TORONTO — Eleven years ago, Richard Harnett was helping his brother move into a new house when he stumbled across thousands of drawings jammed into garbage bags.
The story began when Mr. Harnett's brother bought a house from Vincent Wicks, the son of the famous cartoonist. As Mr. Harnett lugged bags of trash that had been left in the garage to the curb for pickup he noticed the drawings, which he set aside and thought nothing of until the summer of 2001, nearly a year after their creator had died.
Mr. Wicks, who died in September, 2000, of cancer at the age of 73, was famous for his comic strip The Outcasts, which ran in nearly 200 North American newspapers. He was appointed to the Order of Canada, as was his widow, Doreen, and wrote books on a variety of topics. He also created a foundation to promote literacy that is run by Doreen and Vincent.
About August, 2001, Mr. Harnett called Ms. Wicks, and told her he had the drawings. He suggested selling some reprints of the pictures and splitting the proceeds.
Ms. Wicks says that she demanded the cartoons be returned to the family. She insisted Vincent had inadvertently left them behind and he still owned them.
Mr. Harnett, a Toronto schoolteacher, refused, arguing that Vincent had clearly thrown the drawings away and they were now Harnett family property.
Ms. Wicks sued and this week an Ontario judge ordered the case to proceed to trial. In a statement of claim, she alleges Mr. Harnett has about 3,000 original drawings.
"This is very painful for us," Ms. Wicks said in an interview from her home in Toronto. "I was in shock when [Mr. Harnett] called because we had just lost Ben. I said, 'So you have waited for my husband to die before you make a phone call?' "
The disputed drawings date back to the early 1980s when Mr. Wicks worked with Vincent, who is also a cartoonist, in an office in downtown Toronto. According to Ms. Wicks, the office was so small they used Vincent's home in Keswick, Ont., as a storage facility.
In July 1992, Vincent moved to Vancouver and sold his Keswick place to David Harnett, Richard's brother. Mr. Harnett said in court documents that he was helping David move in when he discovered the drawings.
In 1996 and 1997, Ben Wicks donated nearly all his original cartoons and drawings to Toronto's Ryerson University. Ms. Wicks said the family thought there was more material around but they believed Vincent had taken it to Vancouver.
In an affidavit filed in court, Vincent said he packed what he thought were all of the cartoons when he moved to Vancouver. He acknowledged throwing away boxes of refuse while moving, but said he never intended to throw away his father's drawings. He said he left boxes of cartoons at the home for the movers to ship and he thought they had all been sent.
Ms. Wicks said she that while the prints are quite valuable, the money is not an issue. She simply wants all Mr. Wicks's material kept at Ryerson as a memorial.
