Even superheroes like Captain America and Iron Man come to blows now and then, and now so have the capital’s two comic conventions.
The city’s first convention, Kyiv Comic Con (KCC), is suing the largest, Comic Con Ukraine (CCU), for the use of the term “comic con,” which it claims is an infringement of its registered trademark. KCC wants CCU to change the name and pay up to Hr 1 million in damages.
CCU says “comic con” has become a generic term worldwide and cannot be protected by trademark laws. If anyone could have a monopoly on the term — it can only be San Diego Comic Con, which invented it in 1970, CCU’s organizers say.
Ukrainian comic cons have only been around for five years since the first Odesa Comic Con in 2014 and the first KCC in 2015. But there is a dedicated community of cosplayers and popular culture fans in Kyiv who have now found themselves dragged into the battle.
“I have friends who are 100 percent for CCU and friends who are 100 percent for KCC — and they almost end up in fights,” says cosplayer and fan Marya Telizhenko.
Comic confusion
Kyiv’s popular culture fans were confused on May 21, 2018 when CCU made its first appearance, announcing its festival. It was the day after the end of the fourth KCC held on May 19–20, 2018. “Are these the same organizers making another comic con?” people asked.
“Everyone was confused,” says Andriy Yakymenko, who has participated in all KCCs and CCU. “All of my friends asked me why there are two comic cons only three months apart.”
This confusion was intentional, says Alexander Shaghoury, who founded KCC together with his wife. His trademark infringement lawsuit against CCU is based on a claim that CCU deliberately misled the public into thinking that the two festivals were associated.
Shaghoury says that CCU used the timing right after his festival to draw the attention of people who were searching the web for KCC most actively around the time of the event.
“Even the Facebook event that they created was called ‘Comic Con Ukraine / Kyiv.’ So that every person who searches for ‘Kyiv Comic Con’ also ends up on their event’s page,” Shaghoury says.
To be more exact, CCU’s Facebook event was called “Comic Con Ukraine / Kyiv, Platforma Art-zavod / 22–23.09.2018.” The organizers could have put “Kyiv” in the title only to specify the exact location of the event.
The date of the announcement was also deliberate, but for a more noble reason, says the co-founder of CCU, Artem Priadka. CCU announced right after the end of KCC not to harm the competitor’s ticket sales, but at the same time to give enough heads up to their own potential audience, he says.
“Usually such events are announced at least half a year in advance,” Priadka says. “Because people have to make plans, cosplayers have to prepare costumes and so on.”
Indeed, KCC, for example, announced almost six months in advance that it will hold the festival on June 1–2 this year. CCU has yet to set the date for its event in 2019, but it will probably be in September.
The partners of KCC, like comic stores and publishers, have also received invitations from CCU, Shaghoury says, according to what they have told him. He sees this as unethical.
But there is one thing that seems to tick off KCC’s Shaghoury most about CCU.
“In a post on their very first day they started by calling us a false comic con,” Shaghoury says.
Well, not really. In their first Facebook post, CCU appealed to the audience: “Let’s make a real Comic Con (with a Ukrainian flag emoji) together!” The statement doesn’t necessarily imply that other comic cons are false.
But there was another one. On the VK social network, banned and not freely accessible in Ukraine, a user asked: “Why should there be a second comic con in Kyiv?” CCU replied in a comment: “What Kyiv needs is not a second (comic con), but a real one – large, beautiful, with famous guests… well, you got it, right?”
A cosplayer dressed as a demon poses for a photograph at Kyiv Comic Con on May 21, 2018. Kyiv Comic Con is the city’s first comic convention gathering about 12,000 visitors. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
International cases
The main arguments CCU uses in its defense are that “comic con” can’t be trademarked because it’s a generic term even in Ukraine and that there are hundreds of comic cons across the globe that don’t sue each other.
“Comic cons have taken place around the world for over 45 years. Among them, similar conventions coexist peacefully: for example, German Comic Con and Comic Con Germany, Toronto Comicon and Toronto Comic Con,” CCU’s statement says.
But there have been, in fact, several lawsuits around the “comic con” trademark infringement.
In 2014, the original San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) sued Salt Lake Comic Con (SLCC) and won. A U.S. court awarded SDCC $20,000 in damages, although considered the infringement not to be willful.
The media reported that this way SDCC, a non-profit organization, punished SLCC for sending a customized car to SDCC to promote their own event. This incident was specifically cited in the lawsuit.
As a proactive move to avoid legal issues, Phoenix Comicon changed its name to Phoenix Comic Fest and then filed a motion to strike down SDCC’s trademark in January 2018. In the same month, SLCC filed a motion for a new trial against SDCC. Both trials are ongoing.
Several comic conventions in the United States have changed their name after the high-profile lawsuits, but most — dozens of comic cons — have not changed their names.
“It would be very superficial to think that events with ‘comic con’ in their names are held freely. In fact, there are often some agreements in place: either the country’s first comic con licenses a franchise or several comic cons belong to the same organization,” Shaghoury says.
In a case closer to Ukraine, Comic Con Russia won a lawsuit over Comic Con Saint-Petersburg, forcing it to change its name. Now every event with the term “comic con” in its name in Russia belongs to one organization.
“They (Comic Con Russia) had the same implication as KCC has in a suit against us,” Priadka says. “Ukrainian courts are far from perfect, but I don’t want us to backslide to the level of the Russian Federation.”
What fans think
Despite the organizers of KCC and CCU sharing a similar mission — the popularization of comic and entertainment culture — they have not discussed any settlements outside of court. Shaghoury, who knows Priadka and other CCU’s organizers, did not call them before taking them to court. Priadka also didn’t make a step forward. Neither side sees any point.
Running a comic con is becoming a big business, with increasingly more profit as the popular culture industry expands, with more people reading comic books and watching superhero movies. As an entertainment and promotional platform, a comic con can bring money in ticket sales and revenues from partners.
CCU says that more than 20,000 people visited their event in 2018. It estimates that KCC had about 12,000 visitors.
Yakymenko, who supports KCC in the lawsuit, still says that CCU was better organized for both, cosplayers and visitors. He also says that unlike him, most people in the fan community are on the side of CCU.
“Almost all cosplayers hate KCC, saying that ‘comic con is not a property,’” Yakymenko says. “But I think KCC has the right to the name because it registered it first. First come, first serve.”
Dmytro Danyliuk, who was a participant and a lecturer at KCC and the curator of the comics zone at CCU, says that KCC, which used to unite people around popular culture, is doing the opposite with its lawsuit.
“It was an idea around which everyone came together. And now this one festival wants to usurp this idea, this event format,” Danyliuk says. “And it surely doesn’t benefit the development of popular culture in our country.”
Telizhenko, a cosplayer who met her future husband at KCC, says she tries to stay neutral in the dispute. And like all the fans, she thinks that the more comic cons there are the better, and that Kyiv could use another “one, or four, or five.”
“And if they (KCC and CCU) could join forces — they would make something that could bring Ukrainian comic cons to a European level of organization. So I’m all for friendship,” Telizhenko says.
