Top Shelf Comics butted heads with U.S. Customs after officials seized copies of the Slovenian comics anthology Stripburger late last year, but Charleston, S.C., attorney Greg Meyers, who is representing the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Top Shelf in the case, told the Journal Jan. 24 the matter has apparently been settled.

As explained in an Oct. 7 letter from the Customs Office to Top Shelf, the shipment had not been seized for the usual reason: material deemed to be in violation of obscenity laws. Instead, Customs officials had taken it upon themselves to judge two stories in the anthology to be copyright infringements. Peter Kuper's "Richie Bush," a four-age story in Stripburger #37 Vol. 12, depicts members of the Bush administration as characters in the long-running Harvey Comics series, Richie Rich. In Stripburger #4-5 Vol. 3, "My Pole," an eight-page story by Slovenian cartoonist Bojan Redzic, makes a three-panel visual reference to the Peanuts characters Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Woodstock.

Meyers said, "I don't know why the Customs officials thought they should spend time interdicting comics they thought were 'clearly piratical' of copyright-protected works, but they have regulations that apparently give them the authority to do so."

The simplest thing for Top Shelf to have done would've been nothing at all. The seized books were not titles distributed by Top Shelf. They had simply been included by the Eastern European publisher as complimentary copies in a shipment of Stripburger minicomics imported by Top Shelf for re-distribution in the United States. The minicomics, which Top Shelf had ordered, were released by Customs officials. Only the complimentary Stripburger volumes that Top Shelf had never ordered in the first place were held.

However, Top Shelf Publisher Chris Staros told the Journal he regarded the seizure as "a matter of principle." The letter from Customs was reviewed by CBLDF attorney and First Amendment expert Burton Joseph, who concluded that Customs was "unlawfully holding First Amendment-protected speech." The CBLDF Board of Directors -- with board member Staros recusing himself -- voted unanimously to pursue whatever legal actions were necessary to challenge the seizure.

In a Nov. 24 letter to Fines, Penalties and Forfeitures Officer Monte Fulton, Meyer wrote, "We seek that the United States Attorney's office will institute legal proceedings in Federal Court to forfeit the seized property, unless on reflection you or the U.S. Attorney agree that the materials are not 'clearly piratical' because they are well within the First Amendment's protections for satire."

The message to Customs was clear: Staros was willing to expend effort and attention out of proportion to the value of the seized books in order to defend a principle. Customs, on the other hand, was not prepared to defend its position with the same zeal and responded by agreeing to release the books, because, "given the quantity and scale of the infringing importation, it lacks the magnitude to warrant litigation in Federal Court."

[A full report will appear in The Comics Journal #266.]

All site contents are © 2002