By The Editor
July 27, 2006 - 10:14
Did Dark
Horse Comics Rip Off Pendragon's WAR OF THE WORLDS?
Pendragon Pictures has given formal legal notice to the principals of Dark
Horse Comics alleging innumerable replications of images from Pendragon's
period accurate movie version of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. Pendragon's movie, H.G.
WELLS' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, was released in the U.S., Canada and most
countries internationally June 7, 2005 and has grossed over two million dollars
in sales from U.S. retail stores alone. The complaint accuses Dark Horse, the
third-largest comic book publisher in the U.S. and recognized world-leading
publisher of licensed comics material, of directly replicating hundreds of
images from the Pendragon movie. Both productions are based on the public
domain 1898 H. G. Wells novel, but Pendragon alleges that Dark Horse has played
foul in replicating camera angles, designs, character likenesses and a myriad
of artistic choices for their comic.
Pendragon C.E.O. and Director of H.G. WELLS' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, Timothy
Hines states, "Most of Dark Horse's revenue comes from comics that are
based on licensed movies, including BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, SHREK, STAR WARS
and ALIEN. These guys are experts at converting film frames into comic books. I
was astounded at the degree of similarity between our production and their
comic book which came out a year after our movie was disseminated worldwide. We
believe its just theft of our artist's hard work - plain and simple, and we
won't let this stand. I invite the public to come to a website we've set up, http://www.martianinvaders.com, showing dozens of frames of
identical or of striking similarity between Dark Horse's comic and our WAR OF
THE WORLDS and decide for themselves."
Pendragon Producer Susan Goforth adds, "We've set up a way for people to
vote as to whether or not they see what many who have brought this to our attention see.
If Dark Horse wanted to use our images they simply could have licensed our movie. It
was hard enough going up against Spielberg and Tom Cruise. It's no surprise that our
movie was savaged by the friends and allies of our competitors. Our own distributor was
intimidated into not releasing the director's cut of our film, which is actually the final
cut, for fear of retaliation from Paramount, so we are just now releasing it ourselves
online. Why a giant like Dark Horse would copy us without license is beyond me."
Dark Horse just promoted its comic book version of WAR OF THE WORLDS at
Comic-Con San Diego, which ran July 20-23. Comic-Con is the largest comic book
convention in the U.S., and was attended by all the major movie studios and
comic book publishers. Pendragon Pictures is selling its true to the book movie
version of H. G. WELLS' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS online through http://www.buywowdvd.com.