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Via Flog.

Here’s today’s offbeat entertainment item: the filmmaking duo behind WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW has optioned the memoirs of Superman writer Alvin Schwartz:

Global Intelligence Press has optioned “An Unlikely Prophet” and its sequel, “A Gathering of Selves,” with Betsy Chasse developing, producing and directing the project. Kate Montana will also produce.

Chasse was a producer, director and writer on 2004’s “What the Bleep,” a metaphysical exploration of the impact of quantum physics on everyday life that grossed a surprising $11 million.

Schwartz began writing Batman and Superman stories during WWII, working for DC Comics until 1958. He also wrote the beat novel “Blowtop” in 1948 and, nearly 50 years later, published “An Unlikely Prophet,” in which he details the transformation of Superman into a more complex character.

Paul Karasik has set up a Fletcher Hanks website.

Can’t someone make a Fletcher hanks plug-in for the iTunes Visualizer?

[Thanks to PDF for link]

Nowadays when people think of Charlton Comics, if they do at all, it’s only because WATCHMEN started as a reinvention of Charlton’s superhero line, or or perhaps in fond remembrance of E-MAN. But they were a full service comics line that published everything from THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY to TIMMY THE TIMID GHOST to FIGHTIN’ MARINES. And as WFMU’s Beware of the Blog recalls, they were all pretty much dreadful.

Although there were plenty of comic book labels churning out poorly rendered crap while labels like Dell, EC, and National Periodical/DC received all the attention, no other peripheral comic group lasted as long as Charlton. The company was a cringe inducing comic book presence on newsstands for an incredible forty years, from nineteen forty-six to eighty-six. An impressive run for a company who’s output was often unreadable.

Much more nostalgic badness in the link.

[Thanks to DW for the link.]

Mike Sterling recently linked to this old reader-drawn pages from Gold Key comics of the ’60s. The image also got Boing-Boinged. We are dating our selves by saying we remember lots of our favorite comics that had that very page in it, and must thank Mike for opening up a whole can of worms of repressed memories. It’s all coming back now. Robbie…it was ME who hid your chew toy.

Meanwhile, in our nepotism corner, The Beat’s mom has updated her strip BIRD BRAINS, and this episode genuinely hit our funny bone, and perhaps reading it you will understand where The Beat gets much of our sense of humor.

By the way, if you’re looking for pictures of last weekend’s Adrian Tomine signing at Rocketship, Tom has ‘em, in a report that dubs us a “luminary.” We don’t know quite how to feel about that. We’re no luminary, just someone who posts their mother’s cartoons on their blog.

Since we’re revisiting 80s comics history today, this interview with Dean Mullaney from Blake Bell’s weblog is well worth quoting. For those who came in late, Mullaney was the publisher of Eclipse Comics, a very influential and — for a time — successful independent comics publishing company that gave the world many memorable characters from Sabre to Zot. In the interview, Mullaney explains why Eclipse closed up shop in the early 90s:

The irony of all this is that, in this day and age when graphic novels are regularly reviewed in the mainstream press, the reason Eclipse went under was due to my single-minded desire to establish graphic novels in mainstream bookstores. Eclipse had signed a mutually-exclusive contract with HarperCollins to produce graphic novels. The plan was to first introduce titles by authors already known to booksellers — J.R.R. Tolkien, Clive Barker, Dean Koontz, Anne McCaffrey… we even had an original by Doris Lessing in the planning stages.

Unfortunately, HarperCollins didn’t, in my opinion, really understand what graphic novels were all about. And there were internal conflicts at HC, to which I was never privy, that left Eclipse holding the bag. They had given us an advance to start production, but that money ran out, and we had a full schedule in production. We never received a single royalty statement, let alone check, from HC’s sales to bookstores. The cash flow deficit eventually forced us to close up shop.

We were too far ahead of the curve. Now, of course, all the major bookstore chains have graphic novel sections.

