Miracleman Rights Cleared Up

[andrewducker]

Fuck me.  They finally did it.

I've been waiting to read the rest of Neil Gaiman's run on Miracleman since 1994.  It'll be nice to finally get it in my hands...

Comments

[drplokta]

Not so fast there, I'm afraid. It's only the 1950s Mick Anglo Marvelman that's been cleared, not the 1980s/1990s Alan Moore/Garry Leach/Dez Skinn/Neil Gaiman version. And I really doubt that Alan Moore will sell his rights to Marvel for any money.

[andrewducker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvelman#Marvel_Comics_acquires_the_rights

Alan Moore seems to be on board - and agree that Mick Anglo always owned all the rights to Miracleman/Marvelman:
http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2009/05/the-mighty-moore-marathon-part-three-of-padraigs-talk-with-alan-moore/

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Sadly it appears to be just the rights to the 1950s Mick Anglo works - Marvelman as opposed to Miracleman. There's still a big question over the Moore and Gaiman authored stuff.

Which is why I'm holding tight onto my collections of the Moore works, and the individual comics of the Golden Age and Silver Age...

[andrewducker]

See reply to DrPlokta above...

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Yes, I read those at the time of the announcement. As much as Moore says, none of the other creators have commented, and there's a lot of the Miracleman story that's not part of Mick Anglo's ownership (the Warpsmiths are Gary Leach's from another Warrior storyline completely) and there's Winter and the rest of the modern Miracle Family to consider) - and there's still much of the remaining legal case to deal with.

[andrewducker]

Well, Neil Gaiman was the person behind the Marvel&Miracles court case in the first place - so he's been working with Marvel on all of this for a while, we can assume he's onside.

I don't know about the artists.

And, of course, I have no idea about the legal standing of spin-off work that's done without permission - I assume that Marvel will have to do some kind of deal with the artists, but if they're the rights holders of Miracleman then it definitely can't be published except through them.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

The Marvels and Miracles court case is part of Gaiman's long running dispute with Todd McFarlane, and was funded by work Gaiman did for Marvel - but as I understand it had nothing to do with Marvel buying rights from Mick Anglo. It which goes back to a dispute over ownership of Angela,a character Neil created for Spawn, along with Todd McFarlane's purchase of Miracleman publisher Eclipse's assets - which Gaiman hoped to use to clear up the disputed ownership of the Miracleman copyrights...

Gaiman certainly at the time believed, like Moore, that the copyrights had been bought from Anglo back in the 80s.

[andrewducker]

Marvels and Miracles was set up to sort out the Miracleman copyright situation - of which just the first part was the copyright case against Todd. It was only partway through that court case that they realised that Todd didn't own anything anyway. (This according to Neil at two Q&A's I've seen him at).

[andrewducker]

Interesting details here:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2009/07/24/marvel-to-publish-mick-anglos-marvelman-and-they-own-it/

Which makes it sound like they have some people onboard, and are working on the rest.

I shall be keeping my fingers crossed!

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

I certainly hope so!

(I want to see the end of the Silver Age and the start of the Dark Age...)

[andrewducker]

Mark Buckinghmam seems to be in favour:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22227
And Neil would like to finish off his bit of story as well:
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/07/doing-gloomy-bear-and-other-noises.html

And I can't see anyone saying "Neil Gaiman? Not letting _him_ write for us..."

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Not to mention Big Ben, who's owned by Skinn.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Bottom line: if this meant that reprinting the 1980s and 90s stuff was sorted out and going to happen, they would have said so. Sure, Marvel want to reprint that stuff - who wouldn't - but I see nothing in this to suggest that it's a done deal. Maybe it's a bit closer to happening now than it's been for a long time, but don't expect it any time soon.

[andrewducker]

Clearly not a done deal - but Gaiman and Buckingham are both in favour of finishing their run.
http://communities.canada.com/montrealgazette/blogs/narratives/archive/2009/07/29/neil-gaiman-says-he-s-delighted-that-marvel-comics-has-bought-marvelman-rights.aspx

I shall be keeping my fingers crossed.

[andrewducker]

Oh - and I assume you know about this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8177529.stm
as it's (kinda) your field.

[soon_lee]

But what does that mean?

Not being cynical or anything, but I won't believe it until I actually have the rest of the Gaiman/Buckingham run in my hands. Until then, it's vaporware.