Six Gun Gorilla revival

[starscape]

If DCT does technically own copyright, it'd be really churlish of them to do anything about a character that they have not used for an age and would almost certainly never use again. The Wikipedia page (I know, I know) does say that Boom consulted the copyright owner. You might think it's DCT but then who actually knows? Do you think DCT got a signed piece of paper?

[Phoenix]

As I mentioned a year or so back there was a strip in the Hotspur called The Equaliser

This in no way affects the point you are making, Steve, but for the sake of accuracy, there were two series of Send For The Equaliser!, one in 1961, the other in 1963, both in The Wizard. One of them was repeated as a picture strip in The Wizard in 1974. Even the advert was picked up by the TV series. The one in The Wizard read If your quarrel is just, but the odds are too great, send for the Equaliser, and the TV one was Got a problem? Odds against you? Call the Equalizer. At the time, in the late 80s, I persuaded myself that because Thomsons did not appear to complain, the TV company must have paid them for the use of their copyright material.

[stevezodiac]

Sorry yes it was The Wizard. Have them by my pc here - I was going to put them on ebay sometime in the future but the Equaliser strip made me hesitate.

[Digifiend]

If DCT does technically own copyright, it'd be really churlish of them to do anything about a character that they have not used for an age and would almost certainly never use again. The Wikipedia page (I know, I know) does say that Boom consulted the copyright owner. You might think it's DCT but then who actually knows? Do you think DCT got a signed piece of paper?

If they did consult them, then why on Earth aren't they credited!?!

[Tin Can Tommy]

The Wikipedia page (I know, I know) does say that Boom consulted the copyright owner.

Wikipedia has an article on Six Gun Gorilla?
I couldn't find anything on Wikipedia (apart from a brief mention on an article called Weird West) after searching for Six Gun Gorilla.

[Digifiend]

I can't find it either, and no mention on either the Wizard or Boom Studios articles either.

[starscape]

Must not have been Wikipedia then but some other comic based info site. Sorry, can't remember which. And, as wikis do, it could have been wrong or deleted. Can't find anything else to justify that comment, so got to presume it was incorrect. Apologies for the wild goose chase.

[felneymike]

If DCT does technically own copyright, it'd be really churlish of them to do anything about a character that they have not used for an age and would almost certainly never use again.

I hope they take them to the cleaners, myself. It's bad enough the yanks and wish-they-were-yanks of modern comics ruining the characters they do own (like all the old Amalgamated Press ones), without them starting on DC Thomson's ones too.

There really ought to be some way for the government to seize the copyright on important works "for the nation", if said copyright is left in "limbo" for too long. Mind you, they probably wouldn't consider any comic or story paper worthy of it, not even Dan Dare or Billy Bunter!

[Tin Can Tommy]

There is a similar strip to Six Gun Gorilla in the Beezer Book 1977. It is called Our Sheriff's an Ape! I think you can work out what the strip is about from the title although there it is slightly different from what the title suggests in that there are two sheriffs one an ape the other his human master.
According to the Book of the Beezer the strip was drawn by Bill Holroyd and it looks like the strip never appeared in the weekly comic.

[Raven]

There is a similar strip to Six Gun Gorilla in the Beezer Book 1977. It is called Our Sheriff's an Ape! I think you can work out what the strip is about from the title although there it is slightly different from what the title suggests in that there are two sheriffs one an ape the other his human master.
According to the Book of the Beezer the strip was drawn by Bill Holroyd and it looks like the strip never appeared in the weekly comic.

Have a look at this enlightening thread:

http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/forum/viewtop ... f=1&t=1498

for more on Our Sheriff's an Ape (for example, Kashar said: "This was an unusual strip in that it only ever featured in either Beezer annuals or Summer Specials, never in the weekly comic. The scripts however came from a much earlier text story in the Thomson boy's paper Skipper in 1940, a story I might add that was illustrated throughout by the great Dudley Watkins and gave rise to some great Watkins' covers for the paper in its last full year of publication.
Between 1969 and 1988 the character featured in 16 Beezer books as well as turning up in the 1973 and 1975 Summer Specials") and, indeed, the groovy Sheriff Starr from Whizzer and Chips, a young sheriff with an ape and an elephant!

[Phoenix]

for more on Our Sheriff's an Ape (for example, Kashgar said: "This was an unusual strip in that it only ever featured in either Beezer annuals or Summer Specials, never in the weekly comic. The scripts however came from a much earlier text story in the Thomson boy's paper Skipper in 1940, a story I might add that was illustrated throughout by the great Dudley Watkins and gave rise to some great Watkins' covers for the paper in its last full year of publication.

The serial that Kashgar was trying to remember was The Hairy Sheriff, which appeared in The Skipper 489 (Jan. 13 1940) - 512 (Jun. 22 1940). Riley the almost-human, ex-circus ape became sheriff due to a Sandstone City bye-law that promised to award the job of sheriff, with a salary of $100 per month, to anyone who brought the bandit Bull Brannigan to justice. No problem! Riley's friend and ex-circus owner Sam Barker, then appointed himself Riley's deputy, and they immediately got down to business. Unlike The Six-Gun Gorilla from The Wizard, this serial is a comedy.

[stevezodiac]

I am pretty sure The Sheriff's an Ape was in the weekly Beezer - I remember it in full colour in the centre pages. Unless I'm thinking of Uncle Dan the Medicine Man also by Holroyd.

[Digifiend]

You probably are thinking of Uncle Dan. http://home.btconnect.com/thetopper/uncledan.php

[davidandrewsimpson]

There are now two different Six-Gun Gorilla comic books in America. You can read about it at http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/04/07/ ... g-at-once/, if you're interested.

[Raven]

There are now two different Six-Gun Gorilla comic books in America. You can read about it at http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/04/07/ ... g-at-once/, if you're interested.

The writer: "I think I stumbled across it on the Internet one day while perusing a site about the Golden Age and Pulp superheroes. I saw that title and BANG! It was like a firecracker went off in my head. Later I was driving to a local shopping mall, listening to the HAWK THE SLAYER soundtrack of all things, and by the time I parked I already had the entire story."

It does sound like a case of someone seeing something old on the internet and assuming it's public domain.

The writing of Six Gun Gorilla will presumably count as 'work made for hire', making the organisation who commissioned it - i.e. D C Thomson - the "author." I think work made for hire copyright lasts for 95 years after the date of publication, which would presumably keep it in copyright until around 2034.

It may possibly be more complex than that if, maybe, the copyright holder needed and failed to renew a registration, or somesuch.