for one month, at the very bottom of the second --
A· Yeah, that's about -- that's
about how long I was, yeah.
Q· Okay.
MR. DUBAY: If we could hand Exhibit
U to Mr. Stenstrum titled "Warren Presents," No. 14 Catalog.
A· Exhibit what?
MR. COX: Exhibit U.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
BY MR. DUBAY: And there's only one
question I have here. It pertains to the date that "Raiders of the
Fantastic" was published.
A· Uh-huh.
Q: Is it true that it was published on August
25th, 1981?
A: You would know better than I. I
don't know. That sounds -- that sounds about right. That was shortly after the
release of "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
Or wait a minute. In 1982?
Q: '81?
A: Because it took time for it -- I
saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in '81, so it would have taken time for
it to be published. What is the publication date on that? November 1981? Wow,
he would have really had to knock that out fast. I guess he did.
I was still -- yeah, I was still --
no, I had left by the end of July. I wasn't there.
Q: The end of July is when you quit;
is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: Okay. And the date of publication
--
A It says --
Q: -- August 25th, 1981?
A I don't know when it was. I can only read
it. It says, "November 1981," but the dates are always ahead. August
-- that would seem too soon to me.
Q: If you look eight lines down on this
exhibit --
A: Eight lines.
Q: -- for registration, but under that
you have "Date of Creation" and the "Date of Publication."
A: Date of creation?
Q: Which is 1981 and then "Date
of Publication."
A Oh, do you -- this is -- this is
something entirely different, Ben. These were -- these were just a few pages
that I added that were never published before that -- see, Bill hated Rex
Havoc.
He hated it with a passion and he
always wanted to cancel it.
And finally, he said, "I want
you to cancel it and I want you to kill off Rex Havoc." Well, I wouldn't
do -- I wouldn't kill him off, but I said, "Okay. Look, I will do an
epilogue," which is just a couple of pages, "and we'll have Abel
Laxamana do it and then you can put it at the end of the final story."
Well, he didn't use it then, I
don't believe, and he saved that instead for the – the reprint issue. And
that's when I believe it was published for the first time, but those couple of pages
had nothing to do with the other four stories.
Q: If I can draw your attention back
to Exhibit N, and that's the "Warren Presents," No. 14, November 1981
--
A: Uh-huh.
Q: -- cover and page five?
A: Yes.
Q: Mr. Stenstrum, what sort of lead
time would be necessary on one of these magazines? If it were dated November
'81, when would it have been published?
A It would have been published --
let's see, the newsstand date, if that's November 1981, then I believe you
would go back -- it was probably -- probably early September.
Q: Early September probably.
Q: Is it possible that it was
August 25th, 1981?
A: It is possible, yes.
Q: Okay. And just to reiterate, you
quit at the end of July of 1981?
A: That's correct.
Q: Okay. Thank you.
MR. DUBAY: If we could hand Mr.
Stenstrum Exhibit "V" as in "Victor," "The Rook,"
No. 11, October 1981, cover, title page.
MR. COX: The witness has Exhibit V.
MR. DUBAY: Thank you. Are you
familiar with this issue?
A Yes, this is the one that was --
it was -- oh, I guess I did do some editing on this. I remember this. I thought
it was "Creepy" and "Eerie." But, no, it was -- was it
"Eerie"? I guess it was "The Rook." I don't know. I do
remember this -- did I actually do any editing on this? I don't know. But I did
rewrite "Uncle Zorro" for Bill. He had sent out a synopsis for
"Uncle Zorro." He wanted -- there was -- perhaps, you know who he is.
It was somebody in his life that
apparently was fairly wealthy and he had hoped that by writing the story
"Uncle Zorro" that his uncle would think kindly on him in his will.
And so Bill had written the story and I believe the artwork already existed, so
the artwork was done from a synopsis and then I -- Bill said, "I don't
have time for this. You know, you go ahead and do that." And I -- you
know, I must have -- I must have had something to do with the editing in this
because I did not get paid for this "Uncle Zorro" story.
