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Hacking And Slashing The Past

Published Thu, 10 Feb 2011 12:46:53 -0600

It wasn't long ago that Nick Barrucci was instrumental in blocking the distribution of Hack/Slash #17 amd #18, because they featured characters from the movie Re-Animator, as arranged with the movie's producers. Barrucci is involved with Re-Animator LLC, a company that had claimed the trademark on the character based on the original HP Lovecraft story, and published Re-Animator comics through Dynamite. A cease-and-desist letter went to Diamond and Devil's Due from Re-Animator LLC, Diamond folded and it all kicked off a bit. Barrucci did propose a deal where Devil's Due would publish the issues and Diamond would distribute them without objection, but only if Seeley would sign a note to agree that Re-Animator was the rightful trademark holder, which would stab in the back the people he had licenced the character from, in any future legal battle.

So Devil's Due distributed the comic outside of Diamond, there was no further legal action taken, although the publisher were able to sell less issues as a result. And a very frosty relationship was born.

Today, Dynamite have announced that they are publishing a Hack/Slash crossover with their comic Eva: The Daughter Of Dracula in May, to be written by Brandon Jerwa

It certainly gives a different flavour to the publicuity friendly quotes attributed to the creators and publishers in the press release.

"We are fortunate to have such a tight relationship with Tim Seeley that he is allowing a cross-over with us on Hack/Slash" from Nick Barrucci is my favourite.