Okay, we knew EVERYTHING was coming back in the current comics boom, but Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters? Created by Don Chin, and published by Eclips as a take off on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was a take off on Daredevil and Ronin, ARBBH was the most successful of the literally DOZENS of books which created the great Black and White Indie Glut of ‘87. This was a strange period in comics history, one which we should return to in a future posting, but in the meantime, here’s the PR from Dynamite — is this the start of a NEW black and white indie comic boom?

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT announced today that they had reached an agreement with creator Don Chin to begin publishing a new comic book series and collections (and collectibles) featuring the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters. The news release follows up the blockbuster weekend that the animated CGI outing of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles dominated the weekend box-office!

The Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, written and created by Don Chin was originally illustrated by Parsonavich and later by Sam Kieth, as well as initially published by Eclipse Comics. The series chronicled the adventures of four Hamsters named Chuck, Bruce, Jackie and Clint, who were sent into space by the United Nations in an attempt to obliterate a huge blob of radioactive space jell-o that threatened to engulf the earth, wiping out all life as we know it. The Hamsters sacrificed their lives by self-destructing their rocket ship in the heart of the gelatinous mass, which sent them hurtling back to earth to the Himalayas covered with the strange glowing goo. There they were found by a wandering Buddhist Monk who sees their arrival as an answer to ancient prophecy–so they are trained in the ways of the martial arts to one day rid the world of corruption.

Chin dreamed up the furry foursome in a biology class at Humboldt State University in the 1980’s as a parody of the increasingly popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, but they soon took on a life of their own, selling over a half-million comics and becoming a part of pop culture. Humboldt State University in Arcata, California is also the alma mater of Stephen Hillenburg, creator of “Spongebob Squarepants.”

Dynamite stated: “The Hamsters are fun, they’re cuddly, and now they’re “dynamite”. We’ve been working with Don for a good long while to make this happen and today I’m pleased to announce that the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters have found a new home at Dynamite. This is a series which has the potential to not only be a lot of fun, but to be a great jumping on point for kids as well as regular comic fans! We’re thrilled at the creative possibilities of this series and have big things in store for these characters in a new comic book series.”

Creator Don Chin stated: “I’m very excited to be entering into this relationship with Dynamite Entertainment, as they have a proven reputation for great art and stories and have shown a keen eye for turning licensed properties into hot comic book titles such as Army of Darkness, Battlestar Galactica and Red Sonja. I have long wanted to re-introduce the “Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters” to a new generation of fans who might be looking for a very funny, action-packed series and to the original fans who have kept asking me when they were going to return out of hibernation. With so many 1980’s retro-titles being sought after for comics and movies (Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc.), it seemed like a natural fit to bring the Black Belt Hamsters back”

The Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters series ran for nine issues from 1986 through 1989 and featured a number of spin-offs, including: Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters in 3-D; Clint: Hamster Triumphant; and Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters Massacre the Japanese Invasion.

More details on Dynamite’s Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters - including details on the creative team - will be available in the near future.

Dynamite plans to have incredible support for this release with house ads, Diamond Previews Ads, online ads through news websites, as well as prints ads in Comic Shop News!

The “were 70s comics crap or complete total crap” meme continues to go around. Blog@ sums up all the blogospheric pressure with a post entitled If loving Killkraven is wrong, then I don’t want to be right. Not surprisingly, hate-fueled Dirk hates all 70s comics except HOWARD THE DUCK. Tom also jumps into the melee, but he, to us, deflects the point, by reducing the argument to this:

I find the first notion odd, because obviously the decade of the 1970s was important to modern superhero comics

We didn’t say the 70s were important to modern superhero comics, we said they were important to COMICS. The Marvel comics most under discussion WEREN’T superhero comics, necessarily. In the 70s, Marvel published lots of none-superhero things — horror, humor, SF, Westerns, even the last dregs of romance. Not all of them were great of course. But to say HOWARD THE DUCK was superhero is to miss the point — it was satire. KILLRAVEN was SF. MASTER OF KUNG FU was … kung fu. We’ve heard it argued that these books are superhero books because the characters wore costumes, but do do Tintin and Charlie Brown. We prefer to call them “hero” books.

