Comics UK

This week's issue of TOXIC (No.137, on sale Wednesday 1st April) comes bagged with a brand new 16 page humour comic, CRAZY COMICS! It's just a one-off comic, but it features nine new strips by various creators. More info on my blog:

http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2009/03 ... oming.html

...and despite the publication date this is NOT an April Fools prank.



Lew

Looks good Lew - good to see some movement in UK COMICS again what with the Egmont/WH Smith reprints and now this - Don't usually pick up Toxic (well I'm a bit old for it lol) but will get this issue with your and Jamie Smarts (in particular) strips - Do you think the sudden increase in UK material by Egmont might mean that they are looking at producing something new and regular in the future for the UK market????

Guess BeanoMAX is selling well enough, and they want a slice of the pie!

Digifiend wrote:Guess BeanoMAX is selling well enough, and they want a slice of the pie!

It's a case of vice versa actually. Toxic has been running for six years and BeanoMAX and Dandy Xtreme were both influenced by it. (DX in particular.)

Lew

This is the comic I managed to not be in. Egmont wanted to claim ownership of intellectual property rights of my character (Hot Rod Cow) just for printing one strip. Since I got dumped after I'd queried that clause in the paperwork, I can only assume all other contributors have given away all rights in their characters in return for a one-off appearance. (Unless some creators know otherwise?)

Wow, Toxic is Egmont. All these new Fleetway (as I still like to call them) comics seem to suggest a re-think.

kevf wrote:This is the comic I managed to not be in. Egmont wanted to claim ownership of intellectual property rights of my character (Hot Rod Cow) just for printing one strip. Since I got dumped after I'd queried that clause in the paperwork, I can only assume all other contributors have given away all rights in their characters in return for a one-off appearance. (Unless some creators know otherwise?)

I don't really see the problem Kev. That's the way British comics have worked for decades and we knew that when we got into the business. (I'm not saying it shouldn't change, but we know the score.)

If you (understandably) didn't want to release a character you'd already established, why not simply come up with a new one for Egmont? We're creative. That's what we do.

Lew

I have no qualms about non-ownership of Zombie Nation, since it was created by one of the TOXIC sub-editors anyway, but I must admit that if the strip I pitched had been selected I'd have had my doubts about signing that contract too. It's probably because I'm such a newbie, but I've yet to perfect the whole "Creating a concept good enough to attract editors' attention but not so good that you're bothered about who has the rights" balancing act

Lew Stringer wrote:

kevf wrote: If you (understandably) didn't want to release a character you'd already established, why not simply come up with a new one for Egmont? We're creative. That's what we do.

Lew

But why should we? (Give away rights that is, not come up with new characters obviously). Why should I create a new concept that I think is worth publishing, then sign away all its rights in perpetuity in exchange for one appearance in Toxic? Gary Northfield didn't have to do that for Derek The Sheep in The Beano. And I'm sure that's not your deal on Suburban Satanists is it?

PS: I think the arrangements creators had with The DFC was much fairer. Which means they have been given the funding to create their strips, but now the DFC's wound up, they're free to sell their completed strips to other publishers. If the DFC takes a share of that, then good. But claiming all of someone's creation in exchange for not very much money is simply criminal and we'd do something about it if we weren't all so bloody desperate.

kevf wrote:And I'm sure that's not your deal on Suburban Satanists is it?

Correct, I own the rights, - but that was a strip for Egmont Sweden / Norway. British comics have always been behind the times regarding rights.

I do understand your annoyance about it Kev, and you're in the right, but look at it this way: it's ONLY a one-off comic. You chose not to be involved and I respect that, but it's not like the door's closed to you for a whole run of a comic. Who knows, - if Egmont ever do a new comic one day the deal may be much better.

(By the way, couldn't you have just redrawn Hot Rod Cow as a pig for Egmont and called it Hot Rod Sow?

Lew

Interesting it's two different countries' ways of working, but one Egmont. And yes, the door's not closed to me. But when I step through it I do have to sell my babies.

I think you did the right thing there, Kev - in no other medium would giving away total rights for a one-off payment be acceptable and, even in UK comics now, DFC creators kept their rights (I think?) (EDIT: OOPS, I'M WRONG - see BELOW!) as did Jamie Smart and Gary Northfield with their Dandy and Beano creations, so it can be done.

With the internet connecting everyone, one might hope there's potential for artists/creators maybe liasing more and jointly agreeing not to go along with such unfair conditions in the 21st century.

The problem is: sell your character and concept like that to a publisher and they could see potential in it, develop it further, it could become a game, an animated series, who knows what, and end up earning millions like a Ben 10.

Of which you'd get: not a penny.

I presume comic people unlike writers in other fields still don't tend to have agents. And there's a reason such publishers wouldn't want to deal with agents: no good literary agent would ever accept those terms.

kevf wrote:PS: I think the arrangements creators had with The DFC was much fairer. Which means they have been given the funding to create their strips, but now the DFC's wound up, they're free to sell their completed strips to other publishers.

Um, that isn't actually the case Kev, although I'm not going to go into details here...

I'm completely wrong about the DFC actually, aren't I? Just checked one and it says all content copyright Random House. Which isn't good, because if you'd authored a *prose* fiction book for Random House that wouldn't be the case - copyright would be yours.