I got paid for editing the issue. I
got $1,000 for, I guess, this one and there was another book. I'm not sure if
it was "Eerie" or "Creepy." Maybe it was -- I don't remember.
I don't remember.
There was -- there was a second
book. I ended up with $2,000.
Q: So you did perform editorial duties
on this magazine?
A: I'm -- I'm guessing, yes, I
probably did.
Q: Thank you. Who does the title
page credit as "The Rook" creators?
A· The title page -- I'm sorry.
Q· The second page on the exhibit.
A Are you talking about the
indicia?
Q· The indicia. Well, it says
"The Rook" created by?
A: Oh, yeah, it says "The
Rook" created by Bill Dubay and Budd Lewis. Sure. That makes total sense.
Q: Was this -- sorry about that. Was
this issue published by Warren Publishing Company?
A: Yes.
Q: Was this issue produced at The Cartoon
Factory?
A: I believe it was. That's where I
was doing my editing on the two books. We had all of Bill's tools, his drawing
board and we could do a lot of work there -- a lot of art production work.
Q: So to be clear, in October of the
1981 or at the time that this issue was produced, it was being produced at The
Cartoon Factory by you and Bill; is that right?
A: By me with assistance -- by Bill
with my helping him, yes.
Q: Is The Cartoon Factory located in
Connecticut?
A: Yes.
Q: To your knowledge, were any other
comic magazines produced at The Cartoon Factory and published by Warren
Publishing Company?
A: Well, I imagine he did work for
"Creepy" and "Eerie" and "Vampirella." I don't
know if that -- if it was "Famous Monsters." I think Bill Maholley
did all of that in the city. But, sure, Bill did a lot of the production work
out in The Cartoon Factory out in the guesthouse there.
Q: Thank you.
MR. DUBAY: If we could hand Mr.
Stenstrum the Exhibit W, "The Rook," No. 11, Public Catalog Copyright
Data.
THE WITNESS: Got it.
MR. DUBAY: I appreciate you being a
champ and a trooper. We're almost done.
BY MR. DUBAY: In this document I am
looking for one -- was "The Rook," No. 11 published July 21st, 1981?
A: July 21st, 1981, I see it.
MR. COX: Objection; foundation.
BY MR. DUBAY: You are an editor of "The
Rook," No. 11 as you previously testified. Would you know what date it was
published?
A No, no. Ben, I wasn't around
there that long.
Q: I understand. The date on the
October -- excuse me, the date of "The Rook," No. 11, is that October
of 1981 and that's on Exhibit V?
A: Number 11 it says October '81 –
created 1981. Okay. That makes sense.
Q: So when would that have been -- so
when would that have been produced if it was -- had a publication date of
October of '81?
A It would have been produced --
oh, gee, I don't know. I can only tell you -- hang on for a second.
Q: Just to remind you you testified
--
A: Just a minute, Ben.
Q: Of course.
A: I was an editor officially for
one month, but I probably worked for them a month, possibly two before that in
a -- in a different capacity. I was sort of helping them out because Bill was
trying very hard to edge out Chris Adams. It's been 40 years. He was trying --
he wanted Chris Adams, the editor, to be gone and that was the reason he
brought me in, but he couldn't do it immediately.
He had -- he wanted to keep Chris
around so that he would -- there wouldn't be a big disruptionin the books and
so it seems I was out in New York longer than I thought.
But as the actual editor getting a paycheck,
I was -- it was $16,000 a year and I think I only got two paychecks. I just
remember that officially being editor, I was there for only a month.
But I seem to remember having been
there beforehand because Bill was trying to figure some way of getting rid of
Chris Adams. And so my apologies, I was there longer than I thought I was.
Q: So if "The Rook," No. 11
had a cover date of October of 1981, is it possible that it was published or
hit the newsstands in July -- the end of July, such as July 21st, 1981?
A: Yeah, yeah, because I was working
in Bill's guesthouse and -- oh, that's why that makes sense.
So, I wasn't working on a -- I
wasn't working on salary. Bill had given me these two books so that I would
have money to stay in New York and he says you can have -- you'll get $1,000
each if you do these books. So I wasn't on salary, but it would give me enough
money to -- to stay around and so I did these books before I became editor.
