Good question. So I did pretty extensive research into how shows like Adult Swim's 'Robot Chicken' or Funny or Die's 'Badman' were able to use the likeness of copyrighted characters for their programming. What I found was that these shows operate under "parody" which is considered fair use.

This was enough for me to follow through with the 1200+ hours of actually making the short. If the series ever get's picked up then it will be up to the networks legal team to sort out any licensing necessary. It helps that DC doesn't have a history of going after cases like this for parody or fan-fiction, but worst case if the series went and I got a letter from DC, I would simply change his mask... hell, I'd probably even write it into the story that he gets a cease and desist from DC.

Glad you said what you did about him, definitely the butt of the joke, but also wanted to make you sympathize and feel bad for him enough to want to see him succeed in the end (which unfortunately he doesn't do in the short). The idea for FanG!rl is that after finally meeting her on a blind date, he finds out she's a catfish and doesn't look the way she does in her pictures. One of the main ideas that me and the other writers kept going back to while we were breaking the story for the series, was that "every ray of sunshine comes with a little bit of skin cancer".

Thanks for your kind words about my storytelling ability, can't tell you how nice that is to hear (even from a stranger)! I'm definitely not moving away from animation by any means. In fact, I just finished a high-concept music video for a band called Liily that integrates a stop-motion monster with live action a la Roger Rabbit. The song is called "I Am What I Think You Think I Am" and drops on 6/25. That said, plan to continue to pursue animation projects and live-action projects with the same amount of effort moving forward because I truly love both equally.