The Pirates and the Mouse: Disney's War Against the Underground

by Bob Levin

They fought the Mouse and the Mouse (eventually) won,but it was a battle that left everyone bloodied...

During a time of unprecedented political, social, and cultural upheaval in U.S. history, one of the fiercest battles was ignited by a comic book. In 1963, the San Francisco Chronicle made 21-year-old Dan O'Neill the youngest syndicated cartoonist in American newspaper history. As O'Neill delved deeper into the emerging counterculture, his strip, Odd Bodkins, became stranger and stranger and more and more provocative, until the papers in the syndicate dropped it and the Chronicle let him go. The lesson that O'Neill drew from this was that what America most needed was the destruction of Walt Disney. O'Neill assembled a band of rogue cartoonists called the Air Pirates (after a group of villains who had bedeviled Mickey Mouse in comic books and cartoons). They lived communally in a San Francisco warehouse owned by Francis Ford Coppola and put out a comic book, Air Pirates Funnies, that featured Disney characters participating in very un-Disneylike behavior, provoking a mammoth lawsuit for copyright and trademark infringements and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. Disney was represented by one of San Francisco's top corporate law firms and the Pirates by the cream of the counterculture bar. The lawsuit raged for 10 years, from the trial court to the US Supreme Court and back again.

The novelist and essayist Bob Levin recounts this rollicking saga with humor, wit, intelligence, and skill, bringing alive the times, the issues, the absurdities, the personalities, the changes wrought within them and us all. Includes never-before seen art from the Air Pirates archives! Two excerpted chapters of this book in The Comics Journal in 2001 proved to be one of the magazine's most popular features in recent memory. Black-and-white illustrations throughout.

-Two excerpted chapters in The Comics Journal last year proved to be one of the mag's most popular features in recent memory
- Of interest to Disneyana collectors and Disney-haters alike
- Legal precedents will make this a popular library and academic text
- Major review attention
- Advance reading copies
- Widespread cultural appeal

Genres: History, Art, Nonfiction, Comics

266 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2003

Reviews

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dan O'Neill and his "Air Pirates" collective were, by virtue of opinion, either narcotic-gobbling subhominid perverts, or the most brazen geniuses in the history of comix (and copyright law). Either way, they've been largely forgotten by history. This book does its part to remedy that with plenty of high adventure and debauchery, Though its written by a civil liberties lawyer, so be prepared for an assload of footnotes and legal jargon, as well as "I'm-hot-shit-cos-I-was-alive-in the-sixties" self love. Highly recommended, nonetheless.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Air Pirates vs Disney draws a considerable amount of conclusions. 1) Dan O'Neill is an entertainingly angry man. 2) Disney is a complete monster. 3)it's possible to tell a good story without being the best storyteller.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engrossing story of the Disney empire trying to keep us childlike, versus the underground 60's folk trying to hold on to their adolescence and the culture war that ensued.

[Norman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of the Air Pirates and their court case brought by the Disney Corporation is something I knew happened but nothing much else. This book certainly fills the void in my knowledge.
The content of the interviews with, not only the Pirates but also their lawyers and also Disney's lawyers are very well presented. I was glad of the little asides about the veracity of comments and memories of the participants after 20 years and appreciated the reproductions of some of the strips that brought the lawsuit. Discussions of copyright issues and the law were always interesting and to point, the author giving his opinion too - he is an attorney.
So all-in-all a good history book and will, I suspect, always be the best work on this incident. However, it's written in a very tongue-in-cheek, chatty style which I found off-putting especially as the Americanisms are so prevalent. Glad I read it once and educated myself in this alleyway of comic history

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well now I hate Disney even more than before. A bit dry

[Ben Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating look at a case I knew nothing about.

[Michael Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible non-fiction book about a twenty-year legal battle between Dan O'Neill (a San Francisco-based underground cartoonist) and a group known as the Air Pirates who took on Disney in a riotously profane and irreverent parody of many Disney characters.

This book has much to say about copyright law, parody law, freedom of speech, an artist's right to protect his work, and the counter-culture's right to poke fun at it. It raises provocative questions, and does so with showing you many samples of the Air Pirates' work (which I actually LOVED).

Instead of a dry courtroom case, you get a look into the minds of creative individuals on both sides of the legal battle...the Disney honchos doing their best to protect the integrity and the merchandising of their characters...and the Air Pirates advancing the belief that ALL art should be able to be questioned and parodied.

One of the best books I read in the last year.

[Matthew Lipson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was obligated to read this book, as my undergraduate thesis was on Underground Comix as a reflection of 1960s America, and the thesis sites the publication of Dsn O'Niell's Air Pirates as the pivotal comic in the end of the Underground Comix phenomena. As we all know by now, you take on Disney you lose. This became a landmark case in establishing the rules backing parody in relation to copyrighted material. Owning the comix in question, it is easy to see the parody, but the problem came in the fact they did not change any of the likenesses of the characters. While relying on the original Mickey Mouse designs as drawn in the daily newspaper strips of the 1930s to 1950s, they were still the mouse and his cohorts. The problem with the book is it reads more like a law textbook on copyright and parody, so it is not accessible to the untrained curious reader.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Air Pirates were a group of underground cartoonists led by Dan O'Neil. They felt Disney had gotten too big for its britches, was trying to sanitize and control too much culture, and was a ripe target for parody/satire. Disney did not agree and brought its full, goliath legal strength down upon this small group of practically destitute artists. Levin does a good job of capturing the zeitgeist of the times, channeling the talented and charming nature of these "criminal" cartoonists, and tapping in to the serious legal and ethical questions related to copyright, first amendment rights, and the artist's role in culture. Levin's wife Adele makes the most poignant remarks of the whole story. Plus, you get to see a few raunchy depictions of Mickey Mouse!

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fascinating story of how the underground comic artists lead by Dan O'Neill creator of the comic strip "Odd Bodkins" (ever heard of it?) that ran in the SF Chronical for some years took on the cultural hegemony that the Disney corporation represents. The book is written by a lawyer albeit one with a distinctly soft spot for the underground comic crusaders that produced two comic books in the early 70's titled "Mickey Mouuse Meets The Air Pirates". They tried to get issue three out but Disney's lawyers saw to it that it never saw the light of day.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great story I knew only the tiniest bits & pieces of prior to reading - a must for indie comic fans and/or Disney haters ...

I prob'ly oughta get off this pirate theme ...

[Pete Bangs · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched and well written tale of the sledgehammer Disney uses to protect it's Intellectual Property and the naivity of the people who take on this behemoth.