Known for his work on Batman: White Knight, Tokyo Ghost, and Punk Rock Jesus, comic book artist Sean Gordon Murphy is about to launch a brand-new, independently published series based on the legendary masked swashbuckler Zorro. A look inside Murphy’s sketchbook for the book tentatively titled Zorro: Man of the Dead suggests that it will tie into Dia De Los Muertos and take place in modern times. Murphy announced the project himself, revealing that he had personally licensed the rights and would be releasing the title under a newly-formed publishing banner.
The licensing is implied by the fact that some of Murphy’s concept art has a modified El Camino, which is unusual in classic Zorro tales, which take place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This provides Murphy with some fresh aspects to incorporate into Zorro and makes it simpler for him to retain the rights to those components should someone else decide to use them.
The ownership of Zorro’s rights has, in fact, long been a controversial matter. The 1919-born figure ought to already be in the public domain. After original creator Johnston McCulley licensed his Zorro rights to Mitchell Gertz in 1949, a corporation by the name of Zorro Productions Inc. asserts that it now owns the global copyright and trademark of Zorro. When Gertz passed away in 1961, his children received his inheritance, and Zorro Productions was established as the main organization responsible for the character’s license ever since. Meanwhile, ZPI is still vigilant and litigious in this matter. The gist of the story is that, despite Zorro’s character having entered the public domain, ZPI is still making money by leveraging its trademark on the character’s name and unique image.
