Thursday, February 21, 2013

Something Familiar, Something Peculiar

I have all but neglected my blog. I wanted to keep this blog focused on the antics of the hero of my quirky adventure series. But, since I haven’t had the time lately to tinker with Skunk-Guy my updates have pretty well dried up. However recently I have run across several things that gave me a severe boot in the keester . Three seemingly coincidental occurrences have rattled my cage. I feel that I am on high alert to diligently guard and protect my property.

Coincidence number 1: An animated feature came out this year titled Para NORMAN. A fairly similar charter to my dear NORMAN FLINCH , both are heroes’ who deal with the strange and the weird and they both have the same name. Not to mention they are about the same age. Well this film does play off the name Paranormal and I get that, and if that alone was the only thing I would simply pass it off.



Coincidence number 2: There is a new Kid-Com premiering on Nickelodeon titled aptly Wendell and Vinnie, did you catch that “Wendell”. He is a science nerd and he appears to be the spitting image of my very own WENDELL HIGGINS. This certainly caught my attention. Now it would be vain conceit to think that the network had read my books and stole my characters. For one thing I haven’t sold that many copies and I can pretty well tell you who had purchased each one. And there are no movies producers or network executives among them.

Coincidence number 3: This is the big one. After years of tweaking and adapting the official aegis of my series the Skunk Symbol, developing the whole skunk wrapped in his own tail image, I was knocked off my chair when I came across this logo for Skunk Works. Same idea worked out a little differently.

There are enough differences to distinguish between these three projects and my stinking hero books. But it does make me realize the importance of protecting my creative property. All my books are registered with the copyright office. My biggest concern is that Skunk-Guy getting such a delayed entrance into the market may give the appearance that I am ripping off these other enterprises. But I assure you that Skunk-Guy, Norman Flinch, Wendell Higgins and the skunk symbol were all designed and created years ago long before the launch of these three doppelgangers.

I shall intensify my efforts in getting the word out and getting the Stinking Stalker the accolades he deserves. You can read along as I post my efforts here.  I suppose we could refer to this as the skunk-log.