The Ink Stained Wretch #190 6/18/25

The Bishop, A Nearly MAD Super Lawsuit, and a New SotW Book!

It's time yet again for another of the yellow-bellied, yawn-inducing, yucky series of yammerings that are these newsletters! This week the clergy in on the case in our sketch, we reveal if MAD Magazine's current owner once tried to sue them for copyright infringement, and announce a brand new, supersized "Sketch o'the Week" book!...on with the 'Wretch!

Sketch o'the Week: Terry Jones!

And now for something not so completely different... another in our series of sketches of the members of “Monty Python's Flying Circus!” This week's subject is the late, great Terry Jones.

Terry was kind of an under appreciated member of the troupe in my opinion, at least in the sense that he wasn't as much of a household name as John Cleese, Eric Idle, or Michael Palin. He did a lot more of his work behind the camera as a writer and director. He was instrumental in creating the structure of the "Flying Circus" TV show, where sketches would transition into one another without the obvious ending of a punchline between, something that became the troupe's trademark. He co-directed "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" with Terry Gilliam, and was the sole director of "Life of Brian" and "The Meaning of Life". After Python he continued to write, create and direct TV and film, eventually being honored with the BAFTA Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in the TV/film arts. He sadly passed away in 2020.

I really wanted to draw him as one of his dowdy English mother characters which I remember him as most, especially from "The Meaning of Life". I just couldn't find a "moment" that was representative of him as that type of character. So I went with him as "The Bishop" from a sketch from season two. In it, he's a crimefighting clergyman in a satire of secret agent films and TV shows.

By the way, if you are wondering at what point in this "Monty Python's Flying Circus" series I am finally going to draw Monty, stop reading this newsletter immediately and go watch several episodes of "Monty Python's Flying Circus".

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a... Lawsuit????

Here's a MAD story I never knew until I read about it recently in CBR's "Comic Book Legends Revealed" series on CBR.com, where they confirm or debunk comic book myths and legends. The myth in question was "Did DC Comics sue MAD Magazine over its parody of Superman, Superduperman?"

DC is, of course, the current owner of MAD. That happened back in the 1960's after MAD publisher Bill Gaines sold the magazine to a company called Premier Industries, who then sold it to Independent News, which was a subsidiary of National Periodical, which later became DC Comics. After a lot more corporate buyouts, takeovers, and general shenanigans, MAD is currently owned by DC Entertainment/Warner Brothers/Discovery/someoneoranother.

National realized what it had in Superman shortly after the character debuted in Action Comics #1 in 1938, and was not shy about suing anyone they thought was trying to cash in on the popularity of their invention of the comic book superhero. They filed multiple lawsuits against multiple companies for infringement of Superman and eventually Batman. They kept their lawyers busy.

In 1953 a new humorous comic book called MAD released their 4th issue, which featured a spoof of Superman entitled "Superduperman", written by MAD editor Harvey Kurtzman and draw by Wally Wood. National was reportedly NOT happy about the feature, and threatened to sue MAD publishing company E.C. Comics.

Yes, “Superduperman” was an obvious parody, but back in the 1950's the legalities of fair use and copyright were not very clear, having few precedents on which to lean. In fact, MAD itself played a large part in establishing many of those precedents over the years, paving the way for parodies in print and many other mediums to be created without being sued into oblivion. At the time, these laws were murky at best.

Kurtzman felt he had found a legal precedent that did protect a parody such as MAD did of Superman (the CBR story had no details as to what that precedent might have been) and a lawyer Gaines consulted agreed. MAD went right on spoofing what they wanted. National might have continued to threaten but never did actually sue MAD.

National's threats must have put a bit of a scare into Kurtzman, however. A few issues later MAD spoofed National's other major character, Batman, with Kurtzman and Wood again doing the honors. This time the background of a couple of the early panels contained humorous disclaimers making sure the readers knew it was a parody!

That spoof of Superman in MAD #4 was a big reason why the sales of MAD, which had been fairly disappointing until that issue, skyrocketed and kickstarted the magazine's meteoric rise to become the standard for satire and parody for decades. National not suing paved the way for that, which ended up paying off for that company years later when they ended up owning arguably the most successful humor publication in history.

Every few years I collect my the drawings from my 'Sketch o'the Week" feature into a book, and it's time for yet another release. "Volume 6" is at the printer as we... uh... read, and is now available for presale in The Studio Store. This is the biggest volume yet, with 84 pages of goofy caricatures from the last 20 months or so. The books should land by mid-July, and all pre-orders will ship forthwith! I'll have copies at San Diego Comic Con as well.

Regular Subscriber? That's it for another lame issue of the 'Wretch! Thank you for subscribing! As always, if you liked what you saw please share it with others. Remember I'm always looking for feedback, questions for the mailbag, and suggestions for future Sketch o'the Week subjects. Just reply to this email with any of the above, or leave a comment on Substack! And always remember... it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide!