January 16, 2019
--
The Dead Rabbit is a New York City bar consistently ranked among the world’s best. According to Bleeding Cool, Dead Rabbit is known for using specially-created comic books as menus and even recently released a “recipe comic book”.
As reported by The Outhousers, a lawsuit was recently filed by DRT LLC, the company which owns the popular New York bar, against Image Comics and Forbidden Planet for $2 million each. At issue is Image Comics’ and Forbidden Planet’s alleged infringement of the trademark “Dead Rabbit” which is held by DRT LLC. This trademark covers “comic books,[…] fiction and non-fiction books on various topics, [...] and recipe books.”
In October, Image Comics published a comic book, written by Gerry Duggan and John McCrea, entitled “Dead Rabbit.”
Shortly after its publication, DRT’s lawyers sent a Cease and Desist letter to both Image Comics and Forbidden Planet asking that the publishing, distribution and marketing of the Dead Rabbit comic book stop immediately. The second issue of the Dead Rabbit comic book was released in the first week of November, but, later that same month, after the lawsuit was filed by DRT LLC, Image Comics issued a mandatory product recall of the first two issues of the comic book. A search for the Dead Rabbit comic on the Forbidden Planet website reveals that the series has been discontinued and is no longer available for purchase. Comicbook.com reported that, prior to the halt in sales of the comic books, they had been well-reviewed.
It is possible that Image Comics and Forbidden Planet will make some revisions to the comic book series to address any trademark infringement issues and re-introduce the series to its market of fans eagerly awaiting the arrival of the third issue.
Authors: Amanda Bertucci and Alexandra Murray
Comments