Games Workshop tries to claim ownership of a concept that existed long before the company itself:
Games Workshop, the company that owns Warhammer, is attempting to shut down Jon Del Arroz’s Space Marine comic claiming he is infringing on the company’s trademark. In a post to X, Del Arroz, the co-owner and founder of Fandom Pulse, shared an email sent to crowdfunding website FundMyComic demanding Del Arroz’s The Emerald Array comic be removed from its website.
Fund My Comic’s Founder and operator Luke Stone informed Del Arroz via email that he has no plans to remove the comic or graphic novel from the site. He told Del Arroz, “At this time, the campaign will remain active on our platform. Our preliminary evaluation indicates that while the campaign may contain derivative works, it does not appear to infringe on any trademarks owned by the requesting party.”
It’s an absurd attempt to expand an already-questionable trademark. In fact, the trademark is so questionable that I suspect if Games Workshop were to take anyone to court, even someone infringing upon the protected space of “video computer games, computer software for playing games” it would find itself at risk of losing a trademark it probably should never have been awarded in the first place, just as the Arthur Conan Doyle estate lost its Sherlock Holmes trademark following a misguided attempt to prevent an author from “violating” it.
There are eight hours left in the campaign, so you can still back it if you haven’t already. And while it’s not an Arkhaven crowdfund, Arkhaven Comics will be publishing the retail editions.