Q: Okay. Mr. Stenstrum, if you can look
at page 156, please --
A: 156?
Q: -- of Exhibit M.
A Okay.
Q: Did Bill hire you take over editorial
duties of certain titles of Warren Publishing Company?
A Yes.
Q: In that month that you testified
that you were editor --
A Yes.
Q: -- were you having problems with
Bill --
A: Yes.
Q: -- over his reluctance to release
control of the books?
A Yes, very much so.
Q: Did you quickly become frustrated
with the situation?
A: Yes.
Q: And were planning -- were you planning
to quit as a result?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you tell anybody?
A: No, I wouldn't see my last
paycheck if I told anybody.
Q: Thank you. Did Budd Lewis tell
you that Harlan Ellison was suing the company?
A Yes, he did. Well, no, no, I
don't know that Harlan Ellison -- he only said that Harlan Ellison wanted to
talk to me about the situation and it was from Harlan himself when I talked to
him in August that he seemed quite determined to take legal action because he
had his lawyer in there to – to take my deposition.
Q: So prior to your conversation with
Harlan Ellison, he had not threatened to sue the company. Is that what I
understand?
A: I am not aware of it. I am
certain that it was boiling up in his brain, but I'm not aware of any specific
intention to sue.
Q: Until you spoke with him in Southern
California?
A: Well, I knew that there was -- I
knew we were in trouble and that's why -- and I should revise that.
It is possible that Budd did say something
about a lawsuit. I knew we were in a lot of trouble and Bill knew that we were
in a lot of trouble and that's why he -- he wanted to avoid a lawsuit. I don't
know that anything had been talked about up to that point, but he was very
scared.
Q: Thank you. In 1977, did Bill
Dubay approach you and Gerry Boudreaux about adapting some stories?
A: For, yes, "1984 Magazine."
It wasn't called "1984." It didn't have a title then. He said there's
a science fiction magazine that he wanted to put together and he finally – we had
been talking about that for a long time. We had all -- Bill and I had been
talking about putting together a science fiction magazine over at Warren for a
long time. We had horror, we had war, but we didn't have science fiction and
Jim Warren apparently was reticent. He didn't want to do it. He didn't think
that was going to be a seller but Bill did manage to finally talk him into it.
Q: Okay.
A And then he got a hold of me and
he got a hold of Gerry Boudreaux and I don't know who else he got a hold of.
Q: Do you know why Gerry Boudreaux chose
Harlan Ellison's story "A Boy and His Dog" to adapt?
MR. COX: Objection; foundation.
THE WITNESS: As I understood it --
no, I -- you know, I can't say. It would be conjecture on my part.
I know that he was friendly with
Harlan and there was a time that Gerry Boudreaux stayed at Harlan Ellison's
house for a few weeks while he was -- I think maybe after he first moved to
California.
I do not know the chronological
order of -- I know that Gerry Boudreaux knew Harlan Ellison and he promised
Bill that he could get the rights to it and Bill became -- I think understandably
upset when he was not able to and yet he had been paid for the story. He should
have paid Bill back for not -- since he couldn't get the rights, but he did not
do that.
BY MR. DUBAY: Q: Do you know by the
time Harlan Ellison rejected authority to adapt the story, was the script already
sent to Alex Nino?
A The script was sent to Alex Nino when?
Q: Do you know if it was before or after
Harlan Ellison rejected Gerry Boudreaux' position?
A: I believe it was after, yeah. As
I understand the chronology, Gerry agreed to do an adaptation of "A Boy
and His Dog" and Bill said fine and Gerry had promised him that he could
get the rights and so Bill was fine with that. And then I guess he went to Harlan
Ellison and Ellison had a shit fit and he had put in emergency calls to Bill at
his house and told him, "Don't you dare publish this."
And then he put that -- as I
understand, he just threw that into the slush pile and that's – I had heard
about that from Bill and he was -- I just remember him being very angry with
Gerry Boudreaux because he had told him he could get the rights and he didn't
get it.
