Originally posted 25th July, Updated 26th July…
Rich Johnston, over at the Bleeding Cool site has news from San Diego that Marvel has sorted out a deal with Emotiv, the company representing Mick Anglo’s interests in the Marvelman character and will begin republication of Marvelman stories from the 1950s and 1960s.
No news yet over the more modern stories from Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Garry Leach, Alan Davis, Chuck Austen, Rick Veitch, John Totleben and Mark Buckingham yet, but I imagine it’s all in hand.
According to Bleeding Cool:
“I understand it is Marvel’s intent to publish that as well, and they are currently trying to contact every party involved to come to an agreement over any outstanding issues.“
(Marvelman from the 50s by Mick Anglo and Miracleman from the 80s by Alan Moore and Garry Leach.)
In comic circles this is rather huge news. Marvelman / Miracleman and the whole sorry saga around it’s publication is one of those great if only tales……
And if this means nothing to you, here’s a quick recap/refresher:
Marvelman was created by Mick Anglo in the 50s as a British version of Captain Marvel (Shazam). A decade of stories followed. (This is what Marvel currently have the rights to reprint).
Fast forward to the early 80s when Dez Skinn is assembling Warrior magazine and, as I understand it, asks Alan Moore if he’s interested in the character. New Marvelman is darker and one of the definitive “real-life superhero” type tales. Except it’s never finished in Warrior. There’s various fallings out and eventually Eclipse comics in the US reprints the series as Miracleman (Marvel Comics would not like a character called Marvelman) and continues it with all new material leading up the end of Moore’s run with issue 16 (and one of the most incredible superhero fights you will ever see between Miracleman and Kid Miracleman). Neil Gaiman is asked by Moore to write the character and, with Mark Buckingham on art, produces another 8 issues. Which is where it finished, with Eclipse going bust.
But like all great comic stories there are so many rights and ownership issues on this one that we never thought we’d see it back in print. When Dez Skinn published it in Warrior the ownership was split between Skinn, Moore, Leach and Quality Communications (Warrior’s publisher). When Leach left, Davis got a share as the new artist. When Moore passed the writing onto Gaiman, he also passed his share over and Gaiman split it with Buckingham, his artist.
Except it seems that the reality is that the rights have always really belonged to Mick Anglo after all. As reported in a recent interview with Alan Moore here on the FPI blog:
I mean, other than the fact that I was happy to do everything that I could to help Mick Anglo, who is the person who has always owned all of the rights to Marvelman, as far as I now understand it, that we never had the rights to do those stories, even though Mick really liked the stories that we did. We didn’t understand at the time that Mick Anglo was the sole owner of the rights. We were misled. So I’ve done everything that I can to clear all that up. I’ve said that, they talked about the possibility – what they want is money quickly, because Mick’s a very old man, he’s got a sick wife to look after, and they could use some dosh quite quickly.
Mick was the owner, and also, Len Miller never went bankrupt, and all of the things that we were told when we were doing Warrior turned out to have been fabrications, you know, unwitting fabrications, but fabrications none the less, and that goes for all of the American versions. Apparently Mick Anglo was abused, by the usual suspects in today’s rather venal comics industry, you know, right up to the Todd McFarlane part of the case. Neil Gaiman has been an absolute diamond throughout all this, and I’ve done me best, and the important thing is supporting Mick Anglo, really.
What this means for the future – who knows?
Do the modern creators; Moore, Leach, Davis, Gaiman et al have any ownership of the character? Maybe not.
Do they have ownership of the stories they wrote at the time? Maybe.
But I’m certain Marvel and it’s lawyers are desperately trying to broker deals with all involved to get the reprints starting and get the story finished. According to Gaiman, he’s got two more stories to finish with Miracleman/Marvelman (the end of the Silver Age story and the Dark Age). Alan Moore has a very prickly history with Marvel which may hamper proceedings, but he’s also keen to point out that he’s willing to support anything that helps out Mick Anglo.
But whilst everyone in the comic media is concentrating on the Alan Moore vs Marvel problems very few people have actually pointed out the obvious: Marvel wont necessarily be looking at the Moore stuff as the big news, but will be looking at Neil Gaiman’s material as something that could have huge potential sales outside the comic shop market. Neil Gaiman may always have to sit in Moore’s shadow within comics, but let’s not forget that Gaiman is now a hugely important bestselling author, especially in the US, and the recent success of the Graveyard Book following the Newberry Award win has catapulted him into real superstar author status. So maybe Marvel are thinking of this market a little more than the (admitedly) huge market for Moore’s stories.
