Zombie Kong Anthology

Reading Period: Submission period starts now and ends Feb 15th 2011.

Word Count: 2,500 words – 8,000 words

What we want: Stories involving a giant zombie ape. Be creative; steer away from the King Kong films.

What we don’t want: While the similarities to King Kong will be obvious, stories must not infringe upon the messy-as-hell copyright issues that surround the King Kong character, and all the other characters and settings that were created by Merian C. Cooper back in 1929. This means that names such as “Skull Island, Ann Darrow, Carl Denhan,” and “King Kong,” must not appear in your story.

Payment: Authors receive 2¢ per word via paypal, plus one contributor copy of the book.

Submission guidelines: Email your manuscript as a doc or rtf attachment to [email protected]. Preferred font: Garamond. Use standard manuscript formatting. This includes putting your name and email address on the cover page. Italics may remain italics. We don’t need a cover letter with a list of credits; stories will be judged by their own quality and originality. We claim first world electronic rights and first print rights for a period of one year; the author maintains all other rights.

Return time: As soon as possible.

Estimated Release Date: Summer, 2011.

A note about KING KONG, copyrights, and court battles –

Wikipedia states:

While one of the most famous movie icons in history, King Kong’s intellectual property status has been questioned since his (1929) creation, featuring in numerous allegations and court battles. The rights to the character have always been split up with no single exclusive rights holder. Different parties have also contested that various aspects are public domain material and therefore ineligible for trademark or copyright status.

A court battle with Nintendo, in regards to DONKEY KONG –

Because Universal misrepresented their degree of ownership of King Kong (claiming they had exclusive trademark rights when they knew they didn’t) and tried to have it both ways in court regarding the “public domain” claims, the courts ruled that Universal acted in bad faith and were ordered to pay fines and all of Nintendo’s legal bills from the lawsuit. That, along with the fact that the courts ruled that there was simply no likelihood of people confusing Donkey Kong with King Kong caused Universal to lose the case and the subsequent appeal.

[via: Books Of The Dead Press.]