With me it was different because,
even though he didn't get the rights, I told him ahead of time, "Listen,
if you do not get the rights, you still got to pay me," and he agreed, so
there was no fuss between us as far as that goes.
And that script -- Gerry Boudreaux'
script went into the slush pile and it probably stayed there for a little
while. And again, it was -- it was the whole problem of Alex Nino drawing so
fast and going through scripts so fast that he just ran out of scripts and it
was out of sheer desperation that he gave Alex Nino the script that he thought
he could change later so that it would not appear to be a plagiarism.
Q: When the art was received from Alex
Nino, did you agree to rewrite the story?
A: After some pressuring from Bill,
yes.
Q: Did you rewrite the story?
A: Yes, I did.
MR. COX: Objection; asked and
answered.
BY MR. DUBAY: Did you figure that if
anyone could change the thing out of something that nobody would recognize, you
could probably do it?
A: I believe that was my statement
in an interview or something. That sounds familiar, yes.
Q: Is this why you agreed to rewrite
the story?
A: That and to help Bill because
Bill was stuck now with some 12 pages of very expensive Alex Nino artwork.
Q: Was Bill's direction intended to
be plagiarism?
MR. COX: Objection; no proper
foundation.
THE WITNESS: No, we wanted to --
again, we wanted nothing to do with plagiarism. We were trying everything we
could to avoid having that sort of a problem.
MR. DUBAY: I understand.
BY MR. DUBAY: Earlier you testified
that the editorial responsibilities for the "1984 Magazine," Volume
No. 4, you testified that an editor may rewrite the script. You testified that
an editor may rearrange the panels. You testified that an editor may cut the panels
to what would become the express version. Did you do these things on
"Mondo Magilla"?
A: Yes, I believe I said that.
Q: You did all of these things?
A: Of course.
Q: And you were assistant editor for
"1984 Magazine," No. 4?
A No, I was freelance at the time.
I was in Minneapolis.
Q: Mr. Stenstrum, you testified earlier
that you were assistant editor for Volume No. 4 of "1984 Magazine"?
A: And I believe I said that that
was just a title that Bill gave me. There was no money involved. There was no
-- he was being grateful and -- for my help, but I had no -- I was making no
money doing that. I was not in a real position. He just put that in there because
he thought that I would appreciate it.
Q: You testified just a moment ago that
you performed editorial responsibilities, such as rewriting or cutting the
panels or rearranging the panels. So you performed editorial responsibilities on
the story; correct?
A Yes, I had to. I had to do
everything I could to hide that damn story.
Q: So you acted as both writer and editor
of that story; is that correct?
A: No, I acted as a rewriter that
did a hell of a lot of rewriting and I told Bill what I was doing. I got
permission from him ahead of time because I didn't want to cut up the artwork
without his permission.
And then all of that was sent out
to Dubay who edited -- you know, I don't think he would have made much in the
way of the changes -- but the final editing was him.
Q: Did Bill Dubay ever make any changes
to your scripts?
A: He made a couple of -- maybe a
word or two early on when I was first starting out and then after that he knew
I would raise holy hell every time he made a change and I wouldn't let him and
I -- actually, I felt a little spoiled because he – I pretty much got to do
whatever I wanted to do and I enjoyed the work. The money was horrible, but I enjoyed
the work and Bill pretty much left me alone.
Q: So Bill would have left you alone
if you were rewriting the story and arranging the panels to create a new
expression that would not be plagiarism?
MR. COX: Objection; compound. No
proper foundation. Calls for speculation.
THE WITNESS: He would have
appreciated anything I did to make it no longer look like the Harlan Ellison
story.
BY MR. DUBAY: Who was it that was trying
to save that damn story?
A: I was the one that was trying to
change that damn story so that there would be no legal ramifications later on.
Q: Well, who caused the work to be discovered?
A: I believe I mentioned earlier
about The Comics Journal writer that Dubay had asked to make articles about his
magazines and it was the writer who discovered it, the writer of that article.