Plus the simple fact is that Marvel and Neil Gaiman have a very cordial and mutually beneficial relationship. The problems with Gaiman and Todd McFarlane and the numerous lawsuits over the Angela character and McFarlane’s disputed claim of ownership of the Miracleman character led to the formation of a seperate company; Marvels & Miracles that seemed designed as a fighting fund to allow Gaiman to get the rights issues to Marvelman / Miracleman. All monies made from the Gaiman written 1602 series went into this fighting fund. It seemed that Gaiman and Marvel were setting themselves up together for a big fight. And even though that big fight seems less likely to happen now with this announcement the relationship between Gaiman and Marvel is an important factor in the possible reprinting of those lost modern Marvelman stories. I imagine that with Gaiman on board, a lot of the creators involved will be more ameanable to marvel reprinting their work. I’d also imagine, given Gaiman’s long history of supporting creator’s rights and his star billing, he’ll be able to encourage Marvel to do the right thing for the creators involved. And once every other creator agrees to it, I can see Moore agreeing to it as well, if only to make sure his fellow creators get the payday they deserve.
But hey, I could be wildly wrong on this one. And I imagine it’s going to run and run.
(Neil Gaiman’s 90s Miracleman and the first artwork from Marvel’s take on the character via a very quick off the mark poster coming in September by Joe Quesada. Notably, Quesada’s image uses the old MM chest logo rather than the modern version.)
One things for certain though. I’m not parting with my collections of Marvelman/Miracleman until I have the deluxe hardcover reprint that Marvel will hopefully be planning in my hands. After that, feel free to make me an offer.
Bleeding Cool article here.
Marvel.com article and announcement here.
CBR article here, Marvelman 101 here and interview with Joe Quesada here
Article/interview with Mark Buckingham here.
Excellent analysis of the situation by Steve Bissette here.
July 25th, 2009 at 11:45 am
While this is all good news, I still think there’s a long way to go before we see what we want to see.
It seems that specifically what they’ve bought the rights to is Mick Anglo’s Marvelman, presumably meaning the comic packaged by Anglo’s Gower Street Studio for L. Miller & Son Ltd/& Co. between 1954 and 1963, a total of something in excess of 300 issues. (Actually, from about 1960 they were all reprints, but the comic ran until 1963 none the less). This is all well and good, but nobody is really interested in seeing this stuff, except as some sort of novelty item. The fact that Marvel own this is ultimately not the most exciting news there could be. Even during the height of the acclaim for Moore’s Miracleman run, nobody was clamouring for reprints of this original material.
Another question worth asking is this: Did Mick Anglo actually own Marvelman, and did he have the right to sell it to Marvel? The comics were Published by Miller, who certainly had a copyright notice in them claiming to own all the contents, but Marvelman’s creation is perhaps unique in the history of comics, so who knows what happened when it was being discussed between Anglo and Miller, and who actually owned what?
However, what this does all point towards, hopefully, is that after they’ve reprinted whatever they’re going to reprint, or done whatever is it they wish to do with Marvelman, they may then move forward to secure, and announce, their ownership of the rights to the later work, known as Miracleman, that of Alan Moore and collaborators, and then, after that, the Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham work, which remains unfinished. Gaiman and Buckingham produced a six-issue Golden Age storyline, which was to be followed by The Silver Age, which they were two issues into before Eclipse Comics, its then publisher, wend down, and which was eventually to be followed by The Dark Age. These unpublished but announced storylines are really what I want to see.
And one thing I noticed, while reading about this just now, and listening to Joe Quesada talking about it, is that everybody is being scrupulously careful not to mention Miracleman. It’s ‘Marvelman’ this and ‘Marvelman’ that, but no mention of Miracleman, because, presumably, this is the part of the character that is still tied up in all sorts of legal shenanigans, with Todd McFarlane apparently having bought the rights to it at the sale of Eclipse’s assets. Did Eclipse actually have the right to sell this at that time, and did Todd McFarlane actually purchase anything legally binding? This is one of the big questions that overshadows the title, and one that we’re finally going to see some sort of resolution of, it would seem.
I have been slowly researching a very long and very thorough article called Who Owns Marvelman? over the past several years, but it would seem the time has come to finally get down to writing it on a more than desultory basis! When it’s finally done, announcements will be made…
July 25th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
If I could edit the above, I’d add this:
We know that Gaiman has been working directly with Marvel about this, via Marvels & Miracles, so he’s obviously onboard if the opportunity arises. Similarly we know that Joe Quesada travelled to Northampton to talk to Alan Moore several years ago, to make things right, and this is why Marvel got to do a reprint of Moore’s Captain Britain work a few years back, and again just recently, so we know Moore is also OK with Marvel, on this at least.
July 25th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
All due respect to Mick Anglo, but it’s the Moore & Gaiman stuff we want to see reprinted/completed.
March 23rd, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Who is to say that an inspired re-imagining of the Mick Anglo material might not reesult in something of the order of Watchmen?