This modern-day David vs. Goliath tale has captured the imagination of the blogosphere!

ComicsAlliance.com:

David Rees, who created the scathing post-9/11 clip art webcomic “Get Your War On,” recently brought our attention to a Jamba Juice advertising campaign that totally, totally rips off the strip. I don’t just mean it uses stock images in a similarly ironic fashion, I mean that it uses exactly the same clip art in exactly the same way…. Rees has called for a boycott of Jamba Juice, so you can do your part by putting down the smoothie and instead of giving them money, give them the mockery that they so richly deserve. (My emphasis)

Timothy Buckwalter:

Yeah, I’m an appropriationist. I take other people’s drawings and twist them into my paintings…. Shepard Fairey, Richard Prince and Jeff Koons have been involved with the legal or court systems over their appropriation….

I’m all for appropriation. 

Except when this happens: a corporation hires a snappy ad agency that makes something in the style of a cool artist.

In this case, Emeryville’s Jamba Juice has aped the hilariously drowl work of David Rees. Actually, “aped” is an under-exaggeration, they have copied (down to the speech bubbles) Rees’s “Get Your War On” comic series. Loads of companies do something similar. refering to something cooler than themselves raises their hip-ness factor….

But is it okay to just take the work of an artist, without asking, and use it to sell your product? Fck no. (My emphasis)

Andy on the Road:

I’m rarely (maybe never) one to advocate an expansion of intellectual property law, and I’m trying very hard to imagine how I would feel if Rees ripped on Jamba Juice instead of the other way around, but I feel as though the law should provide remedy for this sort of shameless ripoff.

(By the way, the Andy on the Road link is a must-read. It’s a very thoughtful post, with a good discussion in the comments about how annoyed I have a right to be re: Jooby Juice.)

More soon! Including a totally serious post from me about all of this.

Juice sucks, drink wine.

Know Hope.

Okay, so I was talking a big game about a National Day of Prayer against Jurmbah Juice, and then I realized I don’t really know how to organize an event like that.

Do we all have to be praying in the space place, or can we pray in the privacy of our own homes? Should we all converge on a Jlobby Juice franchise in Manhattan, and pray at the top of our lungs– and pray and pray until the whole place is empty because of how fervently we’re praying? And then move on to the next one…?

… and just pray our way across America, destroying Jumby Juice franchises left and right, leaving a trail of prayerful destruction in our wake?

SOUNDS GOOD TO ME. I’ll rent a big bus and be in touch …

(NOTE: I’m going to stop typing out J-A-M-B-A Juice because I don’t want to drive their “google hit-ranking,” or “technorati page count,” or “twitter-hit buzz #surging,” or whatever popularity algorithm their online marketing consultants use to justify their outrageous fees.)

I’ve received some nice emails from readers about the intellectual crimes of Jarpa Juice. Thought I’d share them with you, to keep you FIRED UP and MOTIVATED for the upcoming war! (Because this war will not be quick, and it will not be fun, and it will not even be ironically amusing. We are in for a long slog. We are taking down a national juice company, i.e. Jhumpa Lahiri Juice.)

From reader NL:

I can understand that you’re displeased with [REDACTED JUICE COMPANY], but I don’t see why you have to call for suing them. The way I see it, you’ve been loaning your site’s bandwidth to Karate Snoopy for YEARS. I say, hit the dude up for a favor. Have him whoosh over to [REDACTED JUICE COMPANY] corporate and start kicking people in the face. Just let me know if he agrees to do it, please; it’d be an excellent time to invest heavily in ambulance futures. (People who understand this reference are my kind of people –ed.)

From reader DD:

I’m sure you get this all the time, but I’ve been literally reading your shit since mnftiu.cc was just a pink picture of the skewed-ass dude at the computer, and you could only choose fighting or filing. Maybe it was only fighting at the time. (this was back in 2000 –ed.) ALL IM sayin is that i remember when the normal man feat. karate snoopy strip (“Karate Klassic”) was the FRESH SHIT…. I also was finally moved to write to you after all these years ever since I logged on at work today to find this FUCKING TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE aka [REDACTED JUICE COMPANY] appropriation/rip off extravaganza 2k9 edition. I know how fucked that shit is. And I also know who the real OG is. Never give up.

I will never give up! As long as I have breath, I will complain to everyone I meet about the lazy, disingenuous appropriation of my cartooning style by the goofballs over at Jabba Juice!!!

KNOW HOPE.

We are gonna shut down Jamba Juice with a National Day of Prayer. Stay tuned for details!

Know hope.

No juice.

