Copyright Issue Bedevils Plans for New Mascot : Education: Mission Viejo High School committee plans to change image of smiling baby imp, which students chose in a recent election, to avoid having to pay fee to comics firm for similar ‘Hot Stuff’ character.

Just two weeks after being elected Mission Viejo High School’s new mascot, a smiling baby devil may be changed because of a copyright problem.

As a result, the long-running battle over the devil image seems likely to continue.

He’s been called “Casper The Friendly Devil,” but the imp voted in by an overwhelming number of students and school employees looks a lot like “Hot Stuff, The Little Devil,” a 35-year-old copyrighted comic book character from the producers of Casper.

The character was one of five mascot candidates screened by a school committee in charge of the election.

After the election, school officials found out they must approve a licensing agreement with Harvey Comics Entertainment Inc. to use Hot Stuff or create a significantly altered version of the baby devil.

The proposed licensing agreement would cost the school $1 a year and 20% of net sales from merchandise bearing the little devil’s image.

However, members of the school committee oppose giving up merchandising profits that would fund school athletics. They now plan to change the baby devil image to avoid a copyright infringement and having to pay the merchandising fee.

The school All-Sports Booster Club makes between $20,000 and $40,000 a year for campus teams by selling caps, bleacher seats and other items bearing the school mascot.

Committee member Sally Stoddard, president of the campus Parent Teacher Student Organization, said the committee had planned to embellish the final mascot but finds it must change about 30% of the image to avoid a copyright infringement.

She said, though, the final product “will still be an impish baby devil.”

However, this seemingly minor matter has caused a dispute and become the latest episode in a heated controversy over a devil mascot.

Mission teacher Terry Sheppard resigned this week as chairman of the 13-member committee, saying the changes would undermine the election and perhaps result in a fiercer devil mascot being chosen.

“I saw this as a disaster because it was altering the image, therefore clearing the way for the image to be changed into possibly something even less acceptable to the people who have already protested the one that’s in place,” he said.

Some students want a more menacing devil, similar to the one that was banned in 1986 when fundamentalist Christians in the community complained the image depicted evil. Slowly, the devil mascot, which always has been popular with students, has made a comeback. The school is nicknamed the Diablos, which means devils in Spanish.

The new development in the mascot controversy has some students predicting there will be a petition to start the process of selecting a devil logo all over again.

“We’re probably going to start a petition about choosing our own mascot,” said Heather Westover, a senior who has been active in the issue. “They can’t choose it for us.”