Cogliostro - Legal Rights

Legal Rights

Cogliostro, Medieval Spawn, and Angela (Heaven's bounty hunter) are co-owned by Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane.

In 1993 McFarlane contracted Neil Gaiman (as well as other recognized authors like Frank Miller and Dave Sim) to write one issue of his Spawn series. While doing so, Gaiman introduced the characters Cogliostro, Angela, and Medieval Spawn. All three characters were based on characters created by Todd McFarlane and were co-created with Todd McFarlane who designed them and all continued to be featured in the series after Gaiman's involvement, and had many tie-ins with McFarlane's toy company. Cogliostro had a prominent role in the live-action movie in 1997. McFarlane had initially agreed that Gaiman retained co-creator rights on the characters but later claimed that Gaiman's work had been work-for-hire and that McFarlane owned all of Gaiman's creations entirely, pointing to the legal indicia in Spawn #9, and the lack of legal contract stating otherwise. McFarlane had also refused to pay Gaiman for the volumes of Gaiman's work he republished and kept in print. In 2002, Gaiman filed suit and won a sizeable judgement against McFarlane and Image Comics and the rights due any creator. Gaiman v. McFarlane, 360 F.3d 644 (7th Cir. 2004). All 3 characters are currently co-owned 50/50 by both men.