Comic Book Plus

For publications about British Comics and Story Papers; blog updates, heads-up to relevant websites etc!

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paw broon
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Comic Book Plus

Post by paw broon »

goldenagecomics.co.uk has changed and now has a brand new identity as the shiny and rather good looking Comic Book Plus. Potential teething problems aside, the forum is very entertaining and I've just posted the cover of Nelson Lee Library # 119 on there. Although the site is mainly centred on American comics there are examples of British material and the potential for more pd. papers and fanzines.
Click and have a read and add to the knowledge.
http://comicbookplus.com/forum/index.php

davidandrewsimpson
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Re: Comic Book Plus

Post by davidandrewsimpson »

I was looking at Comic Book Plus just now and saw that someone's been posting issues of Wizard (the story paper that is, not the more recent comic)

Go to http://comicbookplus.com/ and the Wizards (plus lots of issues of Champion, and other UK story papers) can be found under Pulp Fiction.

While you're there, under fanzines their are four issues (35 to 38) of The Comics Journal with articles on Hugh McNeill, Ron Turner, J T Edson and lots of other stuff.

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Digifiend
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Re: Comic Book Plus

Post by Digifiend »

And a copy of Adventure uploaded by the thread starter! I thought that site was only meant to have out of copyright stuff though? Isn't it another 20 years before 1930s stuff starts going public domain?

Phoenix
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Re: Comic Book Plus

Post by Phoenix »

Digifiend wrote:And a copy of Adventure uploaded by the thread starter! I thought that site was only meant to have out of copyright stuff though? Isn't it another 20 years before 1930s stuff starts going public domain?
I seem to remember pointing out just the other day that Thomsons' papers never enter the public domain. Mind you, I can't really see them getting into a strop just because one 1930s story paper is uploaded. I'm sure they have better things to occupy them. Actually, that issue of Adventure was advertised on eBay a couple of weeks back. Perhaps it was paw broon that bought it and just wanted to share its content with all of us!

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Digifiend
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Re: Comic Book Plus

Post by Digifiend »

I was wrong, but apparently, unfortunately for Thomsons, so are you. It's not 100 years, it's not infinity, it's actually 70 years after the author dies, or if the author is unknown, from the time it was made publicly available. The publisher still existing is irrelevant. That particular issue is from 1936, and the writers aren't credited, so it expired 7 years ago. However, the 1948 issues someone else uploaded should not be on the site, those are still copyrighted (albeit only for five more years).
http://www.caret.cam.ac.uk/copyright/Page171.html

Lew Stringer
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Re: Comic Book Plus

Post by Lew Stringer »

Digifiend wrote:I was wrong, but apparently, unfortunately for Thomsons, so are you. It's not 100 years, it's not infinity, it's actually 70 years after the author dies, or if the author is unknown, from the time it was made publicly available. The publisher still existing is irrelevant. That particular issue is from 1936, and the writers aren't credited, so it expired 7 years ago.
I don't think it's as straightforward as that, James. Presumably the authors are known to DC Thomson, (probably still listed in their files somewhere) and it hasn't been 70 years since they died. Also, what about the artists? More easily identifiable, and, again, still living 70 years ago. What about the title itself? 'Adventure', and its typography design? It hasn't been 70 years since that was last in print. Were any the stories in that issue re-published in strip form years later (as some others were)? Have any of the characters appeared in print within the last 70 years? If so, the copyright hasn't expired.

If the author of a story from that issue is genuinely unknown or forgotten, and the characters haven't appeared since, then there might be a case for re-typing out the story and re-publishing it free of copyright. But scanning the physical publication page by page? I think DCT still own the rights to that.

Phoenix
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Re: Comic Book Plus

Post by Phoenix »

Digifiend wrote:I was wrong, but apparently, unfortunately for Thomsons, so are you. It's not 100 years, it's not infinity, it's actually 70 years after the author dies, or if the author is unknown, from the time it was made publicly available. The publisher still existing is irrelevant.
I can't be bothered to search for my fairly recent post in order to see whether I could have expressed my point better. As a consequence, I will have to do it all over again. I was doing some thorough research into all the issues that I didn't then have of all eight story papers that at one time or another could be said to have been members of The Big Five. As I was making quite a number of photocopies of individual pages from here and there, and I was aware of the library's own regulations about not using them in future publications without written permission, I raised the issue of copyright, theirs and Thomsons, with a senior assistant. I was told by this person that DC Thomsons routinely renew the copyright on their printed material, newspapers, comics, story papers etc. That is why I made the point that Thomsons' published output is always within a copyright period. As far as Thomsons are concerned, I am assuming that the 70 years relates to the publication date of any one issue of their comics or whatever. This would mean that issue 1 of Adventure from September 17 1921 will nominally have gone out of copyright on roughly September 17 1991, but issue 2 will only have gone on September 24 1991, and so on. I'm sure that Lew is justified in looking into the copyright held by writers, cartoonists etc., but these will be issues to be worked out between Thomsons and their individual contributors, always assuming of course that they didn't sell their work to the company in the first place in which case they might well not have any rights at all. Needless to say, I am quite prepared to be proved wrong, but only with facts. I'm comfortable with facts.

Lew Stringer
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Re: Comic Book Plus

Post by Lew Stringer »

Phoenix wrote: I was told by this person that DC Thomsons routinely renew the copyright on their printed material, newspapers, comics, story papers etc. That is why I made the point that Thomsons' published output is always within a copyright period.
Thanks Phoenix. I did a little search and found your previous post on this subject (it's in the Kindle thread) which I must admit I had overlooked previously.

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