Alan McKenzie

[ukdane]

Just been reading through AMcK's website, and his recollections of his time at 2000ad. I thought it fit in quite well with the Bish's 28 Days, so the link below is for those of interest.

1) Wasn't aware of the Mills situation.
2) Wasn't aware of the copyright Luke Kirby situation- I wonder if this is the same basis as Morrisson's claim to Zenith.

Link: http://www.thestoryworks.com/publishing/comics/2000ad/default.htm" target="_blank">McKenzie, Saviour of tooth?

[ukdane]

Hmmm!
Also hosting:
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DaveGibbons.net
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[Buttonman]

Good stuff Daney, thanks.

Seems a decent bloke but hopefully Bradley and Universial Soldier will remain in limbo. Luke Kirby was better but a bit too gently paced for my liking.

[Robin Low]

***1) Wasn't aware of the Mills situation.***

Reading between the lines over the years, and sometimes the lines themselves, the impression one gets is that Pat Mills, as a human being, is not very pleasant.

(And as a writer he's not what he was, either.)

Regards

Robin

[Robin Low]

***Seems a decent bloke but hopefully Bradley and Universial Soldier will remain in limbo. Luke Kirby was better but a bit too gently paced for my liking***

McKenzie's come in for a lot of stick over the years, but I've always had a lot of respect for the original Luke Kirby story, Summer Magic. Some of the later series were let down when they was drawn by people other than John Ridgway.

Regards

Robin

[The Amstor Computer]

Reading between the lines over the years, and sometimes the lines themselves, the impression one gets is that Pat Mills, as a human being, is not very pleasant.

...though there are plenty of people who seem to think just the opposite. My impression of him is that he just doesn't suffer fools gladly & that he is very uncompromising about his art - something that is likely to bring him into conflict with some editors & co-workers, I'd imagine - but that he is basically a decent person & very loyal to the artists he's enjoyed working with.

[ukdane]

I think I was one of the few, who also liked Brigand Doom. The art was great, the story required full attention span. Is there enough BD for an EE collection (maybe combined with Bradley)?

And is it valid reprint material, or does AMcK own the copyright here too (as much as Mills owns the (c) on his creations is my guess)?

What would it take to resolve copyright issues I wonder?

[IndigoPrime]

"Wasn't aware of the copyright Luke Kirby situation- I wonder if this is the same basis as Morrisson's claim to Zenith."

He says: "as I never signed an Assignment of Copyright contract with Fleetway/Egmont, the character format belongs to me".

This is more or less the same argument Morrison is using: because implicit contracts for specific series or characters were rarely if ever signed, the assumption by the creators is that the rights belong to them. However, there is implied copyright when working for magazines (I have this kind of thing with several publishersâ??series ideas I pitch become theirs, due to the overall contract terms), and with AmcK actually working for 2000 AD at the time, I would _assume_ that he'd have had one of those "anything you do here belongs to the company"-style employment contracts. (If not, Fleetway must have been massively short-sighted back in the day.) Also, where the hell else is he going to house Luke Kirby anyway? It would make more sense to come to a deal with Rebellion and go from there.

This, of course, isn't entirely the case with Morrison: purely because of the clout he has, it's perhaps sensible from his standpoint to make a fight of it. That said, with Rebellion's trades only being bettered by Dark Horse hard-backs (and significantly superior to practically everything by the likes of DC/Vertigo and Marvel), it would even make sense for him to make peace with Rebellion and get a collected Zenith out thereâ??it'd sell by the truckload.

[ukdane]

Also, where the hell else is he going to house Luke Kirby anyway? It would make more sense to come to a deal with Rebellion and go from there.

Yeah, that was going to be my reason for him to sign a deal with Rebellion. I guess the equation is "creators power in the market" * "characters worth (copyright of character, new material + reprint royalties)" vs "creators power in the market" * "reprint royalties + possibility of selling the copyright", and as you mention Morrison is top heavy in favour of deal A (the left side of this equation), whereas AMcK would probably be better off going with deal B (the right side).

[opaque]

Theres nothing implied about copyright belonging to a business you're employed by:

http://www.intellectual-property.gov.uk/faq/copyright/who_owns.htm
   
'...where such a work is made in the course of employment, the employer is the first owner of these rights, unless an agreement to the contrary has been made with the author.'

I have to explain this to people at work all the time that they don't own what they've written, that when they are signing away the copyright to journals for publication they are doing it on behalf of the copyright owner, in our case the MRC. With the new Open Access policies they are no longer allowed to sign away any rights so some control is being regained by the copyright owner and not having it misused for profit by dodgy publishers making money for no work.

If writers were being paid for a work then it belongs to the business they are working for not them. Now if they are self employed that might be the getout clause of course in these cases.
There is no need for a form to sign away your rights they are built in under law.

[Leigh S]

whether you agree morally with IPCs (and subsequently Rebellions) ownership of the rights, it was never a secret to Moore, Morrison or especially McKenzie that they were the conditions they were working under - to try and weasel out of it retrospctively seems a bit off imo.  For instance, if IPC/Fleetway had been buying those stories for (lets say) £20 a page including copyright, I suspect that the page rate they would have got would have been significantly less for first publishing rights only.  

As for Pat Mills, he seems a complete gent whenever Ive seen him, though I suspect he does have a short temper and a low threshold for being jerked about - whether in his own perception or reality.

As McKenzie states, late cheques were a regular occurrence, so it sounds like Pat hadnt lost his rag over a one off error.

It's interesting to see that just before Alan McK was put in charge of the slushpile, we had Milligan and Morrison and Smith appear. Afterwards, we got.... McKenzie...

[Buttonman]

The copyright situation is the same in business too. If you pay someone's' research and development costs you'd be entitled to own the result. Take Post-it notes for example, one of 3M's lab jockies invented them but it's 3M who make the dough. I'm sure the man responsible got a decent bonus out of it.

Stop moaning creators, the deal was fine at the time. Do you think the CIS pay me a royalty every time my roughcast repudiation letter is used? (No they don't).

[The Amstor Computer]

It's interesting to see that just before Alan McK was put in charge of the slushpile, we had Milligan and Morrison and Smith appear. Afterwards, we got.... McKenzie...

*Znort* ;-)

[Goosegash]

I find it baffling how McKenzie could be so good and so bad at the same time. I've recently been reading a pile of 1994 issues for the first time, and the difference in quality between, say, Luke Kirby and the Sonny Steelgrave Dredds is just staggering. How you could go from something as subtle and well-judged as "Summer Magic" to something as offensively bad as "The Sugar Beat" is mystifying, really.

The worst criticism I've heard of the man was that he was basically writing most of the comic himself as a tax-dodge, and giving the other pages to his mates. Still, it'll be interesting to hear his perspective on that whole period...

[The Amstor Computer]

The worst criticism I've heard of the man was that he was basically writing most of the comic himself as a tax-dodge, and giving the other pages to his mates

Yeah, that's in line with some things I've read elsewhere from people involved with the comic...