Ronald McDonald® McDonald’s Corporation
Mike McMahon’s cover for Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth Uncensored (Rebellion Publishing 2016) vs. Ronald McDonald®
McDonald’s is the world’s largest toy distributor: Happy Meals, which include a toy, account for 20% of all McDonald’s sales, which marginally exceeds 75 hamburgers per second (USA Today).
Four episodes in the original Cursed Earth series (progs 61–85 (1978)), written by John Wagner and Chris Lowder (aka Jack Adrian), featured trademarked characters used without permission that prompted a lawsuit in 1978 involving the publishers of 2000 AD (then IPC Magazines), Burger King, McDonald’s and B&G Foods. In 2014 a European directive on copyright law was implemented into UK law sanctioning the use of copyright-protected characters for parody, thereby allowing for the republication of the stories in 2016, after a hiatus of nearly 38 years.
The two troublesome stories were Battle of the Burger Barons! in prog 71 and Burger Law! in prog 72 (together known as Burger Wars [featured in HoH No. 64]), and Giants Aren’t Gentlemen! in prog 77 and Soul Food in prog 78 (together known as Soul Food).
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