KIMOTA!
June 2, 2013 9:26 AM   Subscribe

Who owns Marvelman? Part I and part II - the concluding chapters of Padraig O Mealoid's epic 16 part history of one of comic's most disputed characters. meanwhile another hole in comics history is about to be filled in as Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell's Zenith finally gets collected in full.
posted by Artw (15 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Previous KIMOTA!
posted by Artw at 9:29 AM on June 2, 2013


Saved for later.
posted by Fizz at 9:42 AM on June 2, 2013




File under 'robbing bastards'.
posted by biffa at 10:14 AM on June 2, 2013




The total revenue from this can only be £100,000. That doesn't seem very much if they're potentially facing a lawsuit.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:19 AM on June 2, 2013


I do wish they'd resolve this....
posted by kimota at 10:27 AM on June 2, 2013 [4 favorites]


I hope that's the final cover (it's a step up from the bizarre sleeve for the recent Halo Jones reissue).

Also (from the Bleeding Cool link):
"Or that Rebellion have decided to publish and be damned. And by distributing direct to customers, they avoid dealing with Diamond Comic Distributors who are notoriously averse to any legal complications, such as Cease And Desist notices."

Time to get the popcorn and wait to see what Mr Morrison and Yeowell have to say on this one.
posted by panboi at 11:48 AM on June 2, 2013




So ... it seems that Padraig's got more to go in this epic history (seriously, it literally starts before the beginning of comics). Argh.

From reading it and other material, it seems that the old Marvelman stuff is no longer covered by any copyright, having been copyrighted by L. Miller & Sons, a company that no longer exists and did not designate any holder for its rights in Marvelman. Marvel wasted its money and were fools to try and reprint the old material, which should've gone in "Essential" style cheap, fat paperbacks instead of the hardcovers they put them in.

The newer stuff belongs in some proportion, which probably has to be figured out through a settlement, to Alan Moore, Garry Leach, Dez Skinn, Alan Davis, and for the later part Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. The sale of Eclipse's property triggered a clause in the contract that reverts the rights to Skinn, Leach and Davis of their ownerships. McFarlane owns nothing.

Moral: Marvel should just pay everybody except Todd McFarlane and reprint the whole Moore and Gaiman runs (including the end to The Silver Age) as trade paperbacks with the "Marvelman" name so I don't have to worry about damaging my Miracleman issues when I read them.
posted by graymouser at 5:53 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]


Frankly, I thought that Miracleman always worked better for the character than Marvelman, having no particular nostalgic connection to the original name. It fits the character's true origins better; one of the neat lines from Gaiman's run compares Gargunza's reverse-engineering of the Qys body-switching process to a chimpanzee finding a Walkman and reverse-engineering a recording studio.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:25 PM on June 2, 2013


I love Zenith, but would I pay $200 for it?

Actually, I might.
posted by Mezentian at 6:45 PM on June 2, 2013


It's a 480 page hardback Absolute type deal, so I'm in.

BTW, the comments on the Poison Chalice articles are well worth reading. Recommended, in fact. Which is weird for the Internet but there you go.
posted by Artw at 12:24 PM on June 3, 2013






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