Q: But Bill wasn't trying to hide it
by looking for exposure to that magazine, was he?
A: No, he was shocked. He realized
he had made a huge mistake. He had just -- it was like he opened up a vault
accidentally and a skeleton fell out. He -- that was not his intention.
He was looking for publicity for
the books. He was not looking -- the last thing he wanted was any sort of a
lawsuit.
Q: I understand. Who was it that
didn't disguise the story quite enough?
A: I didn't disguise the story
quite enough.
Q: Do you feel that you could have made
the creatures moot or any other changes to make the story less recognizable?
A: Yes. Again, I believe I said
that – that I could have made the character not speak and perhaps that would
have been a better way of hiding it, but these two characters were together for
12 pages and needed some sort of dialogue between them because at several
panels they are obviously looking at each other and speaking to each other and
I had no way of avoiding it. I didn't make him telepathic as he is in the
Harlan Ellison story. I made him speak with his lips.
Q: Who chose what changes to make?
A: I chose.
Q: Now, did the Harlan Ellison lawsuit
have anything to do with your quitting?
A: No, I'm sorry, it feels I'm
repeating myself constantly here.
Q: You testified earlier --
A: I said earlier that I had
planned to leave anyway and that the whole Harlan Ellison thing happened around
the same time. It had nothing to do with it. I would have been out the door
that same -- well, I thought was going to be Friday, but Thursday I got my
check and that's when I bolted.
Q: I apologize for the redundancy. Earlier
you testified on two separate occasions that you quit because of the Harlan
Ellison lawsuit. Perhaps you clarified that later.
MR. COX: I think -- I think, Ben,
he talked about that the fact that the Harlan Ellison lawsuit arose, led to a
rupture in his relationship with Bill Dubay. I don't think that he specifically
said that it lead to him quitting.
THE WITNESS: Absolutely not.
MR. COX: I think you might be
confusing those things.
MR. DUBAY: And it's very possible.
I just wanted to bring that for clarification. It wasn't my intention to be
redundant. My notes indicate some things and now you are stating another -- but
that's completely fine. I just wanted to make that clear for the record.
BY MR. DUBAY: Now, did contact Harlan
Ellison by phone before or after you quit?
A: After. Bill would not let me
near the phone and I was not going to use a Warren phone. Rumor was that the
Warren phones were bugged and I was not going to call from there. So when I got
my last check, I went to the bank, I cashed it and I went over to Grand Central
Station, I went to a pay phone and I called Harlan then.
It was about three or four days
after his initial getting a hold of Budd Lewis, who then contacted me right
away.
Q: You mentioned earlier that you learned
that Harlan Ellison was trying to reach you while you were sitting next to
Bill?
A: That is correct.
Q: But were you in the Warren offices
at the time?
A I was in the Warren offices and
he had sent -- Harlan Ellison did not know where I was. For whatever reason, he
did not contact me directly. I think that he was suspicious of any sort of
calls going to Warren directly. I don't think he wanted to talk on a Warren
line, so he sent the message through Budd Lewis.
Q: Were there any pay phones in the
building, around the building that you could have walked to?
A: Believe me, I was looking for
them. I didn't find them and Bill was hovering over me the whole time, so I
literally could not get to a phone.
Q: How did you get to the office every
day?
A: Bill and I drove together. Then
we got onto the train together.
Q: Did you get off at Grand Central
Station?
A: You know, I'm not sure. That's
it – I don't quite remember if we got off already or -- probably there was --
it could be -- it was probably Grand Central Station. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
remember that, yeah, yeah, because I remember the signs with trains and so on like
that, yeah.
Q: Were there telephones at Grand Central
Station?
A: There's plenty. I told you I
eventually used one.
Q: Could you have called Harlan Ellison
at any time prior to the date that you phoned him after quitting?
A: Could I have called Harlan
Ellison after I quit?
Q: Did you -- prior to quitting could
you have phoned Harlan Ellison?
A: No, because Bill would not leave
me alone. He was never out of my sight. He was waiting for me to call Harlan
Ellison. He wanted to eavesdrop on our conversation.
