Volume 96, Issue 21
Thursday October 3, 2002
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Got evil? Go to Carleton
By Andrea
Chiu
Gazette Staff
So you want to be a superhero, but the shoe doesn't fit. Are you much wittier than you are physically strong? Are you far more cynical than you are willing to save the day? Sounds like you're more fit to be a Super Villain – a career highly underrated in this day and age.
Back in 1997, the administration at Carleton University had an arch-nemesis. They were angry at a small collective of students who called themselves "The Carleton League of Super Villains" (http://sulkor.tripod.ca).
The Super Villains had taken advantage of their photocopy cards and created a subtle, yet controversial, poster campaign with messages like "Prozac yes, poets no," "Killers can smoke you" and "An engineer graduate could probably design a tank, but only an arts student could use it to take over the world."
Most people would agree these messages were harmless pranks, but the administration was not pleased. According to the Carleton League of Super Villains, the administration decided they would threaten the group with a lawsuit for using the Carleton logo in their poster campaign – only, they weren't exactly sure who the villainous students were.
Rob Fairchild, a former member of the Carleton League of Super Villains, would later defend the underground organization on his Web site: "Copyright or no, it occurs to me that the posters would technically be classified as 'satire' which is protected speech and not subject to the same limits as serious posters, especially any that were done to make money."
The lawsuit did not scare the League of Super Villains, as they began to poke fun of the situation with posters such as, "Chicks dig copyright infringement."
The groups Web site, found at http://sulkor.tripod.ca, allows surfers to download all of the group's posters. However, they come with a disclaimer: "Our posters are fun and harmless, aside from whatever papercuts they might give you. Sometimes they are political, sometimes they are immoral, sometimes sarcastic and sometimes they're just downright evil – they are never illegal, libelous, poisonous or dumb."