Anyway, that still isn’t why the 70s mattered. It was the birth of true creator ownership. Gil Kane’s early graphic novel BLACK MARK was published in 1971. A CONTRACT WITH GOD. The Comics Journal. CEREBUS. ELFQUEST. This was something that mainstream creators like Neal Adams had been fighting for throughout the decade, and it continued to fuel the business, especially as underground comics proved that complete creative freedom could work.

If the argument is about comics quality, we think a strong one can be made for the 70s, perhaps not as the GREATEST decade ever, but not as a complete cultural wasteland. In terms of historical significance, it was as important as any other, and definitely planted the seeds of today’s industry in sometimes oblique ways.

And if you don’t believe us, here’s the definite PROOF 70s comics rocked:

and of course:

YesButNoButYes wraps up all the old favorites, like the Joker’s boner, and “Robin– what have I done?!?” but adds some new ones, like Wonder Woman’s eyelash crisis.

Over at ComicMix, it’s been teased and speculated that co-owner Mike Gold and partners will be rolling out a “Phase 2″ for the site. Given that Gold is the founder of First Comics, properties and creators associated with that line has been part of that speculation. Today Glenn Hauman pulls a tease with this:

After all, if Nexus can come back in this day and age, complete with the original creators, what could possibly be next?

John Ostrander and Timothy Truman on GrimJack?

Mike Grell doing new Jon Sable Freelance?

Del Close coming back from the grave for new Munden’s Bar stories?

Obviously, if we have any information about any of these properties, we’ll let you know.

Soon.

Unless something else comes along to eclipse that news.

Eclipse was of course the OTHER early 80s indie comics company that published many fondly remembered books like the original ZOT! and Miracleman and all that kind of stuff. Dean Mullaney was the publisher, the same Dean Mullaney who has now reappeared in comics editing comic strip reprints for IDW.

Is is all a coincidence? Or a tease? Or just something to fill column space?

We’re pretty sure this is the most clueless thing we’ve read all morning, but what does the group mind say? Dick Hates Your Blog says that 70s comics weren’t as influential as some other decades:

1940s-The Golden Age of superhero comics
1950s-EC Comics; Wertham, Senate hearings, and the Code; the golden age of romance comics
1960s-Wacky Silver Age fun; birth of underground comics
1980s-Event comics/crossovers; “dark” superhero comics are born; the independent publisher explodes onto the scene; the direct market begins to overtake the newsstand
1990s-Crap-tacular comics with stupid gimmick covers; rise and fall of the major independent publisher; the big speculator bust
2000s (so far)-Manga gains major ground, overtaking Marvel/DC in several categories; graphic novels begin to supplant the pamphlet format; probably a bunch of other stuff that will seem clearer in hindsight
[snip]So basically: there were many good comics published in the 70s, especially if you’re into idiosyncratic superhero comics, Underground Comix, or horror. But I’m skeptical that the 70s will ever be considered a monumental epoch in the history of comics. Some important wheels were set in motion, but the industry didn’t undergo any of the extensive changes (on either the art or business front) seen in other decades. So maybe it’s not such a great crime that the 70s dwell in the shadow of the two decades bookending it, an island of humility between two oceans of conceit (I think that’s how that saying goes).

Come on now! Is Dick trying to be silly? As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, the current comics biz is mostly run by post-boomers who all came of age reading 70s comics, and that era of “relevance” is what really kicked off the Grim’n'Gritty/Pow! Sock! Comics aren’t for kids any more era. Marvel in particular, had a great run that is still being strip-mined to death. Far from being inconsequential, it was the underground comics/”relevant comics/birth of self-publishing that planted the seeds of everything that came after.

If we were going to peg a decade as wheel spinning it would probably be the 90s. Indie comics were better than ever, but didn’t really develop beond what had already been done, and mainstream comics were irredeemably in the crapper.

Or are we full of it?

Are you a packrat?

Come on, you know you are. Well, just remember, once you kick the bucket, someone is going to go through all that stuff, and they might not understand. The New York Times presents a tale of new home buyers who found a lot of stuff in the attic of a house they bought that had once been owned by artist Arthur Pinajian.

