All this talk of Zenith news bubbling under... well somewhere... possibly... in our dreams etc, reminded me that I don't think I've linked to this here. Over at The Beat there's been a superb series of articles dealing with the rather complex matter of 'Who the heck owns Miracleman, Marvelman and the various versions there of.
Not sure if people have been following Padraig O Mealoid's work in the area but its well worth checking out (with occasion illustrations by our own Michael Carroll)
http://comicsbeat.com/poisoned-chalice-part-15-who-owns-marvelman-part-i/ (http://comicsbeat.com/poisoned-chalice-part-15-who-owns-marvelman-part-i/)
After dealing with the characters convoluted history Padraig is now getting to the meat of the matter, who the heck has the rights... of course I suspect the answer is 'I dunno really' but its been a fascinating read.
(Apologies if this has been mentioned before, I know I intended to but can't find a thread so figured I'd forgotten!)
I'm pretty sure Marvel Comics does at this point
Quote from: The Adventurer on 27 May, 2013, 09:15:30 AM
I'm pretty sure Marvel Comics does at this point
Honestly read the articles, its far from an open and shut case and while Marvel have bought some rights quite what that is the rights too, if these rights actually mean anything is quite the question. Hence the delay in them actually doing much more that reprinting a few pretty bum 50s stories that no one is really that fussed about.
yeah, if it was clear cut Marvel would be milking the Moore Cow for everything it could (see also Watchmen)
Cheers for posting, Colin. I don't know much about superheroes, let alone Marvel/Miracleman, so that was an interesting read - particularly the stuff about Superman's origins in Philip Wylie's Gladiator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator_%28novel%29) and the matryoshka doll progression of mimesis which leads to all the variations within the bounds of what is still essentially the same idea. It's difficult to decide whether this means that everyone's just basically copying everyone else, making the notions of originality and creation at the heart of copyright law irrelevant, or whether that makes tiny differences between the variations more significant.
It struck me that if Wagner, Mills, Ezquerra et al chose to spend their twilight years in litigation no-one would ever see another Dredd comic or film again. Lawyers can exploit the obscurity and complexity of our patchwork legal system to claim ownership or rights to produce material on behalf of almost anyone, and another set of very expensive lawyers will be happy to do exactly the same for another party. This goes back and forth in a Jarndyce v Jarndyce fashion until everyone's skint and the contested material has been out of print for so long no-one's really that interested in reading it anymore.
Quote from: Proudhuff on 27 May, 2013, 09:45:45 AM
yeah, if it was clear cut Marvel would be milking the Moore Cow for everything it could (see also Watchmen)
I haven't read Padraig's article yet, but from what I have understood reading George Koury's book about Miracleman/Marvelman is that there is a difference between owning the rights to use the character and owning the rights of previous works. So marvel could own the right to produce new Marvelman/Miracleman stories but in the same time couldn't reprint the eclipse material because the rights are (obscurely) split between Skin, Moore, Davis, Gaiman etc..
Marvel registered the trademarks for both Marveman & Miracleman and are currently doing deals: paying the creators for the work they did on the Moore run, and when they've successfully done that, they'll publish it. I think they've gone through the motions with most of them now and there's about two left- one of which I think is Totleben - but by registering the trademarks, they do own it, now.
Quote from: JOE SOAP on 28 May, 2013, 02:35:57 PM
Marvel registered the trademarks for both Marveman & Miracleman and are currently doing deals: paying the creators for the work they did on the Moore run, and when they've successfully done that, they'll publish it. I think they've gone through the motions with most of them now and there's about two left- one of which I think is Totleben - but by registering the trademarks, they do own it, now.
what you said seems to be confirmed in the last article a week ago:
Quote" Moore has asked Marvel Comics to give his share of the money from any reprint of his work to Anglo – a situation that is obviously complicated by Anglo's death in 2011 – but Moore retains any rights he has. And, before you all jump in and tell me that he transferred his rights to Neil Gaiman, let me clarify the difference between his rights in the character of Marvelman, and his rights to the Marvelman stories he created. To the very best of my knowledge – which in these matters is considerable! – what Moore gifted to Gaiman was the former, but not the latter. Gaiman owns what were Moore's rights to the Marvelman character, but Moore retained – and still owns – his rights to the work he created."
Still I don't regret the purchase of the three Moore's Eclipse paperback instead of waiting for a reprint (and boy, it has cost me a kidney!) because the "when" is still the big speculative issue here.
The discussion rumbles on...
http://comicsbeat.com/poisoned-chalice-part-16-who-own-marvelman-part-ii/ (http://comicsbeat.com/poisoned-chalice-part-16-who-own-marvelman-part-ii/)
Its a fascinating read but always seems to come out with a big shrug of the shoulders. There's some insightful comments in the ... well comments section, that seem to cut to the chase (is Patrick Brown the Patrick that frequents here?) but even those are of course informed guesses I think (unless Patrick, who I think might be our Patrick is a copyright lawyer that is, in which case he makes a very strong argument.)
I guess Marvel will eventually work up the courage to go to press, the potential rewards are enormous, especially if Gaiman sticks to his pledge to finish his intended run.
Would like to see some Rebellion-style bravery to speed this along though.