Comics UK

Steve - I was there too. Lots of Lions, Valiants, Smashs plus 1940s Beanos and original art. The Keyhole Kates looked tempting as did the Ken Reid volumes including a complete Jonah volume (£100 though!). I picked up a reference book on Davy Law and other top creators from yesteryear. Half tempted t...

I just thought I'd pop in and say thanks to several of the contributors here before they're slung off the forum. Many of your posts have been informative and at times imaginative. However you all now seem to be bowing out in a blaze of sniping. I am guessing that I am not the only one looking forwar...

Thanks for those scans Steve. I have those free gifts somewhere. The badge was quality! Now in the same way that suspense was recently generated in the build up to the announcement of missing Doctor Who episodes, I can say that at some point in the next fortnight I'm hoping to put up a scan of somet...

As a kid I was lucky to have 8 comics put by for me each week. Now as a well paid adult holding the money I baulk at any thought of buying more than one each for mine. It has become a guilty moment when I fork out £2.95 for a Marvel monthly (although the production is top grade). Does anyone know ro...

It is quite possible that the Beano doesn't make any money. D C Thompson is a large conglomerate these days with fingers in many pies. Given their structure it is quite feasible that it is somewhat subsidised. I know from past conversations that they love that comic and all it's heritage. My six yea...

Hi Gordon, I think it's fair to say that there's been a fair bit of bear baiting at you since you came on board in the knowledge that you'll come out fighting, look plain bad and then be asked to leave. What's unfortunate is that it seems to work and you get drawn into responding on everything in fi...

Tomorrow I'm going to buy my six year old daughter her first ever Beano (rather than Pretty Foal in Pink weekly with free gift furry handbag). I'll let you know what she thinks of it (unless I find snot and fart gags in abundance which means I'm putting it back on the shelf for another year...)

Going back to the mention of Adam Eterno, isn't he in the Egmont catalogue rather than IPC? The division between the two was set as June 1969. New characters after that date plus an agreed list of others (e.g. Roy of the Rovers) sit with Egmont, so being a 1970s character there's still some hope tha...

I'm more than happy to see flame war correspondence wiped out. Someone provokes and then when it flares up everyone starts quoting chapter and verse as if it's necessary to set the record straight. No need to as there is a high level of intelligence here and we can see what's going on. And yes we ca...

Not being a Weekly News reader, can anyone confirm whether DCT used to run a Dennis strip in there? I have half a recollection of reading somewhere that there was one in the 1950s. If so have they since been reprinted in the Dennis the Menace books?

Starscape, OK quoting 5 years was probably just too unpalatable. I saw it as a timeframe that would make publishers think fast on what they should put out to us as readers - and if they weren't going to do it then let someone else. Your suggestion of a generation would probably be more practical. Se...

No, copyright would remain on the original work. It's about taking characters left unused, not something that is kept commercially available every so often. As someone who won't even contemplate buying comic discs etc off eBay, I would nevertheless like to see a lot of characters available for today...

The reality is that much of what is published is never seen again. If a publisher won't exploit it over time then open up the characters for others to take forward. If it takes off then the creator will still have a chance of some royalties should the publisher, retaining the copyright on the origin...

Ideally I'd like to see copyright lifted if a property is not made commercially available to buy within 5 years of its last availability. So for comics, either a strip appears as new or reprint at least once in that time. If it doesn't then the character becomes public domain. This would prompt a pu...

My children are attracted to those characters that they've seen on TV. Had Desperate Dan been a cartoon then more Dandys might have been sold. Given this, I only think that the cover star of a comic needs TV exposure. As nice as it would be to see more of the Beano crew, Dennis can carry it on his o...