A new line of comic book-inspired beers by Central City Brewers has already hit store shelves, but future shipments are on hold after concerns over a character on the label.
The company is redesigning the label after copyright concerns were raised about an image described as being “a little bit too close” to an existing comic book character.
The beer is called Detective Saison and it is the first in a new series of beverages by the Surrey-based brewer, makers of the popular Red Racer line of craft beers.
The series takes a unique angle by having each brew represent a character in an overarching storyline based in a fictional Central City universe.
Detective Saison was recently launched as the debut beer, but the initial design used for the female detective character has been called into question.
Last week, a Kelowna-based designer tweeted the character design used for Detective Saison bore a striking similarity to Deena Pilgrim, a detective character used in the Powers Supergroup comic, published by U.S.-based Image Comics.
“Neat idea w/ Detective Saison but did you have to completely copy @Brianmbendis?” tweeted Myron Campbell, showing a side-by-side image of Detective Saison and Deena Pilgrim.
Campbell, who also teaches visual arts at UBC Okanagan, said he did a double take in the store when he saw the bottle.
“I thought, ‘Wow that kind of looks similar to Powers,’ and I did a quick search and it really is like Powers,” he said.
Also a fan of craft beer and the Powers comic series, Campbell said for him there are too many similarities for it to be a coincidence.
“The pose, the shadows, the fingers. It’s arguably a little bit too close,” he said.
Tim Barnes, VP of sales and marketing for Central City Brewers, said he was not able to comment directly on any comparisons between the label and the Powers character, only that the company was “not comfortable” with the current label. As a result, the company is redesigning the label and is not shipping any more of the product until that process is complete.
“I can tell you that we’re in a very awkward situation right now,” he said, adding the similarity was brought to the company’s attention last Thursday.
As for the bottles already on store shelves, Barnes said they would not be recalling those at this time, but instead holding the rest of the product that’s yet to be shipped out.
“At this point we’re not doing a product recall, what we are doing is a non-ship and we’ve taken it off our shelves at our liquor store and brewery,” said Barnes.
Being in the design industry himself, Campbell said he feels for Central City as it appears to be an honest mistake on its part.
“I’m sure they assumed that they got original artwork and now a client is at fault in a situation when it’s a design agency’s integrity to make sure everything out the door is original. That’s what the client is paying for,” said Campbell. “I’m sure they didn’t know and the design agency is really the one that should’ve known better.”
After Campbell’s tweet regarding the similarities made the rounds on Twitter, Michael Oeming, creator of the graphic novel series tweeted: “Well, looks like I’m going to own a Beer company,” before following up with, “I’m kidding. But stealing art and copyright isn’t very cool. Just ask.”
And while it may be off to a rocky start, Barnes said the idea of a story-based beer line will continue, with four more beers planned for 2015.
“I want to reinforce the fact that we’re not going to let any one individual stop an idea that we feel is still a good idea,” said Barnes. “So what we’re going to do is come back with another label but we still want to pursue the story, we still think it’s a good idea and we don’t want this very awkward situation from stopping us doing what we want to do.”
Campbell is also a fan of the idea, and hopes to see something good come out of the situation.
“It’s a super awesome interesting idea, and it would be great to collaborate with local comic book artists and in turn showcase their work,” he said.
Barnes said the new labels would likely be ready to ship in about four weeks and that the company is more motivated than ever to make the beer series work.
“This isn’t going on the back burner,” he said. “We don’t want this challenge to stop us from doing what we want to do. The one thing I can tell you is that Central City does not steal ideas, that’s not how we operate.”
