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Rebellion buys classic comic archive

Started by COMMANDO FORCES, 25 August, 2016, 10:37:41 AM

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The Amstor Computer

Quote from: Lobo Baggins on 25 August, 2016, 02:08:55 PM
Also working out dates - Frankie Stein - first appearance 1973 - yay!

Grimly Feendish - first appearance 1964... aww :(

Fantastic news, although I suspect that actually figuring out and negotiating exactly what they've got the rights to is going to take months of work - good luck, Robo-Keef!

I think Frankie might be an odd case, but I can't recall the details - David?

Quote from: Marbles on 25 August, 2016, 02:09:09 PM
Gutted if Leopard from Lime Street not in this deal, likewise Billy's boots - which originated in Scorcher in the 70's prior to merger with Tiger. But generally this is fantastic news :)

At the moment, I'd just err on the side of caution and assume most stuff post-1970 is potentially in and wait for something more official from Rebellion - the bits and pieces I've read over the years could be out-of-date now, and there may be more in the deal than it seems.

maryanddavid

Frankie Stein first appeared in Wham! In the 60,s

Steve Green


Lobo Baggins

The wages of sin are death, but the hours are good and the perks are fantastic.

The Amstor Computer

Quote from: maryanddavid on 25 August, 2016, 02:18:10 PM
Frankie Stein first appeared in Wham! In the 60,s

That was it! Down the Tubes has an article up on the acquisition, and there's an explanation of the situation as it seems to be currently understood at the end:

QuoteAs we've stated many times here on downthetubes (your best source on this is our interview with former Time UK, then IPC staffer Andrew Sumner), IPC and Egmont cut a deal on classic comic character owner ships some time back. For the most part, any character published before January 1970 by Fleetway Editions is owned by Time UK (previously IPC). So titles like Lion and strips such as "Trigan Empire" are owned by them.

Comics such as Thunder, Battle, Misty and characters such as Roy of the Rovers – one exception to the "1970" rule, along with Buster comic and some of its characters – were, until now owned by Egmont, because for the most part they were first published after 1970.

The Dan Dare Corporation owns Dan Dare, some – but not all – original Eagle characters, and most characters published in the 1980s Eagle, although ownership of some will, I imagine be a matter of discussion, given later comic mergers.

DC Thomson has its own massive library of comic titles and characters, including Beano, Sparky, Commando, Bullet, Bunty, Judy, Jackie, Warlord and more.

If you're at all confused by the situation, then you're not alone. During licensing discussion I once had with Egmont, their lawyers weren't even sure what characters or comics they owned – Starlord being one example that they thought was theirs, which of course had merged with 2000AD.

The confusion also led to problems for the team on TOXIC some years back when they sought to revive Frankie Stein – only to discover IPC owned that brilliant Ken Reid creation, because the character was created before 1970, even though his adventures continued in various titles well beyond that year.

loki

Quote from: The Amstor Computer on 25 August, 2016, 02:21:49 PM
Quote from: maryanddavid on 25 August, 2016, 02:18:10 PM
Frankie Stein first appeared in Wham! In the 60,s

That was it! Down the Tubes has an article up on the acquisition, and there's an explanation of the situation as it seems to be currently understood at the end:

QuoteAs we've stated many times here on downthetubes (your best source on this is our interview with former Time UK, then IPC staffer Andrew Sumner), IPC and Egmont cut a deal on classic comic character owner ships some time back. For the most part, any character published before January 1970 by Fleetway Editions is owned by Time UK (previously IPC). So titles like Lion and strips such as "Trigan Empire" are owned by them.

Comics such as Thunder, Battle, Misty and characters such as Roy of the Rovers – one exception to the "1970" rule, along with Buster comic and some of its characters – were, until now owned by Egmont, because for the most part they were first published after 1970.

The Dan Dare Corporation owns Dan Dare, some – but not all – original Eagle characters, and most characters published in the 1980s Eagle, although ownership of some will, I imagine be a matter of discussion, given later comic mergers.

DC Thomson has its own massive library of comic titles and characters, including Beano, Sparky, Commando, Bullet, Bunty, Judy, Jackie, Warlord and more.

If you're at all confused by the situation, then you're not alone. During licensing discussion I once had with Egmont, their lawyers weren't even sure what characters or comics they owned – Starlord being one example that they thought was theirs, which of course had merged with 2000AD.