Q: And then you gave a deposition to
Harlan Ellison's attorney a week after having quit; correct?
A That's correct, I -- I stayed in
New York for a couple of days. I was talking to Neal Adams who was a great guy.
I was really in the depths of depression and he was a nice guy. I went up to
his office. He said, "Listen, you know, come back tomorrow." And I
said, "Well, jeez, I was going to head back to California." He said,
"Oh, no."
So I stayed at Holiday Inn for a
day and then I came back and Neal and I had a nice conversation and he was
really nice and he just sort of the settled me down. And then I got onto a bus with
whatever belongings I was able to get on -- carried by myself at the
guesthouse. I left about half of them behind. And I took a bus to California. It
took, I believe, 54 hours. Not a lot of fun, but it was all I could afford.
Q: So you didn't contact Harlan Ellison
from October of 1978 to July of 1981 until after you had quit from Warren
Publishing Company; is that correct?
A That's correct.
Q: Now, did you write the plagiarized
story of the freelance writer or was that as a systematic --
A: Freelance.
Q: Now, were you at least complicit
in the plagiarism?
MR. COX: Object --
THE WITNESS: If you call it plagiarism,
yes, I was complicit.
BY MR. DUBAY: Did Harlan Ellison file
a lawsuit against you?
A: I believe I was named, not only
me, but Alabaster Redzone and I believe Bill Dubay and Jim Warren.
Q: When you say you believe, did you
have --
A: I was told that -- I was told
that by Harlan's attorney. I never saw the papers.
Q: Okay.
A: I was never subpoenaed. I was
never given any papers.
Q: The only reason I ask is I could
not find anything between Harlan and Bill, that's why I ask, so you heard that from
Harlan's attorney. Do you recall who Harlan's attorney was?
A: You know, I was trying to think.
It was either Donaldson or Phillipson. I do not know his name. That you'd have
to ask Harlan himself.
Q: Would a successful plagiarism claim
by Harlan Ellison have been a good thing for an aspiring writer or a bad thing?
A Oh, hell, no, I don't think see
how plagiarism could help any writer.
Q: Were your motivations to contact
Harlan Ellison to settle your beef with Jim Warren?
A: No, it had -- the fact to do
with Harlan Ellison was a -- he was tenacious and he had – when he didn't get
any call from me after a couple of days, Budd Lewis called me again at the
office and said, "Harlan Ellison is wondering why you are not calling
him." And I said, "I can't get to a damn phone. Bill is hovering over
me one hundred percent of the time. He wants to eavesdrop on the conversation."
So I was not able to -- but in
answer to your question, no, it had no particular beef with Jim Warren or Bill
Dubay. It had to do with just coming out and being truthful about it and not
lying like they wanted me to do.
MR. COX: Let me interject. Ben, how
much long do you think you've got here?
MR. DUBAY: Not very much longer.
MR. COX: Okay.
MR. DUBAY: Not very much longer at
all.
MR. COX: Okay. Good. Let's go then.
Let's power through.
MR. DUBAY: Take a look at page 189.
MR. COX: Of what exhibit?
MR. DUBAY: Of Exhibit M. I
appreciate your patience, Jim.
THE WITNESS: 189. Okay. Uh-huh.
BY MR. DUBAY: The second column, three
quarters of the way down.
A: Uh-huh.
Q: Earlier Jim Warren attributed responsibility
for everything coming out of Warren Publishing Company, specifically "1984
Magazine."
MR. COX: Would you hold for a
second. I hasn't found it. Page 189 and where are you here?
MR. DUBAY: It's the second column,
three quarters of the way down. You know, let's just say the final four
statements that start with "Jon."
THE WITNESS: Okay. What about it?
BY MR. DUBAY: What I'm asking is: Who
was responsible for everything coming out of Warren pertaining to "1984
Magazine"?
MR. COX: Well, objection; no proper
foundation. Calls for speculation.
MR. DUBAY: He was an assistant
editor so --
MR. COX: That will be your
argument. I understand.
MR. DUBAY: Okay. You can answer the
question.