Okay, so last week I posted about Jamba Juice biting my style in their amoral quest to sell juice.

Some of my high-powered twitter friends took that ball and ran with it, and now all of the internet is lining up to support me in my war against Jamba Juice, the worst juice franchise in all of America!

Look at what all these nice people are saying.

James Urbaniak:

I’ve enjoyed many a Jamba Juice (I forgive you –ed.) so I was disappointed to learn that their current marketing campaign features a blatant ripoff of David Rees’s detournement classic Get Your War On. Rees, of course, is appropriating free stock images but the Jamba Juice campaign is not doing the same thing. They are appropriating what Rees does with those images, right down to the way he renders his word balloons. I have no idea how the case would hold up in intellectual property court and Rees says on his website he’s not interested in legal action (only a boycott). But it’s plain as day: Jamba Juice ripped him off. (My emphasis)

Okay, umm… actually I was hoping to post, like, 100 blog posts of outraged super-fans promising to march and protest until the streets run red with raspberry-grabble-berry frost, or whatever crazy-ass juice they’re selling over at Jamba Junk. But I haven’t really seen many blog posts about this insane crime yet.

So if you see a blog post re: My war with Jamba Juice, please let me know and I’ll post it here!

My goal is to make mnftiu.cc the definitive source for news about my war with Jamba Juice!

Know hope.

Oh snap, hometown heroes Merge Records are turning “XX” this year!!! (That’s the indie-rock-hobo-symbol for “20.”)

I grew up in Chapel Hill so I know all about Merge Records and all the records they put out. I even have some old 7″ singles from classic NC bands like Zen Frisbee, Bicycle Face (were they on Merge or Moist? Can’t remember), and Jodeci.

LOL, remember when Jodeci was on Merge? Those shows at the Cradle were amazing. I remember once when Bicycle Face opened up for Jodeci, that show was off the hook. (I guarantee for the .04 people who understand that joke, it is the greatest joke of all time.)

Also, remember when Erectus Monotone and Jodeci put out that split 7″ single? Amazing, both bands recorded live at Duck Kee studios, amazing session. I think Evil Weiner wanted in on the action, but the guys in Jodeci didn’t like Evil Weiner’s Christmas shows at the Hard Back Cafe and so they put the kibosh on it.

I remember that each Merge record came with a little slip of paper inside it, where Mac would type something like, “Hope everyone likes this new James Taylor single, we think it’s awesome, it’s called ‘Fire and Rain,’ pump it up and ROCK! Here’s what we’re listening to these days … (and then he’d list the most obscure pop bands on Earth and you’d feel like an idiot for not knowing what he was talking about, like, “The Feelies?” What’s that? Why are all the bands from New Zealand all of a sudden?)

Anyway, let’s celebrate Mac and Laura’s accomplishment by posting youtube videos of some of my favorite Merge jams. (Remember, as I have explained countless times, my musical knowledge basically stops at 1996.)

Here’s a classic, from one of my favorite indie rock albums:

Good ol’ Polvo. I have the version of this album with the lions on the cover that had to be recalled because they stole the image from the Mormon Church(?) or something. Anyway, I wore out that CD.

More Merge memories to come …

Justice keeps getting more and more “no.” Here are the best sentences from the winning Mitt Romney essays:

1. “The ultimate and real strength of America lies not in her military might or economic prosperity — but in her families and faith in God. American families face unprecedented attacks from higher tax burdens, welfare policies that reward illegitimacy and activist judges who want to re-define marriage.” –Runner-up Thomas Ginster (he gets a baseball signed by Mitt Romney, the lucky devil)

2. “Whatever challenges may confront us, I sense that we will triumph even still.”
–Runner-up Lt. Eric Russell (currently serving in Iraq; I guess they’ll send his signed baseball to his Forward Operating Base? Get it? “Base”-ball?)

3. “Like my father before me, I am proud to call the United States my home.”
–Can’t argue with Runner-up Yolanda Bryant!

4. “Freedom is not an end, but an on-going commitment to action … to safeguard all that is precious to us –- family, fundamental principles of truth, and a divinely-appointed duty to fight for the right.”
–Putting this on a bumper sticker TONIGHT. Credit to Runner-up Nanci Wudel, who, by the looks of her photo, is a professional freedom-essay-contest writer.

Still can’t believe these people entered the essay contest even after I explicitly told everyone on the internet not to enter. Bah!

Even MORE no justice? How much more no justice can we take? Thanks to everyone who forwarded this Jamba Juice advertisemo-tainment:

This is an online animated video about going on some kind of stupid “Jamba Juice vacation” in your cubicle.

