Rebellion buys classic comic archive

[Steve Green]

A re-imagining of Sid's Snake.

Drawn by Pete Wells if Simon Davis is not available.

[The Monarch]

I want a proper collection of roy of the rovers

[Hawkmumbler]

A re-imagining of Sid's Snake.

Drawn by Pete Wells if Simon Davis is not available.

Just set the internet on fire and cut out the middle man.

[Link Prime]

There goes the dream of a Joe Soap hardback.

We could always cobble together a collection of your most insightful posts.
Maybe get Adi Shankar to finance it.

[Professor Bear]

Doomlord's owned by the Dan Dare Corporation.

NUUUUUUUUU!

Oh well.  I guess I'll just wait until DDC does something with it.

[Fungus]

A re-imagining of Sid's Snake.

Drawn by Pete Wells if Simon Davis is not available.

Just set the internet on fire and cut out the middle man.

[Lobo Baggins]

NUUUUUUUUU!

No, no, no - you're not doing it properly!

It's pronounced NII!

[Dash Decent]

Doomlord's owned by the Dan Dare Corporation.

I'm sure Hibernia released a Doomlord collection.  If Hibernia can organise it, then I'm sure Rebellion could if they wanted to - thought it sounds like they've got more than enough material to work with for the foreseeable future.

[Dash Decent]

NUUUUUUUUU!

No, no, no - you're not doing it properly!

It's pronounced NII!

No, no, no. Hold your head like this, then go "Waaah!" Try it again.

[The Amstor Computer]

I'm sure Hibernia released a Doomlord collection.  If Hibernia can organise it, then I'm sure Rebellion could if they wanted to - thought it sounds like they've got more than enough material to work with for the foreseeable future.

Yup - David put out a collection of the first illustrated strip, "The Deathlords", with art by Heinzl (according to my info, this was actually Alberto Giolitti, with some possible assistance from other members of Studio Giolitti) back in 2006.

Another Doomlord collection would be wonderful (I know David wants to get Doomie's photostrips out there too, and I've done some work on figuring out how best to approach the repro) but that really depends on the DDC giving permission. In the meantime, we managed to squeeze a neat Doomlord one-off into the Eagle Adventure Special earlier this year - it's not quite the "Books of Nox Vol. 1" everyone wants, but it's something!

[Grant Goggans]

There was a Gobots / Robo-Machines strip in New Eagle, wasn't there?  Does Dan Dare Corporation somehow own that, too?

[Professor Bear]

The Gobots franchise was eventually bought up by Hasbro and is currently part of the Transformers franchise, so Robo Machines is likely a licensing nightmare.
Hasbro don't seem to care much about sites like Blood For The Baron hosting their old 1980s licensed strips from the UK like Action Force and Zoids, though, so that's probably the only way you'll see those old comics.

[The Amstor Computer]

There was a Gobots / Robo-Machines strip in New Eagle, wasn't there?  Does Dan Dare Corporation somehow own that, too?

Yeah, there were quite a few licensed strips - Robo-Machines, MASK, the various Computer Warrior tales tied in to real-life games etc. - but I can't imagine that the DDC are in a position to give permission to reprint them on their own. At best, anyone wanting to reprint, say, the Computer Warrior tales would have to get approval from the DDC who would probably say they own the strip artwork etc., and from the companies who currently hold the rights to the videogames. That could mean that anyone wanting to reprint Computer Warrior would likely have to deal with the DDC, Activision Blizzard (who seem to now have the rights to a number of the games released by companies at the time who are now defunct), Sony, Dan Aykroyd, Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis's estate and Bill Murray (for the Ghostbusters tie-in) and at least two or three more companies - and that would be for the first year or two of the strip!

It's a damn shame the situation is so complex, as Computer Warrior is a fascinating strip - it's arguably the comic industry's response to the growing perceived threat of videogames, so it has historical interest, and it's pretty well-written and nicely illustrated by a number of great artists - and it would be a fantastic collection.

[Dash Decent]

Downthetubes has a list of what Rebellion have scored in their haul: Click!

[The Amstor Computer]

Downthetubes has a list of what Rebellion have scored in their haul: Click!

There's such a wonderful range of titles there, but it's the humour comics that stand out for me. The range of great IPC humour comics has never really been touched for reprint, barring some of the "Best of Whoopee" etc. that were put out in the '80s, and British kids humour comics seem to be perceived as just "the Beano and Dandy", which - great as they are/were at their best - does a disservice to the genre.

I've got a collection of Whoopee and Shiver 'n Shake and there are some fantastic strips in there, but the crown jewel has got to be Ken Reid's fantastic pin-ups - World Wide Weirdies, or the Creepy Creations and Wanted posters - which were glorious colour pictures that ran weekly for years. Although a lot of Reid's work is out-of-reach of even Rebellion (I believe a lot of his pre-1970s work is owned by Time now, and that's arguably his peak) there's some fantastic work from him among this archive.

A series of Ken Reid collections, perhaps mixing stuff like Faceache in with the best of his pin-ups in full colour, would be a fantastic line for Rebellion to explore now they have this - particularly as Reid's more grotesque take on humour comics seems to mesh well with Rebellion, 2000AD and artists like Kev O'Neill - and perhaps a chance to give Reid the recognition he deserves and show that British humour comics were more than just the Beano and Dandy.

World Wide Weirdie: The Collected Ken Reid Vol. 1, please?