BY MR. DUBAY: Who was responsible for
everything coming out of Warren Publishing Company?
A: Obviously the boss is. The boss
is responsible in any company.
Q: Who is Bill Dubay's boss?
A: Jim Warren.
Q: Was everything that was produced
at Warren Publishing, did it have Jim Warren's stamp of approval?
A No. I imagine there were some
stories – I know there were some stories that Jim Warren didn't like. He didn't
like my story of the super abnormal phenomenon survival kit because he thought
that it made fun of Captain & Company.
Q: Are you aware of any agreement that
I have with New Comic Company?
A: No, you never told me.
Q: Are you aware that New -- exactly.
Okay. Are you aware that New Comic Company has reprinted several of your stories
that originally appeared in "Creepy" and "Eerie" magazines?
A: Oh, sure.
Q: Who claims the copyright for those
works?
A: Well, I still do. I am not going
to chase them down for every little comic book story. That's not worth the
money chasing them down. If it turns into something worth it, then perhaps I
will find out for myself. I am not a hundred percent, again, certain about
copyright law myself, so the last thing I'm going to do is to throw thousands
of dollars at a lawsuit for which I'm not completely positive myself.
Q: Thank you.
MR. DUBAY: If we can hand Mr.
Stenstrum Exhibit X titled "NCC Gmail."
THE WITNESS: I have it.
BY MR. DUBAY: Is it true that it's your
opinion that I am a legal -- I'm like a legal archaeologist?
A: That I called you a legal
archaeologist?
Q: Correct.
A: That sounds like something I
would say, sure.
Q: Is that a "yes"?
A I -- I can't say for certain, but
that sounds like something I would say, yes.
Q: Would you like an opportunity to
review the document?
MR. COX: If he did, he did in the document.
THE WITNESS: Is it in here?
MR. COX: No, he's talking about
this document.
THE WITNESS: Oh, I'm sorry, I'm
looking at the wrong thing. I'm sorry, I'm looking at the wrong thing.
MR. DUBAY: That's okay.
THE WITNESS: Where is it?
MR. DUBAY: On page three.
THE WITNESS: Page three?
MR. COX: Three.
THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, there is no
three.
I've got two pages.
MR. COX: Okay. Then I'll give you
the one that has page three on it.
THE WITNESS: Okay. On page three.
What am I looking at here?
MR. COX: Where you call him a legal
archaeologist.
THE WITNESS: Oh, there we are.
Yeah, you're like a legal archaeologist. Sure, yeah, I said it.
MR. DUBAY: Thank you.
Can you hand Mr. Stenstrum Exhibit
Y, "Warren Communications Corp Bankruptcy Transcript."
THE WITNESS: Got it.
BY MR. DUBAY: Have you ever seen these
transcripts before, Mr. Stenstrum?
A: Did you send these to me? They
look vaguely familiar. Or perhaps I found it on some sort of a comic book site.
Maybe Bill, himself, sent them to
me. I don't recall. They do look familiar.
Q: Do you recall what the total claim
for the bankruptcy claim was? The total claim or total outstanding balance of
the claim?
A: Are you talking a dollar amount?
Q: A dollar amount. Just because you
indicated you were familiar with them or you had seen them or --
A It looks familiar. I do not
recall any of the details.
Q: Okay. Thank you.
MR. DUBAY: If we can hand Mr.
Stenstrum Exhibit Z, Gmail, Warner Bros.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
BY MR. DUBAY: Do you recall this chain
of emails?
A: Let's see, oh, yeah, yeah. Hey,
this – I had some good ideas. You didn't use any of them, but I got some good
ideas in there.
MR. COX: Is there a question?
THE WITNESS: Yeah, what -- what is
the point, Ben?
MR. DUBAY: There's a question to
follow that. I just wanted to make sure you were familiar with them before I
begin my questioning.
THE WITNESS: All right.
BY MR. DUBAY: Have you worked for Warner
Bros. in the past three years?
A: Have I worked for Warner Bros.
in the past three years? Yes.
Q: Is New Line Cinema a division of
Warner Bros.?
