It took them a while. For seventeen years, Helm has produced comics, custom art, a Website and, for three years, the Court of Porn under the VelVeeda name, a carryover from his teen punk years in Boston. Kraft's eleven-page complaint targets Helm's Website (www.cheesygraphics.com), its links and Helm's sexually oriented art.

Invoking the Trademark Dilution Act of 1995, which allows owners of a famous name or mark to block commercial use if it causes dilution of its "distinctive quality," Kraft's lawsuit charges that Helm's employment of the name VelVeeda to "sell various types of adult-oriented, offensive and unsavory merchandise and services to the public" violates Kraft's trademarks, causing the corporation "to suffer ongoing irreparable harm for which there is no adequate remedy at law." Kraft is seeking "up to three times the Defendant's profits," damages and attorney fees. Helm's income from cartooning--which he says comes in between $10,000 and $20,000 per year--won't amount to much for a company that posted net earnings of $1.9 billion in 2001.

Helm isn't sure how Kraft found his site. Web searches only put VelVeeda and Kraft together in reference to the lawsuit, Kraft hasn't indicated any customer complaints and Helm says he's never received any communication suggesting confusion of his nickname with Kraft and its products. "They're creating an association, by bringing this to trial, that was never there," Helm says. "It's getting to the point where they're going to have to petition the court to get me to stop using the word 'Kraft' on my Website, because I'm talking about the case. If they stop me from using the word 'VelVeeda', I wouldn't be able to talk about the case in the same terms any other reporter could."

There are other potentially more flagrant offenders. A Google search for Velveeta turns up a comedy club, several bands and an unflattering Internet term--as spam is to e-mail, Velveeta is to excessive cross-posting across newsgroups. "It's not really about trademark or they would go after these guys. It's that they don't like the content of my Website... " Helm says. "Using my own nickname [of] seventeen years is intrinsically part of the content of my Website. My artwork is signed with it. I can talk about myself in the third person. I have every right to use my own nickname. I'm not selling a product called 'Velveeda.' I don't have a company called 'Velveeda.'" Helm's bank won't even let him cash checks made out to the King.

Unable to afford an attorney, Helm has appealed for legal representation and has some interest from The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Lawyers for the Creative Arts; another lawyer has graciously offered legal advice over the phone. For now, though, the King, who returns to court May 17, represents himself. (At press time, Kraft representatives could not be reached for comment.)

"It's depressing, to be honest," Helm states flatly. "At this point I'm just one person. I am, literally, one person showing up to court and defending myself, my nickname, of all fucking things, against this giant, huge corporation... It's overwhelming at times."

Also by Dan Kelly

TEXT WARS
Soon, books will become obsolete, rendered amusing anachronisms by the advance of electronica. E-books will seize the territory currently occupied by fusty old paper books, and free text from its tightened—academic and literary—constraints.
(2001-08-30)