Buck Rogers: The Never Ending Battle
Who Actually Owns Buck Rogers?
Buck Rogers: The Never Ending Battle
While the comic book world has been focused on high profile ownership cases such as Superman/Superboy, Todd McFarlane vs Neil Gaiman and Marvel versus seemingly everybody, one highly important case has slipped by, almost unnoticed. Described by one judge as a ‘multi-year, multi-lawsuit, multi-party war being fought over the rights to the fictional world of comic character Buck Rogers’, the fight over Buck Rogers has seen accusations of unethical behavior, fraud, conflicts of interest and families and lawyers battling for who is the rightful owner of the character and his universe.
The history of who owns the rights to Buck Rogers and his universe isn’t as simple, yet not as complicated, as people might want to think. I know that sounds very odd, but, believe me, it will make sense (I hope) as time goes on. The rights to exploit the character have been sold more than once, and then reverted, swapped and abandoned at times. The fights over the rightful owner has seen the franchise fall further into obscurity.
The direct opponent to Buck Rogers is Flash Gordon. The reason more people know that character than Buck Rogers is simple – the rights to Flash have always laid with the King Features Syndicate, which is owned by The Hearst Corporation, which commissioned the character back in 1933, and began publishing it in January 1934. Unlike Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon was not taken from a pre-existing body of work (unless you count the obvious – Flash Gordon was created because Hearst couldn’t get the rights to Buck Rogers).
In order to understand who owns Buck Rogers, we need to do a dive into his history, so let’s get into it.
Who’s Who
A good cast should be identified up front. The main cast belong to at least one of three camps: Dille, Nowlan and Geer & Herman. Some of the descriptive text used here comes directly from court judgements. I make no accusation against anyone here.
DILLE
John F. Dille. Newspaper syndicate owner. Commissioned Buck Rogers from Philip Nowlan. Bought out Nowlan’s widow, became the owner of the character.
Richard William Calkins. Artist. Original artist on the Buck Rogers newspaper strip. Took over writing the strip in 1939, stopped drawing the strip in 1932. Also drew Sky Roads.
Robert C. Dille. Son of John F. Dille. Inherited Buck Rogers.
Virginia Nichols Dille. Wife of Robert C. Dille. Controlled the Dille Family Trust when Robert C. Dille passed away.
Robert Nichols Flint Dille and Lorraine Dille Williams. Brother and sister and beneficiaries of the Dille Family Trust and children of Robert C. and Virginia N. Dille. Robert prefers to known as Flint, which is how I will be referring to him throughout this story. The Dille Family Trust was formed in California by their parents as a family estate planning trust. Flint and Lorraine inherited Dille’s rights to Buck Rogers. In 2017 the Trust filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Both Flint and Lorraine would claim in court that the Dille Family Trust mispresented a sham settlement that was put in place which would strip them of their rights to Buck Rogers and dismantle the Trust.
David Kloss. Lawyer. Represented the Dille Family Trust during litigation with the Nowlan Family Trust. The Dille Family Trust alleged Kloss failed to disclose a known conflict of interest that made his representation inappropriate, and that his presentation of the fraudulent settlement agreement to the Court amounted to fraud upon the court.
Don Murphy. Hollywood producer and co-owner of Team Angry Filmworks. Wanted to make a movie out of the novella Armageddon 2419 but alleges that he was prevented from doing so by Geer and Herman.
Companies associated with the Dille family include Federated Media, Inc, Truth Publishing Company, Inc (owned and operated radio stations) and Big & Tall Media, LLC.
NOWLAN
Philip Francis Nowlan. Writer and creator of Buck Rogers. Wrote the novella Armageddon 2419, which introduced Anthony Rogers. Wrote the original Buck Rogers newspaper strip. Was fired from the strip in 1939.
Brian McDevitt and Diane McDevitt. Brother and sister, and trustee and agent respectively for the Nowlan Family Trust. Grandchildren of Philip Francis Nowlan. The Nowlan Family Trust was formed in 2004 by Brian McDevitt. At times the Nowlan Family Trust and Dille Family Trust have worked together, but since the 2010s, they have been fighting each other for the rights to the name Buck Rogers. They are also connected to the Buck Rogers Company and Armageddon, LLC.
Companies associated with the Nowlans include Armageddon, LLC and Buck Rogers Company.
GEER & HERMAN
Louise Geer. Lawyer and partner in Geer & Herman PC and Hermes Press. Geer was assigned the Trustee of the Dille Family Trust, but the Trust denied that she had the right to act on their behalf and she never lawfully held the position. Geer was accused of the Trust for trying to reach the above settlement. The Trust also accused Geer of pushing through the sham settlement without informing them, despite lacking the authority to do so. The Trust further accused Geer of fraud and breaching her fiduciary duty.
Daniel Herman. Lawyer and partner in Geer & Herman PC and Hermes Press. Acted for the Dille Family Trust during their Chapter 11 action. Herman also moved to appoint attorney David Kloss during litigation between the Dille Family Trust and the Nowlan Family Trust. The Dille Family Trust alleged that this was a conflict of interest, as Herman was acting for the Trust in the Chapter 11 action. Published reprints of the Buck Rogers newspaper strip through Hermes Press.
Henry Sneath. Lawyer. Has variously purported to serve as counsel to Geer, Herman and the Dille Family Trust. The Trust allege that Sneath made various misrepresentations regarding the settlement agreement in other courts, and that he prevented the Trust from obtaining information regarding Geer, Herman, Kloss and others (alleged) fraudulent activities.
There shall be more people popping in and out of this story.
Next: The Beginnings of Buck Rogers