The Action Figure Debacle
August 18th, 2008
Basically, me already.
I’ve recently been tied up in legal troubles concerning the rights to my image, which I had little to no idea were profitable and/or desirable.
I’ll try to sum up the total experience as succinctly as possible, but Lord knows how much I love to digress in the middle of blog posts.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve wanted my own action figure. I probably could have settled for a collectible bust (if I could have stomached the detail), but there is something to be said for taking yourself out of the collectible packaging and making yourself hump Barbies.
Sure, she’s already slutted out to He-Man and the Ninja Turtles (was Dave raised in the 80s? Yes he was.), but if I didn’t want sloppy mutant-seconds, I should have bought another Barbie, and having one secret Barbie is hard enough.
Imagine my surprise when I was contacted by Graphitti Designs, the makers of the ultra-cool and under-appreciated Clerks Inaction Figures, and asked to be part of their Up-And-Coming Bloggers series. Seriously, imagine my surprise. Because, I’m, like, not up-and-coming and a series of action figures based on bloggers has even more inaction than most collectibles. Like: Here’s Dave sitting shirtless on his futon, coffee in one hand and laptop on his lap.
That would actually make an interesting bust, but “action” it is not.
But, since this has been a dream of mine, I told them to e-mail the PDFs of whatever paperwork I had to sign and sent them some full-body shots of myself in some sort of “signature” outfit.
Have you ever tried to come up with a “signature outfit?” It’s fucking hard. None of the clothes I wear are anything beyond utilitarian, and most of the t-shirts I wear either have logos or promote something ridiculous, like being gay (Drake Rainbow Union: 10% is not enough!) or eating disorders (huge blue shirt that says: I Beat Anorexia).
I sent them pictures of me wearing my “Good Bush, Bad Bush” t-shirt, since I’ve had it since the early 00ts, but Graphitti was unable to clear the graphic, let alone find whomever originally manufactured the t-shirt.
I received the lengthy legal documents in my e-mail, paired with a request for another outfit. So, I put on my nice black Mavi jeans, a black button down and my vanity glasses (they look like glasses, but lack prescription) and took another photo. Then, I sat down to read through the agreement, which – surprisingly – I did.
This is a limited image rights contract, or that’s how I would describe it in normal-speak. Basically, they own whatever my “signature outfit” is, as well as my likeness (in action form) for 5 years, then they get to option me again at the end of that period, should they so choose.
That big action-adventure-comedy I shot with Louis Anderson a few summers ago? The one that is stuck in post-production hell with Lionsgate? Hopefully that movie doesn’t do too well, because if it does, legally, the action figure has to look nothing like me.
But, I digress, because I never ended up signing.
The discussion actually came down to how generic my action figure could be. Specifically, I have a key-chain that is shaped like a scrotum. It is black, and I refer to them as my “black balls,” especially when I put them in my mouth for comic effect. They hang with my keys on a carabineer I keep on whatever pair of pants I happen to be wearing at the time.
GD said there was no way they were sculpting testicles on my hip. I told them that was my “flair.” That and the glasses. Though they – and everyone else – recognized the Office Space reference, they said that they didn’t want to sculpt the glasses either.
Whatever style they have planned out for their Up-and-Coming Blogger Line (which they kept referring to, which makes me thing there are other Blogger Lines, probably populated with Harry Knowles and Perez Hilton action figures – maybe called Fat Bloggers Line), it was not glasses-friendly. They said they would have to sculpt the glasses as a separate piece, then meld them to the head, which would not only cost more, but anyone who has actually played with figures made this way realizes that the glasses are the first thing to break and go missing (First generation Simpsons’ Flanders figure: I’m looking at you and your glasses-less face!).
So now my figure was in a generic black shirt, didn’t have any cool-looking glasses to distract from my Mexican-Neanderthal face and was literally ball-less.
Then I asked about accessories, and they said they were giving me an iPhone.
I was like, “Cool! Are you going to pay for the plan?”
And they were like, “Your figure gets an iPhone and MacBook accessory.”
And I was like: “But I don’t have an iPhone, I have a MacBook Pro and a Dell I network together. Couldn’t I have a coffee mug and a pack of Camel Lights?”
[This is all paraphrased from a long chain of one-line e-mails exchanged in the wee hours of a Thursday morning.]
And they were like: “Dumbass: iPhones, Laptops = rectangular plastic pieces with decals that rake us in Apple money. Cigarettes, coffee mugs = detailed sculpting + anti-tobacco hate-mail.”
At this point, I saw the corporate scheme. I saw Steve Jobs throwing money to GD to get a series of blogger action figures so he could make them hump his Barbies, sell his products and – this is what I would do – run away from him screaming “Gojira! Run!,” before he stomps on all of us.
That’s when I had to respectfully decline the generic-looking Dave Gonzales B&U Action Figure.
Someday, I’ll live my dream. Just not now, and not because of blogging.
