Todd McFarlane Productions Inc.
filed for Chapter 11 protection a few days ago. Tony Twist was recently awarded a ginormous amount of money in court ($15 million!) from Spawn creator Todd McFarlane. McFarlane used Twist's name for a character in one of his Spawn comic books.
Twist claims that defamation of character ruined endorsement deals. Yeah, I'm sure Nike and Pepsi were knocking at his door before Spawn. If anything, having your name out there in a popular comic book would give you street cred with the kids. It certainly couldn't hurt his perception with adults...how many adults would know anything about a secondary comic book character? Claiming his name had anything to do with Spawn's success is insane. How many people have ever heard of this knucklehead? McFarlane was definitely wrong for using his name, but a $15 million hammer is absurd.
Tony Twist exploited the system and won.