First, some backstory for the uninitiated (also see “Sued by Starbucks,“ archived online at www.tmcm.com). More than two years ago, I created a parody of the Starbucks logo and threw it up on my fledgling humor web site, LCDcomic.com. My satire arose in response to a Starbucks opening in my own neighborhood. I quickly became hooked on their mocha Frappaccinos, always ordering the “venti“ (the largest size in Starbuckian). Shamefully, if they’d had a Big Gulp size, I would have gotten that, but my growing habit wasn’t the only down side to their local presence.

My neighborhood was now sullied by ever more trash bearing that tentacled temptress, the Starbucks “Siren.“ From the gutter she mocked me with her cold, blank eyes. Her heaving bosom and barely hidden nipples taunted me with promises of chocolatey, caffeinated goodness, so nearby—and only another four bucks! “You’re worth it,“ I heard her say again and again. I felt like a modern-day Argonaut, destined to be dashed on the rocks of my own greedy weakness. Feeling powerless against her, I did the only thing I was qualified to do: mock her right back.

The response to my design was so positive that I printed the image on the debut cover of my comic book LCD: Kieron Dwyer’s Lowest Comic Denominator. I also used it on T-shirts and stickers, which I sold and gave away. Profit wasn’t my primary goal; I was content to sell a few here and there to pay for the freebies. I was just happy to be spreading my message and connecting with other like-minded people.

Then I got sued.

No cease-and-desist letter, no diplomatic warning shot across the bow. On April 29, 2000, I was served with a huge lawsuit by Starbucks, and the battle was joined. I was terrified yet excited. I didn’t want this to be my life’s defining moment, but I didn’t want to back down. This was classic schoolyard bully stuff: David and Goliath, Evil Corporate Amerikkka versus private citizen, supervillain versus superhero.

Allow me to digress with some ruminations on the nature of the hero. It’s a rich subject, to be sure. Many of our legends and inspirational tales are chronicles of the hero’s journey, but what does it mean to be a hero? Having spent most of my life in the four-color world of comic book superheroes, I’d like to say I have a definitive answer, but I don’t. Professionally, I’ve drawn the adventures of Superman, Batman, Captain America, and many other enduring American icons of heroism—but what qualities make them heroes?

Although there are exceptions, most comic book heroes are largely defined by the enemies they fight. Whether superpowered or not, in the face of overwhelming, world-dominating evil, the costumed do-gooders have little choice but to oppose their villainous counterparts. As Stan Lee, via Spider-man, so eloquently put it: “With great power comes great responsibility.“ The folks at Starbucks (and the rest of corporate America, for that matter) seem to have their own spin on the phrase: “With great power comes great responsibility. . . to the shareholders.“

Another oft-quoted phrase also springs to mind: “The business of America is business.“ Truly, the Bottom Line is King in this country—if not the whole world. I suppose it’s always been so to some extent, but never more so than in these days of mega-mergers. A recent article in Adbusters magazine (archived on their site at www.adbusters.org) clued me in on the rise of corporations in human history. It’s frightening stuff. According to the article, everything changed in 1886, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a railbed dispute titled Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. “The ruling held that a private corporation was a ‘natural person’ entitled to all the rights and privileges of a human being. It was one of the greatest blunders in legal history, and it triggered the corporations’ 100-year march to global power.“ (Adbusters #31, Aug./Sept. 2000.)

This ruling gave corporations the same rights as individual persons, which means, in effect, they have more rights than individuals. Most individuals don’t have the financial or manpower resources of a corporation, and therefore have far less protection against a company than vice-versa.

In my case, I certainly didn’t have the money to fight Starbucks on equal ground, so my options were to fight within my means for as long as I could, or lay down and let the bulldozer roll over me. It didn’t seem like much of a choice. Andy Gold, my lawyer, had worked largely for free. While he wanted to “take them to the mat,“ he was understandably unwilling to proceed indefinitely without more financial compensation. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) kindly pledged some financial assistance, but it covered only a fraction of Andy’s billable hours, and nobody else rose to the challenge. And despite their verbal support, some friends and acquaintances could still be found slinking into a Starbucks for their afternoon latté. Many felt compelled to confess these “slips“ to me. Instead of absolution, I admonished them that every dollar they spent at the Evil Empire was a dollar spent on crushing me and my kind like so many overpriced coffee beans.

See, that’s the problem with the whole hero thing: no one takes it very seriously. Sure, everyone loves a heroic tale, but very few people want to actually take the hero’s journey. It’s a road fraught with peril. Unlike fairy tales, real life isn’t fair. Good people get hurt, and bad people win sometimes.

