(Credit: Johnny Winter)
Lawsuits are unsuspectingly common within the music industry, often centred around contractual or royalty disputes, and occasionally focusing on copyright law. However, the industry has also seen its fair share of truly bizarre legal battles. From John Fogerty being sued for plagiarisng himself to Dead Kennedys duking it out in court over a painting of penises, the legal system has overseen some truly strange musical cases, but one of the strangest involved DC Comics and the legendary blues guitarist Johnny Winter.
Although Winter’s name has never commanded the attention of the music mainstream, he is often heralded as one of America’s all-time greatest guitarists by his fellow musicians. Immersing himself in blues music from a young age, he began performing guitar with local high school bands during his teenage years in Texas during the late 1950s. From there, he continued to master his craft throughout the 1960s, eventually getting the opportunity to collaborate with Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, who made a name for themselves alongside Bob Dylan.
It was in 1968 that Winter released his debut album, The Progressive Blues Experiment, which kicked off an expansive career in blues guitar spanning decades and collaborating with a wealth of iconic artists, notably Muddy Waters. Despite his musical quality, however, the Texan guitarist was often noted exclusively for his wild, drug-fueled antics, as well as the fact that he was legally blind and, along with his younger brother Edgar, was born with albinism.
Albino people have often been the subject of discrimination and alienation going back hundreds of years, and the Winter brothers certainly experienced their fair share. So, when two grotesque, inbred characters appeared in a DC comic book named Johnny and Edgar Autumn, Winter was understandably hurt. The comic characters, written by Joe Lansdale, appeared in a 1996 series called Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such, and soon became the subject of a lawsuit filed by Winter.
Jonah Hex is a classic DC anti-hero, first appearing in 1972, with John Wayne-like gruff stoicism and cynicism. In the offending 1996 series, Hex encounters a ranch full of ‘monsters’, named the Autumn Brothers, who turn out to be the product of the rape of a human woman by an underground race.
In the words of Johnny and Edgar Winter, filed in their lawsuit against DC Comics and writer Joe Lansdale, the characters were, “vile, depraved, stupid, cowardly, subhuman individuals who engage in wanton acts of violence, murder and bestiality for pleasure and who should be killed.”
Nevertheless, Lansdale argued, “It was our intent to use the Jonah Hex comic book series as a vehicle for satire and parody of musical genres, Texas music in particular, as well as old radio shows, movie serials and the like.” Adding, “We feel within our rights to parody music, stage personas, album personas, lyrics, and public figures.” Ultimately, DC Comics supported this defence of the series and of the portrayal of the Winter brothers.
In 1998, after a legal battle which stretched nearly two years, all counts against the comic book – including defamation, emotional distress, negligence, and invasion of privacy – were thrown out by a court in Los Angeles, with the judge citing the writer’s First Amendment rights of free speech. Nevertheless, the case remains one of the strangest musical lawsuits to ever enter the US legal system.
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Exploring the strange case of Johnny Winter, the blues guitarist who sued DC Comics in 1996 over a grotesque portrayal of him in a series of Jonah Hex comics. Read More