The League of Monsters playing cards (KS)

[Rob Wright]

League of Monsters

Project by: Cevin R Cox
2nd created, $8,000 goal , $10 early bird, $12 for 1. $22 for 2

"Hand Painted Deck of cards with The League of Monsters printed by the Bicycle Playing Card Company Frank-Bride-creature-mummy and MORE!"

[Don Boyer]

The minute I see someone declaring their project is made by "the Bicycle Playing Card Company", I know we're dealing with amateurs who haven't done their research.  This appears to be no exception.

His art assistants are his (very young) children...  It looks like a kid made it, unfortunately.  I can also pretty much guarantee that he didn't get clearance from Universal Studios for the use of their monster imagery.  Which means that USPC won't touch it with a ten-foot pole.  I emailed him through KS with an inquiry about those rights from Universal and whether he's even contacted USPC yet.

[ronyo_faukx]

The minute I see someone declaring their project is made by "the Bicycle Playing Card Company", I know we're dealing with amateurs who haven't done their research.  This appears to be no exception.

His art assistants are his (very young) children...  It looks like a kid made it, unfortunately.  I can also pretty much guarantee that he didn't get clearance from Universal Studios for the use of their monster imagery.  Which means that USPC won't touch it with a ten-foot pole.  I emailed him through KS with an inquiry about those rights from Universal and whether he's even contacted USPC yet.

I'm not really a fan of the 'Frankie' head on the cards. I like the 'Frankenstein's wife' and 'Nosferatu' cards, but the 'Frankie' ones just look so unplanned.

They have the appearance of a badly photo-shopped picture where you just take a series of the same head and copy-paste them in the appropriate places on the picture.

This is of course, as I have stated in a similar topic, that this is a deck with a specific theme that will not be distributed, let alone manufactured, until AFTER the holiday/event it is associated with.

[S. Carey]

A deck like this is not made for the small playing card community that talks on here. It is made for a huge audience that loves the classic monsters. I really don't think it matters that monsters or zombies or horror themed decks are done a lot because the market is there and will continue to be there. To me what matters is if the art is good.

The timing of the project catches people when they are in the Halloween spirit. To some it might matter when they get the decks but if this project launched in April or May the argument could also be made that they aren't in the Halloween mind frame when it is warm and the flowers are out. Also classic monsters aren't just for Halloween. Horror movies and monsters movies are released all year round.

With that said, long live the monster decks. (Just make them look cool and seriously, promote them on horror movie blogs).

And really here you are gonna probably get two to three haters on your monster deck but on theme-based blogs/forums you will probably get 10x that of people that dig your project.

What people need to worry about on a theme-based blog like a horror movie site is the integrity and design of the character. Don't butcher frank and you'll probably be good. Oh and pass copyright and trademark or else you are in trouble.

[Don Boyer]

Oh and pass copyright and trademark or else you are in trouble.

I had a discussion with Cevin Cox by KS mail - my words in blue, his words in red:



Just out of curiosity, have you contacted USPC about your project yet? In addition, have you contacted Universal Studios to obtain rights for their monster images? While I know that at least some of these monsters existed in literature long enough to be in the public domain, those specific monster designs are copyrights and trademarks of Universal Studios. If you haven't contacted them, you should do so immediately, if not yesterday! Better you reach out to them than them reaching out to you with a cease-and-desist letter - I've seen successful projects crushed that way, never to see the light of day and incurring no small amount of debt for the creator.

Cheers,
Don Boyer

BTW: I'm an administrator at a forum for playing card enthusiasts. Perhaps you'd like to check it out? www.playingcardforum.com

I have contacted USPC and they have approved the art pieces that we've sent. Also the monsters were I paint along time ago and I've looked into the copy rights of them, we don't use the of the names and the likeness is our interpretation of what the literature describes. We done 'frank' painting and Tee shirts and have been in legal guidelines for those as well. Thanks.

Well, better to cross t's and dot i's. I wouldn't be the first time something was "approved" by them only to get later rejected by the Legal Department. The Bicycle Brimstone deck (an earlier KS project) originally had a much sweeter back, but it was based on the Rider Back design and Legal killed that design because they were trying to fend off copycats using their now-public domain design by claiming them as trademarks - meaning they couldn't allow alterations of it to dilute the trademark. I'd hate to see you reach your goal only to have the deck squashed by USPC or Universal.

Thank you so much and I completely agree. If small changes need to be made we will do what we have to to make sure this deck happens.

So, I'm doubting whether this will pass the trademark/copyright sniff test.  It would not surprise me to see an update on this project where USPC Legal or Universal forced them to make changes - or they simply shut it down because of the hassle.