The confusion also led to problems for the team on TOXIC some years back when they sought to revive Frankie Stein – only to discover IPC owned that brilliant Ken Reid creation, because the character was created before 1970, even though his adventures continued in various titles well beyond that year.

1970 is the critical year, and sadly it's not quite as simple as January of that year, because Adam Eterno debuted in October 1970, but belongs to IPC. There was an excellent interview with IPC's Andrew Sumner back in 2005 when the Albion miniseries from Wildstorm temporarily revived several of the characters detailing the breakdown of who owned what. I'm not sure that as a new poster I can include a link to another site, but if you search for his name, Albion and IPC, you should find the interview (there are two, but the relevant one is titled Comics and Crumpets volume three). The most relevant text is this bit:

Quote from: Andrew SumnerIPC and Egmont Fleetway finally agreed respective ownership of intellectual property rights in the mid 1990's. Which is why the (mostly terrible, except for Peter Hogan's Steel Claw) 2000AD Action Special, which was published in 1992 was a complete mistake. Fleetway didn't know at that time that they didn't own the rights to those characters.

"The short answer is that IPC Media own all of the classic 1950's and 1960's IPC characters (and I'm talking about adventure characters, humour characters, sporting characters and the girls' comic characters), Andrew reveals. "That includes the intellectual property rights for every company that it absorbed along the way (Odhams, Amalgamated Press, etc) – including magazine brands, comic characters, registered logos, etc.

"The actual ownership rights work like this," Andrew outlines. "With one or two specified exceptions (which I'll get to in a moment), IPC Media owns every IPC comic character created before 1970. Egmont-Fleetway owns every IPC character created after 1970. So, IPC owns Lion, Valiant, Pow, Tiger, etc and all their respective characters, while Egmont-Fleetway owns Cor!!, Action, Battle  and all their respective characters.

"The exceptions to this pre-1970 ownership threshold for IPC are 26 specifically-named characters (including the Leopard of Lime Street and a bunch of humour characters such as Buster himself) that featured in Buster — which was still being actively published by Fleetway when the IPC/Fleetway agreement was made. So the creation date does not apply to these characters and they are owned by Egmont-Fleetway.

"The other small exceptions are Dan Dare and Roy of the Rovers, who have both been sold off to other concerns a long time ago (a chronic mistake by a previous  IPC administration, in my opinion)."
In terms of the previously mentioned Look and Learn and Trigan Empire, the other Down the Tubes interview with Andrew (titled Albion Man) clarified
QuoteDOWNTHETUBES: IPC recently sold rights to Look and Learn but you retained the rights to some key strips, such as Trigan Empire. What was the reason for this?

Andrew: Trigan Empire is a valuable slice of steady-earning intellectual property for IPC, we'd be crazy to sell the rights on to a third party. As I've said before, if I could nip back in a time machine and undo the work of a previous administration, I would never have sold off Dan Dare and Eagle.

The Albion guys found my website helpful when they were doing their research for the series, so Andrew and I communicated a few times, which is when he confirmed that Adam Eterno remained with IPC, and he also clarified who this referred to:
QuoteThe exceptions to this pre-1970 ownership threshold for IPC are 26 specifically-named characters (including the Leopard of Lime Street and a bunch of humour characters such as Buster himself) that featured in Buster — which was still being actively published by Fleetway when the IPC/Fleetway agreement was made. So the creation date does not apply to these characters and they are owned by Egmont-Fleetway.

QuoteHere's the list of the 28 Buster characters owned by Egmont Fleetway, not IPC:

Buster
Buster and the Big One
Wonder Worm
Rent-A-Ghost Ltd
Clever Dick
Faceache
Football Madd
Ivor Lott and Tony Broke
Chalky
Tomboy
Bluebottle and  Basher
Mummy's Boy
X-Ray Specs
The Winners
Jack Pott
Toys of Doom
Back-Tracker Jack
Thunderbolt the Avenger
Galaxus the Thing From Outer Space
The Skid Kids
The Wizard of Football
Crabbe's Crusaders
Fishboy Denizen of the Deep
Pete's Pocket Army
Marney the Fox
Sammy Brewster's Secret Ski-Board Squad
The Leopard from Lime Street
Astounding Adventures of Charlie Peace (but this does NOT include rights to the Charlie Peace character, who was a real bloke and therefore in the public domain)
So anyone on that last list is presumably now included in the rights Rebellion has purchased.