Couple things:

1. “Bob?” You violated the first law of the GYWO clip art!!! THESE DUDES DON’T HAVE NAMES. It’s “Accounts Receivable” and “Accounts Payable” and that’s IT.

2. The clip art is public domain, of course, anyone can do anything with it … but check out the word balloons! JAMBA JUICE TOTALLY BIT MY GYWO WORD BALLOON STYLE! Rounded-edge text box with single line pointing to mouth? I developed that in 2001 using Quark XPress 4!!! THAT’S MY SHIT!!! Jamba Juice, you’re a bunch of BALLOON-BITERS.

3. First person to sue Jamba Juice on my behalf CAN KEEP ALL THE MONEY. All I care about is destroying Jamba Juice and their overpriced dumb-ass juices. EAT A PIECE OF FRUIT, you morons, you’re missing most of the fiber.

4. Whoever made this ad is probably a 22 year-old “creative” at some ad agency in Tech Valley, CA. Way to think outside the box, sonny. Have fun snorting cocaine at the nightclub you go to with your friends who work at Twitter or wherever. And no, Adult Swim will NOT buy your stupid cartoon you’re developing with your housemates about four guys who work at an ad agency but are secretly lobsters.

Goddamn, I need to get Code Pink on the case about this. I’ll take this shit to the Supreme Court and live-blog my own lawsuit. Judge Sotomayor better side with me.

BOYCOTT JAMBA JUICE!

JUICE SUCKS, DRINK WINE

(I’m going to organize a national boycott and DAY OF ACTION for next week. STAY TUNED.)

Thanks to reader SM for alerting me to the sad news: I didn’t win the Mitt Romney essay contest.

Where is justice? Did justice take a holiday? Did anyone do more to hype this contest than me? There was a $50 entry fee, you know … I probably brought in $10,000 for Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC.

Hmm, let’s take a look at the winning essay:

What does a free and strong America mean to me?

It means I have the right to follow my dreams, to strive for success, to be innovative, to do as I, the individual sees fit …

Actually, I can’t make fun of the winning essay. Know why? Because it was literally written by a child, and this blog has a “no-making-fun-of-children” policy, even when said child is probably being raised in a basement by G. Gordon Liddy.

More analyses of the winning essays to follow …

 

11:51 AM: These hearings need some PASSION, some HEAT … even the bailiff looks bored …

11:58 AM: Judge Grassley calls the first witness: “I call Ms. Sotomayor to the stand!”

11:59 AM: BAILIFF CONFISCATES NUNCHUCKS … deadly ninja fighting sticks … chaos in the courtroom … Code Pink whips out throwing stars, goes buck-wild …

12:05 PM: A new line of questioning about judicial terms from Senator Wavdljkrh: “What’s the difference between a metaphor and a simile? I have a friend who wants to know.” Sotomayor: “A metaphor is the same as a simile. Anyone who bothers to make a distinction is an idiot…” MORE CHAOS … Code Pink is screaming metaphors at the top of their lungs …

12:06 PM: Judge Grassley: “Order in the court! Order in the court!” … Looks around for his little wooden hammer (you know, that thing they knock against the desk to make everyone be quiet)… “Where’s my little wooden hammer?” … Someone says something about the 5th Amendment: “I cannot tell a lie, ask someone else…”

12:07 PM: Little wooden hammer has been found. BANG BANG BANG BANG, he’s going crazy with it …

12:10 PM: LUNCH BREAK. They ran out of pastries. I eat the rest of my butter.

12:20 PM: “As a general proposition, if the amendment is incorporated, can we get a legal ruling that says I’m the best senator?” — asked by Senator Kwepoihga. One of the cameramen rolls his eyes almost imperceptibly … but I notice … nothing escapes my live-blogging …

12:46 PM: My favorite senator, Senator Graham (Cracker, LOL), makes a great point about the Second Amendment: “America unlike a lot of other countries, has a unique relationship with the Second Amendment” (paraphrasing) … No shit, you dingbat, it’s our amendment … why would Luxembourg give a shit about the second amendment … they have their own amendments … OK, now I’m actually live-blogging … something about one of the 9/11 guys … couldn’t follow it … now he’s talking about civilian law and criminal law … “Can we hold them without trial?” (paraphrasing) … blah blah courts and laws and whatnot … Geneva convention … civilian courts … “that’s not the law. If we have a pilot in the hands of the enemy…” What happens if you don’t wear a uniform when you attack us … do they get a better deal than regular soldiers … because of the law … enemies … “passage of time” … Sotomayor is talking now … saying something about laws …