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Hate to say it, but this dude was asking for trouble:

A Florida man has been sued by DC Comics for selling figurines that resemble Batman characters — though he says they’re meant to portray actors from the 1960s “Batman” television series. In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Tampa, DC Comics accuses John Stacks of committing copyright and trademark infringement, among other violations, with his resin composite figurines. The characters in question include Batman, Robin, Catwoman, the Joker, Batgirl, the Penguin, the Riddler, Egghead and King Tut.

Read the full story from the AJC here.

Now the question for me is this. How much did this guy make off these less-than-impressive looking toys? I could buy, like, a real batman action figure on Ebay for around five bucks. In fact, I wouldn’t buy Mr. Stacks’ figures for my worst enemies. I wouldn’t even try to hide them in happy meals or stuff them inside cracker-jacks boxes. I’ll bet you could make more money off selling the resin these things are made from. DC must simply enjoy making this man’s life miserable. To be fair, of course, they did send Stacks a letter asking him to stop marketing these knockoffs. So did Warner Bros, who also owns rights to Batman. Here’s an excerpt:

Dear John Stacks,

I’m going to kick your f*&king ass. I want these f@^king little toys off this market, you prick! I mean, what don’t you f&^*king understand about copyright laws? Don’t just be sorry. Think, for one f^uc@ing second. Seriously. What. Are. You. Doing! Do you have any f&#*ing idea about, hey, it’s dishonest and illegal to go around like “la-la-la-la-la, hey, I’m a huge jerk who makes cheap Batman figurines out of home-made plastic, and I don’t give a crap about intellectual property.”

You want me to trash your resin molds? Huh? You want me to f*&^king trash ‘em!? Then why the f&*^k are you trashing my image with your dinky little collector’s items? Good God, man, you’re amateur. Look, just stay off our turf. You can make little figurines of Harry Potter or that vampire show, or movie, or whatever it is. Stay away from Batman. That’s my scene.

None of us can work properly with you contaminating our PR. Yeah, that’s right. You don’t understand what it’s like working with super heroes or actors or lawyers, do you? DO. YOU?

Seriously, dude. Just stop making the figures. We’re the ones making the figures. Yeah, man, like seven figures. As in seven-figure salaries. What you need to do is stop making the figures.

Christian Bailout
Warner Bros, Inc