Rebellion and Rights to Eagle Strips

[Professor Bear]

DDC is a relatively small media development firm, they'd have to be mugs to get into a dying cottage industry like comics publishing - but if your concern is seeing older material brought back to shelves so it can be appreciated, you'd be better addressing your complaints to DC Thompson, who have an absolutely massive library of sci-fi and adventure comics - a huge chunk of which would be of particular interest to fans of this parish - with which they're doing absolutely nothing.

[The Amstor Computer]

Not to mention that, as I understand it, DCT have a pretty impressive library of original art and other material. That wasn't the case for the holdings Rebellion acquired where I believe pretty much all of that kind of material was long-gone and Rebellion are obliged to work from the printed comics for reprinting.

DCT are a huge part of British comic history and it's an enormous shame they don't seem to have much interest in doing anything to recognise that.

[broodblik]

I also cannot understand having this big library of titles and you do nothing with it.

[sheridan]

I also cannot understand having this big library of titles and you do nothing with it.

Yep - I can understand Egmont doing that - they bought the IPC / Fleetway library so that they'd have access to the Disney licence, but a company like DC Thompson produced their own material and don't have any licences (apart from maybe Bananaman).

[IndigoPrime]

I've heard various stories about DCT's thinking here. It seems the company just doesn't care about its archive in any meaningful sense, beyond appealing to very specific markets. So it's digitised all the old Beano annuals, so you can buy a copy for the year of someone's birth, and it'll churn out reprint Dandy strips for summer specials, but there won't ever be a phonebook of Bananaman (say).

In a sense, that's why it's so great to see The Phoenix routinely lobbing stuff into the wild in collected format. Not everything ends up in those wee books, but you do get a reasonable selection of its best bits.

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

NecroBUMP!
I've only gone and pulled the trigger, as they say, on the first appearance of Rat Trap in Cor!! weekly. That's a personal grail ticked off the list.

SBT

[The Corinthian]

"Gritty Loner with a talking gun who hangs out with Vampirella and Johnny Five from Short Circuit and fights space bats" Dare (this is considerably less awesome than it sounds)

Nevertheless, I am so on board for 'Dan Dare vs Vampirella', if anyone can sort out the rights.

[The Corinthian]

Been doing a read-through of the Eagle at a leisurely pace but I'm finally at the RAT TRAP era the OP mentions and I think the strip may be the single biggest reason for New Eagle's demise, as its purpose seems to be to personally insult every single remaining Eagle reader one by one while telling them that they, their home town and their ideas all suck.

Presumably this is what got Cor!! cancelled back in 1974 as well.

[DJThunderGod]

Really have no idea what the Dan Dare Corporation are playing at.  They could at least make some money by selling the rights to Rebellion, rather than earning them nothing (which is what's happening now).  A reprint of the early days of the new Dan Dare (Mills/Wagner/Kennedy-era) would definitely sell.  People have been asking about it for years.  I'd certainly buy a copy.  Same goes for reprints of Doomlord, Bloodfang, Manix (the S.M.O.G. era stories are still living in my memory).

The last Dan Dare series from Titan was crap.  I never finished it.  The artwork absolutely murdered it and Milligan seemed to be phoning it in.  A bit of quality control would have been good and carrying on the themes  and characters from either the original or New Eagle version would have actually worked.

[A.Cow]

Just necro-posting after noticing that the Dan Dare Corporation appears to be in a murky financial situation nowadays.

https://pomanda.com/company/01228849/the-dan-dare-corporation-ltd

That report seems to indicate that they have posted a loss every year since 2020 and now have only one employee.

Perhaps this is the time for Rebellion to buy them out?  Or is Tharg waiting for the company to collase and get the rights at a bargain price?

[Richard]

"the company has net assets of £334.6 thousand"

[Jim_Campbell]

"the company has net assets of £334.6 thousand"

Yes, but a quick scan of previous accounts shows that this is basically the "Fixed Assets" column which has ~£300K sitting in it every year, and very little actual activity in the rest of the accounts from year to year. Although the fixed assets aren't detailed, that has the definite whiff of a property about it.

[nxylas]

Isn't there some dispute as to whether the "Dan Dare Corporation" (Colin to his mates) actually owns the rights to anything other than Dan Dare? They claim to own the rights to all the Eagle characters, but I have heard it said that they are on dodgy ground legally (obligatory disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer).

[Richard]

I've seen that said somewhere before, but Rebellion couldn't be bothered to litigate it.

Think it was in a John Wagner interview?

[Steve Green]

I think it was something John said in relation to Doomlord, that DDC said they had the rights but couldn't offer any proof, but it was more bother than it was worth trying to settle the issue.

(Apologies if I'm mistaken)

It might have been expanded upon in the Fleetway Files - there's a brief mention of rights in this article at the bottom, but in this case it's slightly different and in relation to Dan Dare

Down the Tubes Dan Dare