Stan Lee renaming convention may be good news for S.L. Comic Con


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SALT LAKE CITY — Stan Lee, the father of the Marvel universe, may have unintentionally tipped the scales in a trademark lawsuit between Salt Lake Comic Con and San Diego Comic-Con by renaming his own Comikaze event.

Lee this week announced he is renaming his 6-year-old pop culture and comic convention to "Stan Lee's Los Angeles Comic Con." While the move led Los Angeles city leaders to declare the Oct. 28 opening of the event "Stan Lee Day," it may put Lee in the crosshairs of neighboring San Diego Comic-Con.

A fixture in pop culture and long-time leader on the convention circuit, the San Diego event is currently trying to sue rival Salt Lake Comic Con over the right to call itself a "comic con."

San Diego Comic-Con filed a trademark violation lawsuit against Salt Lake's startup event in August 2014 after the Utah convention became an overnight success. In the lawsuit, the San Diego convention claims legal ownership over the term "comic con" in its various forms, though similar events around the country use it.

San Diego Comic-Con holds the trademark on "comic-con," with a hyphen, but abandoned its 1995 bid for the rights to "comic con" with a space.

A San Diego Comic-Con spokesman declined to comment on the ongoing litigation Friday.

Salt Lake Comic Con organizers believe the term "comic con," which is used by similar events around the world, is too generic to trademark. The fact that Lee has chosen to use the phrase for his own event backs that argument, Salt Lake Comic Con co-founder Bryan Brandenburg said Friday.

"We thought it made our great case just fantastic," Brandenburg said of Lee's decision. "If they really want to sue Stan Lee, then let them try it."

Brandenburg said he and co-founder Dan Farr have been in touch with Lee's management team since the name change announcement. They are aware of the trademark dispute, Brandenburg said, but aren't concerned.

Lee's support, intentional or not, is especially meaningful to Salt Lake Comic Con fans. Lee was a favorite guest at the inaugural Utah event in 2013 and again in 2014.

The Salt Lake and San Diego conventions have been in settlement talks for nearly a year. Though he didn't discuss the terms, Brandenburg said Friday the two had a deal on the table that expired Sept. 15.

While those at Salt Lake Comic Con hold deep respect for their San Diego counterpart and the event's contributions to "nerdom," Brandenburg said he and Farr are prepared to go to trial if a mutually acceptable deal can't be reached.

"Ideally we would love to have this thing settled, but on the other hand we're not willing to change our name and we don't want to have a lot of restrictions on us about what we can do," he said.

Salt Lake Comic Con wrapped up its fourth event this month, headlined by Star Wars icon Mark Hamill and attracting more than 120,000 fans at its peak. While it had been announced earlier this year that the event wouldn't put on its smaller FanX convention next spring, Brandenburg said organizers have a date on hold for next March, just in case.

"If we can come up with a design of FanX that breaks out, really creates a new kind of exciting brand in this convention business, then we're going to proceed," Brandenburg said.

The ideas currently being discussed, he said, "could be a game changer."

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McKenzie Romero

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