The Amstor Computer

Quote from: loki on 25 August, 2016, 03:31:11 PM
1970 is the critical year, and sadly it's not quite as simple as January of that year, because Adam Eterno debuted in October 1970, but belongs to IPC. There was an excellent interview with IPC's Andrew Sumner back in 2005 when the Albion miniseries from Wildstorm temporarily revived several of the characters detailing the breakdown of who owned what. I'm not sure that as a new poster I can include a link to another site, but if you search for his name, Albion and IPC, you should find the interview (there are two, but the relevant one is titled Comics and Crumpets volume three).

Here you are (and thanks for the info!)

Comics and Crumpets Vol. 3
http://downthetubes.net/?p=12052

Albion Man
http://downthetubes.net/?p=12054

Pyroxian


The Amstor Computer

Quote from: Pyroxian on 25 August, 2016, 03:54:28 PM
This forum needs a thanks button...

It's at Amazon UK, under the "send all future Rebellion collections to..." button  ;)

loki

Additionally, while I remember: IPC own the Odhams characters, such as Rubberman and Johnny Future/Missing Link, but not the ten characters who were introduced in Pow Annual 1971, a weird affair that included all new stories of all new characters rather than pre-existing characters or reprint strips from any prior Odhams title. That's not confirmation that they are included in the rights Rebellion now has (though they may be), but just that they weren't among those IPC owned.

Lobo Baggins

Quote from: Will Cooling on 25 August, 2016, 11:23:45 AM

Obviously retro-content is of most interest to the BBC but does anyone know if Crisis and Revolver counts as part of the 'Fleetway' archive? Because if 2000AD now owns them - that would be great...*starts drooling at Third World War digital collection*

I'm guessing it includes Revolver apart from Dare; Crisis was by Fleetway but most of it appears to be creator-owned.  I don't suppose the deal includes licensed stuff, either - so no Sonic the Comic or the Action Force bits of Battle Action Force.
The wages of sin are death, but the hours are good and the perks are fantastic.

Pyroxian

Quote from: Lobo Baggins on 25 August, 2016, 04:05:02 PM
I don't suppose the deal includes licensed stuff, either - so no Sonic the Comic or the Action Force bits of Battle Action Force.

If it does include them, but they'd probably have to renegotiate rights from the other parties.

loki

Quote from: Lobo Baggins on 25 August, 2016, 04:05:02 PM
Quote from: Will Cooling on 25 August, 2016, 11:23:45 AM

Obviously retro-content is of most interest to the BBC but does anyone know if Crisis and Revolver counts as part of the 'Fleetway' archive? Because if 2000AD now owns them - that would be great...*starts drooling at Third World War digital collection*

I'm guessing it includes Revolver apart from Dare; Crisis was by Fleetway but most of it appears to be creator-owned.  I don't suppose the deal includes licensed stuff, either - so no Sonic the Comic or the Action Force bits of Battle Action Force.

In terms of Action Force, when comics are done for licensed properties, while the ownership of the characters usually belongs to the licensor, the licensee often retains ownership of the actual stories. For example:
When Dark Horse lost the license for Star Wars to Marvel, Marvel gained the rights to do new stories including ones using new characters who were originally introduced in the Dark Horse comics, because those characters belonged to Lucasfilm (in turn now owned by Marvel's owner, Disney). However, Marvel had to individually purchase the files for any Star Wars stories Dark Horse had produced if they wanted to do a reprint.

It all depends on original contracts, so it varies from case to case, but it is possible that while Rebellion couldn't republish Action Force because they are owned by Hasbro (I think) and licensed to IDW (as GI Joe), the same could be true for IDW, because the individual stories may have belonged to Egmont. If (and it is only if) this is the case, then neither can reprint without the other. That's why neither Marvel nor IDW can currently reprint Micronauts or Rom (main characters owned by licensor, but story and other elements owned by Marvel). Crucially, it also holds true for Godzilla and Master of Kung-Fu (which includes the licensed Fu Manchu), both of which did get/are getting reprints, because the different rights holders worked out a deal.

loki

Quote from: Pyroxian on 25 August, 2016, 04:23:33 PM
Quote from: Lobo Baggins on 25 August, 2016, 04:05:02 PM
I don't suppose the deal includes licensed stuff, either - so no Sonic the Comic or the Action Force bits of Battle Action Force.

If it does include them, but they'd probably have to renegotiate rights from the other parties.
Or, what he said.

sheridan

Great news, good to hear that so many British comics of the 70s and 80s are now with a company who will actually do something with them!