The fight for creator rights or ownership is a constant uphill battle, as evidenced by the very public legal disputes between Marvel Comics and the Jack Kirby Estate, Marvel and Joe Sinnott, Marvel and Gary Friedrich (are you sensing a pattern yet?), DC Comics and the Siegel and Shuster Estates, etc., etc. Public disagreements don’t always have to do with comics, even though news media is more interested in those as they gain more popularity in a filmed format. A similar kind of battle has been happening over the last few years, shrouded in superheroes and has as grand a history as those of comics.

In the late 1970’s, Jack Herman and Jeff Dee created their superhero role-playing game Villains and Vigilantes, when Dungeons and Dragons was hitting its earliest spike in sales and interest. Published by Scott Bizar’s Fantasy Games Unlimited, Incorporated in 1979 V&V is recognized as one of the first RPGs to initiate interest in the superhero genre.

Lack of support from FGU put V&V into a listlessness as fans slowly shed away, leaving only a small core of dedicated fans, as happens with product without further backing from the publisher. Herman and Dee attempted to regain their creation at that point with no success.

In early 2010, years after V&V practically disappeared from the tabletop market, Herman and Dee’s lawyer took a look at the contracts signed in ’79 and discovered some glaring inconsistencies in what was being told to them by Bizar. Firstly, the company called Fantasy Games, Unlimited was proclaimed dissolved by the State of New York for failure to pay incorporation fees in 1991, reverting V&V to the creators by signed contract. Secondly, the contract as signed did not include further editions of the core material. A second edition published in 1982 was not legally binding to FGU, giving Herman and Dee an excellent foothold to regain their creation from Bizar and the defunct FGU. By June of 2010, Monkey House Games was organized to release Villains and Vigilantes Version 2.1 to gamers and the market.

Monkey House Games has done much to reassert V&V as a viable interest in the games market, reestablishing itself at conventions and producing material for old fans and new. Digital versions are available and an open license agreement for second-party publishers is accessible too.

Between a cease-and-desist from Monkey House to Bizar in publishing further V&V product, a counter-suit from Bizar against Herman and Dee to a continued battle in a California appellate court for proprietary rights of V&V, the costs have skyrocketed. To aid in their fight, Herman and Dee set up a GoFundMe page where fans of V&V, friends or those that just wish creators to get their due can donate. All funds go towards the fees incurred by the lawyer and courts, with the next date scheduled for January of 2016.

Wish Jeff Dee and Jack Herman luck! Donate to the GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/monkeyhousegames

Find Monkey House Games here: http://monkeyhousegames.com/ 

Written by Jon Johnson