I missed the Paul Frank monkey trend when it was hot, in the 90's, and the kid's not a Small Paul groupie, either. But her 11-yo cousin is a Julius fanatic, and that's been all I need to know.
So I have a hard time caring about anyone in Vanity Fair's article about the falling out between the company's founders--two unimpressive-sounding, frathead roommates and Frank, an ur-emo, manchild artist.
Long story short: what sounds like a really poorly crafted partnership agreement from the kitchen table days led to Paul Frank the man getting ousted/bought out/severed from the company he was a 1/3 shareholder in [vote's 2-to-1, Pauly, you lose!]. His forced buyout was, of course, at a tiny fraction of what the stake would be worth to an outside buyer [$600k vs. $25 million].
That said, there's a lesson here for everyone, whether you're a cutesy vinyl artist or a mid-level manager somewhere who's considering a switch to the cutesy vinyl artist exploitation industry.
The Artist Formerly Known As Paul Frank [vanityfair.com via boingboing]
Previous reports from along the annoying artist/hipster/merchandising axis: Von Dutch
I think the best lesson was to not name a company after yourself. Even thought technically his name is Paul Sunich, it still kind of sucks not to be able to use your own nom de guerre when doing new designs... oh well.
yeah, cute stuff in that kitschy way.