After the initial hearing in my case, Judge Maxine Chesney set the lawyers for both sides to the task of crafting a final injunction order, which she would then sign. From the get-go, the Starbucks team bullied us, pushing for more than the judge had indicated she would grant. They had virtually ignored the existence of my comic book through the hearing, then suddenly insisted it must be included in the items I am forbidden to sell. The judge evidently bought into their ploy. It’s obvious now that Starbucks used me to set an example. When a diplomatic approach could have sufficed, they came in with both barrels blazing. Their intent was to crush the little guy and maintain the Bottom Line.

After the injunction order was signed, settlement talks began. Again, Starbucks pushed for more than they were entitled to. At every turn, they sought to stifle the limited expression I had retained. I tried to comply with each new demand. First it was the use of the parody logo on my web site. They wanted it on its own page, so I coded my site to display the logo and accompanying info on my case in a separate browser window. This stand-alone page had no link back to the main site. Eventually, though, Starbucks claimed that to have the logo anywhere on my site was an inducement to buy other products for sale on the site, and thus violated the injunction. They insisted that the logo must be on its own separate site, with no connection to the LCD site at all and no links to or from the mysterious logo site that no one could find or know about. They were basically saying I could cut down as many forest trees as I liked, so long as no one could be there to hear. This thing now felt personal.

My girlfriend wondered if someone high up at Starbucks had really felt hurt by my swipe and wanted some form of vengeance. I laughed off her idea as feminine sympathizing, but now I’m not so sure. Is it possible that Starbucks has brainwashed its employees so heavily that they take such satire personally? This is a company that has packaged and sold a wholesome image of coffee-house comfort while taking advantage of small farmers worldwide and causing great harm to the environment—but suddenly they have feelings to hurt when a small-time cartoonist sells a couple of hundred T-shirts mocking them? An actual individual, a public figure like a politician who spends money to be elected to a job we pay for, has less of a right to his or her own likeness than a company’s nonliving, nonfeeling corporate icon. I can make fun of President George W. Bush and profit from distortions of his image as long as I like, but I cannot profit from a parody of a company that spends millions of dollars to burn its logo into our collective brains.

With limited financial resources (read: none), I was at a real crossroads. I couldn’t pay Andy Gold a cent, and the CBLDF’s money could only go so far. We finally met with representatives from Starbucks at a settlement conference in the offices of a magistrate judge. One of the key sticking points was the existence of a new logo, the “Copyright This!“ logo adorning the ass of the cover girl on another issue of LCD. Starbucks considered it another violation of the injunction order and wanted it included in that order. In our private meetings with the judge, she agreed that Starbucks was overreaching, but she clarified things for me. In essence, she confirmed that the legal system is tilted in favor of Starbucks and every company like it. They can and will tie you up in litigation as long as they want, she said, and maybe you’ll win in the end, but it will cost you a lot of time and money to find out. You may be right, but how much does it matter to you to be the fly in Starbucks’ ointment? Can you walk away from it?

It was an odd thing to hear from a judge—both refreshing and disturbing. In my heart I had always known it to be true, but it was powerful to hear it straight from the person charged with dispensing justice. We haggled for the better part of a day, until we arrived at something I was willing (if not happy) to sign. As a condition of the settlement, I can’t disclose any of its terms, but I can continue to take shots at the Java Juggernaut, so long as I carefully obey the letter of the law. As far as I’m concerned, it was Starbucks that made this personal, but I’m happy to return fire. My eyes have been opened by this experience, so while I’m disappointed that I didn’t defeat Starbucks, I’m actually glad to have made this journey. I’ve learned a lot about the the law and myself.

Despite Starbucks’ contentions and Judge Chesney’s opinions, I still believe it’s wrong to define the borders of free speech along commercial and noncommercial lines. In fact, one of the strongest precedents in First Amendment protection as it pertains to copyrights and trademarks is the case of 2 Live Crew. The band created a send-up of the Roy Orbison tune, “Oh! Pretty Woman,“ which contained sampled parts of the original song. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the band’s right to profit from the parody. And ask yourself why it was all right for a “fine“ artist like Andy Warhol to print countless lithos of Campbell's tomato-soup cans or for Roy Lichtenstein to “borrow“ art from published, copyrighted works and reap huge financial rewards. The message seems to be that if your work is printed on canvas or paper, it’s art, but on cotton fabric (i.e., a T-shirt), it’s simply commercial. Just don’t tell that to all the museums and stationers who’ve sold millions of posters and greeting cards reproducing artists’ work. Free speech, it seems, isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

To paraphrase a Benjamin Franklin quote, “The only use in money is the use of money.“ I suggest that the same holds true for speech. Free speech is not a card trick to be pulled out whenever there’s a lull in the party, nor is it a convenient shield to hold up whenever we knowingly say or do something harmful or wrong. It’s an everyday thing, a precious right to examine and expose our true selves. Every day that we make the choice to get up and put some piece of ourselves out in the world, we make a difference. A small one, sure. Immeasurable, perhaps—but it does add up. The human race advances not usually in giant leaps, but rather in a long string of innumerable small steps. So to some degree, we each walk in the shoes of heroes.