The two men shrugged and peeked inside the drafty single-car garage out back, finding a rotting compost pile of art. There were thousands of canvases damaged by mildew, water and vermin. Then they climbed into the attic and looked briefly — or maybe not so briefly — at the stash of erotic drawings of women.

The buyers hoped to find value in the art stash, but experts say it might come from an unexpected source:

There is no mention of Mr. Pinajian in major compendiums of modern American art, and a Google search of his name and “artist” turned up nothing relevant. After a viewing of several photographs of Mr. Pinajian’s works, Marina Whitman, an art appraiser in New York City, said that it seemed doubtful that they would become “part of the canon of art history.”

But some of his original illustrations for comic books, she added, could have appreciated in value, since the comics themselves have gained status as collectibles. Many comic books that Mr. Pinajian — who also worked under various pen names — helped illustrate in the late 1930s have become collectibles.

A quick google shows Pinajian as the artist on Madam Fatal, Reynolds of the Mounted, that kind of stuff. You see, our kind always remembers, and as long as there is an internet, Pinajian will live on.

As reported yesterday, writer Arnold Drake passed away yesterday of complications from pneumonia and septic shock. He was 83.

Drake was a busy writer at DC in the 50s and 60s, creating THE DOOM PATROL with writer Bob Haney and artist Bruno Premiani and DEADMAN with Carmine Infantino. He went on to write many kids comics, creating STANLEY AND HIS MONSTER with the also-recently deceased Bob Oksner, and settling in for a long run on LITTLE LULU. With artist Matt Baker, Drake also pioneered the American graphic novel, creating the paperback IT RHYMES WiTH LUST which was published in 1950, and Dark Horse is reissuing it this month.

Clearly, Drake was a man ahead of his time, or at least at the forefront of his times. He was one of those quirky creators I was talking about a while ago. In his later years he was a fixture on the New York convention scene, and memorably appeared at the 2005 San Diego Comic-con where he won one of the first Bill Finger Awards, and charmed everyone with his singing.
Ian Brill has a nice remembrance and a good accounting of the Eisners that year:

At the Eisners award Drake received his Bill Finger award for both his writing and his cause. He ended his speech with, of all things, a song. It was a bit funny and a bit weird but something special happened after he sand the lyrics “I hears somebody said it/that Stan Lee would take credit/for Spider-Man to the King James testament.” I have never before heard a room of many hundreds simultaneously and with an equal amount of energy gasp and guffaw at the same time. It’s an odd sound but an enjoyable one. I was sitting next to TCJ then-Managing Editor Dirk Deppey and he immediately declared “We have to interview him!”

Mike Catron has an earlier video of another Drake singing performance.

I wrote about my own encounter with Drake here:

Don’t let Arnold Drake fool you, he’s sharp! Anyway we talked about his work on Little Lulu — he took over after John Stanley retired — and the movie he wrote and co-produced back in the 60s. We also asked him if he thought there was a difference between how his generation viewed writing comics — as a slightly pulpish vocation perhaps, compared to today’s writers who see comics as an artform.

“Yes, but there were always those of us who knew it could be something more,” he told us.

That was my only lengthy encounter with Drake and I sadly regret not having more, because he was a smart, creative person who paved the way for a lot of what we take for granted now.

Mark Evanier has a lengthy, personal remembrance of Drake which is MUST reading:

But Drake was a feisty guy who had trouble getting along with editors. In the late sixties, he fought with the management at DC, partly over what he considered inept editorial direction and partly over business matters. He was a loud voice in a writers’ revolt during which several of the firm’s longtime freelancers were demanding health insurance, reprint fees and better pay. Many of them were ousted, including Arnold, and he then worked for a time for Marvel before settling down at Gold Key Comics for many years. For them, he wrote many comics including The Twilight Zone, Star Trek and a particularly long and delightful stint on Little Lulu.

You can also see Drake in this group shot of the 2005 Eisner winners. I had written earlier about something he said while winning his Finger award. It wasn’t as colorful as his song, but was even more accurate: He told the people there to look down at the vast, bleating, blinking star studded show floor and “Remember that you are the ones who created it.”

