Battle of the "Big"

The Washington City Paper has an interesting feature story on legal issues between Big Planet Comics and its new neighbor, Big Monkey Comics:

Not more than a few years ago, Joel Pollack was lamenting the imminent death of the comic-book store. The rise of video games had decimated the teenage-boy demographic crucial to the success of his three-outlet Big Planet Comics chain. “That’s the one that has been hardest to recapture,” Pollack said in a May 2002 National Public Radio interview.

These days, though, the 56-year-old Pollack has got more competition than he’d like—and in a familiar location. In October, a new shop opened up less than two blocks away from Big Planet’s store in Georgetown. And, to Pollack, it bears an all-too-familiar name: The new shop is dubbed Big Monkey Comics.

Unsurprisingly, in the small and tightknit comic-book world, Pollack knows the simian-monikered interlopers well. But that hasn’t stopped him from siccing his lawyer on them: A cease-and-desist letter sent to Big Monkey in December reads, “We believe that your use of the name has caused, and will cause, confusion among comic book consumers and will dilute the registered servicemark and good will held by Mr. Pollack and the various Big Planet Comic stores.”

Pollack goes on to call Big Monkey Comics a "pissant" messing with the Big Planet brand. Nice, eh?