Thursday, May 17, 2007  
Wicks Cartoon Trial, Day 3

:: Posted by Bryan @ 5/17/2007 12:15:00 AM

The trial to decide ownership of a cache of cartoons by the late Ben Wicks continued Wednesday in Toronto. The fight is over two garbage bags full of drawings that Wicks' son left behind when he moved and that were then appropriated by Richard Harnett, a teacher for the Peel Region School Board. Harnett's approach has been basically "finders, keepers" but his attitude clashed with the estate of Ben Wicks when he contacted Wicks' agent about profiting from the drawings. The Wicks family launched the suit to have the drawings returned.

Ben Wicks was probably one of the most successful Canadian cartoonists ever. He was a popular literacy activist, tv host, syndicated cartoonist and restaurant owner (the Ben Wicks pub in Toronto is still a popular watering hole), with a ton a published cartoon collections, children's books and memoirs to his credit.

As the Toronto Star notes, "The trial centres on the issue of abandonment and whether the family of the nationally syndicated cartoonist and philanthropist deserted the property, which consists of more than 2,400 cartoons dating back to the 1960s."

The case seems to be a simple one of ownership versus copyright, with the Wicks estate also wanting to assert ownership, although I have no real idea what each sides' lawyers are arguing.

While I certainly have a great fondness for Wicks' art and persona (one of the first cartoons I remember reading as a child was a daily panel by Wicks about the Begin-Sadat peace talks), I will be the first to admit that he was not the most technically gifted artist. His alternately blocky and lumpy characters are barely more than sketches --but they are just drawn funny. Wicks was a great communicator and all of his work is characterized by a wry, self-assured humour.

The sketchiness of his art is the only factor that I can imagine contributing to several bags of his drawings being left for garbage. It is easy to imagine Wicks' son Vincent Wicks, who worked with his father as a cartoonist, making a judgement call about the value of the art in question and deciding to leave it behind, but the family says that is not what happened. And even if it wasn't an accident, I can understand the family not wanting a stranger to profit from this windfall, no matter how second-rate the work may or may not be (I haven't seen any examples, but there are said to be caricatures of several politicians, which are interesting to some people). I can even understand Harnett wanting to hold on to this work by his "hero" --no matter how garbage-y it was. Some of the comics in my own collection are positively revolting in terms of condition, smell, and art. And Harnett held on to the cartoons for many years before trying to publish them (and sought the estate's permission to do so, although a cynic would note that he waited until Wicks died before he made his move).

Final submissions are scheduled to begin today.


Coverage Roundup

-Toronto Sun has Harnett testimony

-Editor & Publisher

-The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon responds to several correspondents about the legal issues involved and the perceived demand for more Wicks material

-Bob Tarantino on Canadian copyright


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