"Avatar: The Last Airbender" Co-Creators Support Shyamalan's Live-Action Version

From SciFi Wire:

Avatar Creators Praise Night

The creators of Nickelodeon's animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender told SCI FI Wire that they are thrilled that The Sixth Sense director M. Night Shyamalan will adapt their series into a live-action feature film.

"We are thrilled that there is going to be a feature film of Avatar and that M. Night Shyamalan is writing, producing and directing it," co-creator Mike DiMartino said in an interview. "Personally, I can't wait to see Appa fly!" DiMartino referred to the bison that the lead character, a 12-year-old boy named Aang, rides in the series. (The first season and the first part of the second series have just been released on DVD.)

In Avatar, Aang and a select group of kids have learned to control the elements of water, air, fire and earth and find themselves in a battle with the inhabitants of the Fire Nation. The kids are accompanied by odd creatures and pets.

"Yeah, maybe I will get to hang out with Momo for real now!" added co-creator Bryan Konietzko about a comical flying lemur. "The movie is in the earliest stages, so it is too soon to comment on exactly what we will be doing. However, Mike and I have met with Night and, on top of really admiring his craft, he is a great guy who really respects the material. It means a lot to us that he personally chose to do this project, and we look forward to helping him in any way."

Cartoonist sues creator of SpongeBob SquarePants

From The Contra Costa Times, via The Lawrence Journal-World:

Cartoonist sues creator of SpongeBob

Walnut Creek, Calif. — Cartoonist Troy Walker created a comic strip in 1991 about a sponge with a personality.

Bob Spongee had eyes, legs and arms. He lived on Apple Street with his wife, Linda, and their daughter, Bubbles.

Walker, of Fairfield, Calif., then produced 1,000 dolls: yellow sponges with a “drawn-on” face that he sold as collectibles in flea markets and through the mail.

In 2002, he learned about Nickelodeon’s buck-toothed animated character, “SpongeBob SquarePants,” who lives underwater in the fictitious city of Bikini Bottom.

“They took all of it,” Walker said this week. “I sold the Bob Spongees all throughout Northern California. It obviously fell into the hands of one of the producers of the show. It’s a clear pattern of duplication.”

SpongeBob’s image now decorates almost any object children use — from lunch boxes and sippy cups to pillow cases and window curtains.

The 40-year-old cartoonist has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco against Nickelodeon, Viacom, Paramount Studios and Stephen Hillenberg, the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Walker has demanded $1.6 billion in damages, alleging that the defendants used his idea without his permission.

Hillenberg could not be reached for comment. Nickelodeon will not comment on pending litigation, a spokeswoman said in a written statement.

“However we believe this is a baseless claim,” the statement says.

Walker originally filed his complaint in August acting as his own attorney. Now the San Francisco-based law firm Nevin & Absalom has taken his case. Walker’s attorney, Edward Nevin, was not available to comment.

Walker’s complaint lays out Bob Spongee’s evolution during the recession of the early 1990s. In Walker’s original concept, he drew a nose and mouth on a kitchen sponge, attached plastic googly eyes and placed the effigy in a clear bag that included a small comic strip, “Sponge for hire! Meet Bob Spongee, The Unemployed Sponge.”

He said he has kept copies of the advertisements he ran for the Bob Spongee doll in the Oakland Tribune.

He cites a 2004 episode of “SpongeBob SquarePants,” called, “Sponge for hire!” as a piece of “undeniable proof” that Nickelodeon ripped him off.

“It is more than ironic that two working-class sponges are named Bob,” Walker says in his complaint. “Both characters are unemployed. Both characters live in a house concept.”

Walker said he tried to work out a settlement with Viacom’s attorneys when he first learned about SpongeBob. But Viacom stopped corresponding with him, he said.

Viacom’s attorneys have said in court documents that Sponge Bob is different than Bob Spongee.

“Defendants’ work(s) are not substantially similar to any protectible elements of any of plaintiff’s allegedly infringed works,” attorneys wrote in response to Walker’s complaint.