A: Is it now, I don't know. I don't
know.
Q: Did I express my opinion to you that
Stephen King had also ripped off Al Hewetson's "It"?
A: I vaguely remember that. Honestly
I didn't pay much attention.
Q: Isn't it true that "It"
holds the greatest box office receipts for New Line Cinema under the Warner
Bros. umbrella?
A: I would have to look at my
Hollywood Reporter to find that out.
Q: Isn't it true that "It"
is the seventh highest box office receipts in Warner Bros. history?
A: If you say so. I don't know.
Q: Isn't it true that Warner Bros. is
releasing a sequel to "It" in 2019?
A: That I believe is true.
Q: Are you or have you been involved
in this project at all?
A: "It"?
Q: "It"; correct?
A No. No, sir. No.
Q: Thank you. When you found out
about this lawsuit, did it seriously piss you off?
A: Lawsuit?
MR. COX: Which lawsuit are you
referring to?
Q: This lawsuit that I'm referring to
is Dubay versus King, et al.
A: Oh, the one that you filed
against Stephen King?
Q: That is correct.
A: No, it didn't piss me off. I
just thought it was insane.
Q: I would like to draw your attention
to Exhibit No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 produced by defense counsel. These are my final
questions. Mr. Stenstrum, you testified earlier that you did not discuss any
specific time travel title. Did you ever discuss -- Savage with Bill or Budd?
A No, no.
Q Did you ever discuss any other
titles that you exhibited here today with Bill or Budd?
MR. COX: Look at Exhibit No. 1 and
then you can talk about it.
THE WITNESS: No, I don't think so.
That doesn't ring a bell. No, I don't believe so.
MR. DUBAY: Okay.
BY MR. DUBAY: You testified earlier
that you did not have any of these time travel exhibits in your possession at
the time you participated in designing the captions for "The Rook."
Did you have anything with Doc
Savage in concept for "The Rook"?
A No, and my reference was simply
my memory. My dim, dim memory. I remembered very well what Rod Taylor wore and
I remembered that hat from an old TV show. I certainly remembered Paladin.
Beyond that -- again, we didn't
have Google back then, so it was strongly from my memory.
Q Okay.
MR. DUBAY: Then I move to strike
exhibits one, two through four and all testimony related to the exhibits
because the witness testified that he never discussed any of these time travel
works or Doc Savage, but still Bill Dubay and Budd Lewis. Nor did he have any
of these works in his possession at the time that he participated in designing
the Rook's costume.
MR. COX: Your motion to strike is
--
MR. DUBAY: That will complete my
motion to strike.
MR. COX: Okay. Your motion to
strike is noted.
MR. DUBAY: Thank you. That will
complete my examination for today.
MR. COX: All right. I have no
questions. Let's agree that the original of this deposition will be forwarded
to the witness at his residence address as given at the start of this
deposition; that he will have 30 days within which to review it and make any
corrections that he deems necessary; and that if he does make any corrections,
he will notify -- he will send them to me and I will undertake to notify you
promptly upon receiving notice of any corrections.
I further propose that we stipulate
that a certified copy of the original may be used with the full force and
effect of an original from and after 30 days if we do not have the original
available.
MR. DUBAY: Can you restate that,
Vince?
MR. COX: Sure.
MR. DUBAY: I just want to
follow-up.
MR. COX: Sure. The idea is that the
transcript is going to go to Mr. Stenstrum. He's going to have 30 days to
review it and make any changes. He's going to notify he of any changes, but as
sometimes happens witnesses don't actually notify you of any changes and
sometimes they don't even return the certified copy to you -- or the original
to you and so what you do then is you don't throw away the deposition, you use
the certified copy with the full force and effect of the original. That's the
procedure that's followed if witnesses don't send you their -- their original.
For example, I haven't received --
MR. DUBAY: That's the typical
process -- that's the typical process, I stipulate to that.
MR. COX: Great. Thank you. It is.
All right then. We can close the record. Thank you very much, Ben. Thank you,
Mr. Stenstrum.
Comments
Thank you for the kind words though. Ben DuBay