Action Comic IPC

[wilsia]

Does anyone who has the rights to the strips from the 70s Action comic?

I would love to see a best of similiar to the Best of Battle Action.

[chrissmillie]

Egmont do. I released a licensed Collected Hook Jaw (all the pre-ban strips), with Egmont having some plans for future collections of their material.

[mrbananas]

You can still log on to the website sevenpennynightmare.co.uk, which has every issue available to read online

[Digifiend]

Don't let Egmont know that!

[Lew Stringer]

Don't let Egmont know that!

I thought the site had permission?

Don't they?

[felneymike]

They haven't been shut down even though an equivalent for Misty was ages ago... so they must do. Egmont can hardly not know about it, loads more people have heard of Action than Misty for a start... (Mind you there hasn't been two whole self-published Action tribute comics in recent years!)

[moose]

I have unofficial permission from Steve MacManus and Melanie Leggett at Egmont. The site, along with the Batlle/Johnny Red site have put me in a position of favour with Egmont and Titan on the reprinting of collected strips because I've landed the role of scanning them and tarting them up to their former glory. The reprint rights are now held by Titan, and we're in discussion on my involvement in releasing Action strips in the near future.

[Lew Stringer]

Thanks for clearing that up Moose. I thought you were ok on it but Digifiend's comment discombobulated me.

[moose]

No, things are fine thanks Lew. I spoke to Melanie a long time ago, not long after the Misty thing happened, and the problem there was that the scans were being offered on CD for money which Egmont objected to, even though the defence was that the price charged only covered the cost to produce and mail the discs.

The current Misty site is now 'official', but is seriously neutered when compared to what was there before.

A while back Steve MacManus got in touch sying how good he thought the site was, but wanted to check that a disclaimer was in place about copyright (it was) and that there was a statement to say that the comments of 'Action Man' were not the comments of Steve MacManus (there was), so everything was as required, and I've never offered the scans for sale. I keep them low-res anyway, readable but not too good, and Egmont seem fine with that arrangement. Since the revamp I've added a copyright notice to every scanned page.

[Digifiend]

So basically, as long as you don't profit from it, it's fair game. What a refreshingly casual attitude.

I guess a wink earlier wouldn't have gone amiss, it was a joke. Sorry about the confusion.

[felneymike]

Hmm, Michael Moorcock said similar things about IPC on the Sexton Blake website when i discovered that they still had the copyright of the character (i had assumed it would be public domain), though i'm not doing exactly the same thing as i'm writing my own stories for my self-published comic. ("published" not being the best word as the one event i sold them at has now been discontinued)

[wilsia]

I see that Amazon have listed on their site "Best of Action Vol 1" due out in September

[moose]

That'll be Titan's over-optimistic early solicit of the book. So far the guy editing it has only started looking at what might go in it, no pagination, no strips selected.

Interestingly, the use of the title 'Action' has been permitted for a Titan run of reprints. I did some samples for a European publisher who was interested in reprinting selected strips in a monthly anothology. Whilst he was allowed to use the strips, he wasn't allowed to use the comic's title. I was sent some fantastic sample pages, re-coloured and re-lettered, which looked really good, but without that all important title things never advanced.

The project is currently on hold, and that's probably saying more than I should.