Drake created it and lived it and we are much the poorer without his presence this day.

More: Tom
Johnny Baccardi
Liz Glass
Matt Fraction
and many more.

The Geppi emporium of pop culture has several special exhibits on tap for the year, according tothis press release:

Geppi’s Entertainment Museum at Camden Yards (’GEM-), the internationally acclaimed 17,000-square-foot center for pop culture, has announced its roster of special exhibits through Dec. 1.

Currently on view as a tribute to Black History month, an exhibit titled Finally in Full Color chronicles the rise of African-American characters from the early days of comics through modern day. The comic books and toys in this exhibit - which runs through March 10 - come from the long-held collection of Professor William H. Foster III. Poet, playwright and expert commentator for both CNN News and National Public Radio, Foster authored the 2005 book Looking for a Face Like Mine.

On March 17, GEM will unveil Pulp Art: Selections from the Robert Lesser Collection. Hailed as a visionary collector in the field of pop culture, Lesser was light years ahead of the pack in his push to preserve the original 1930s and ’40s paintings that served as cover art for dime novels, sci-fi, action and crime ‘pulp- magazines. From the Shadow to Tarzan to scores of damsels in distress featured in the cover art of these ephemeral publications, all found sanctuary in the Robert Lesser collection. In this retrospective, art of a bolder, brassier nature is brought to the forefront as an important component of 20th-century entertainment. Pulp Art: Selections from the Robert Lesser Collection runs from March 17 through June 2 and includes larger-than-life paintings by Virgil Finlay, George and Jerome Rozen, Frank R. Paul and many of their accomplished contemporaries.

The Force is with Us: 30 Years of Star Wars launches on June 9 with a comprehensive exhibit of toys, advertising items and other memorabilia documenting the series of films that added a new dimension to science fiction. Since 1977, the Star Wars anthology has spawned a veritable galaxy of unforgettable characters. From Darth Vader to Yoda, Jedi to Sith, GEM’s exhibit running from June 9 through Sept. 8 will allow earthling visitors to relive three decades of adventure from a galaxy far, far away.

(more…)

What with Devil’s Due bringing back Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, it was suggested we link to the Sheena home page, which has lots of galleries of pictures of Sheena in all her incarnations, from comics to pulps, to tv to movies and so on. There’s also a gallery of photos of the beautiful irish McCalla, who played Sheena in the 50s TV serial and was, let’s face it, a lot spunkier than Tanya Roberts. In fact the 40s and 50s were supposedly repressive times for American women, and yet these vulture-kicking, knife-weilding images are a lot tougher then the female heroes you see these days. Now we wonder why that is?

Anyway we picked two images we particularly liked but there are zillions more at the link, including a Bollywood Sheena, so enjoy.

Again With the Comics points us to MS PMS, a comic from the halcyon days of the 90s. that couldn’t keep up a monthly schedule. In fact, it came only once.

I found this little piece of blog-bait in the quarter bin and, well, how could I resist? Ms. PMS was published in 1992, with all the quality art and writing that the time of publication implies…

Click on the link for so…much…more…

comics212 has had a snappy new facelift and lets lose with a new salvo:

Every once in a while I’ll come across an essay, blog post, or even snarky comment from someone who’s been through a fandom and come out the other side, and when they have grievances I tend to give them a bit more weight… as in any weight… and really listen to what they have to say. I stumbled over a discussion about “Moe” a few months back that was like that, and it was really interesting because of it… I learned something, it was great. But coming across a series of columns like Bob Holt’s ‘I Love Comics’ at comicsnob.com? Not so much. I can’t even pull out a quote to illustrate why I think the column is weak, so much as the columns just belie a shallowness of experience and thought on the subject.

§ Living Between Wednesdays relives Superman and Big Barda making a porn film, courtesy of John Byrne:

[Link via Eric of all people.]

§ Over at Comic Coverage, Mark Engblom has a very funny, PSA-type take on the lateness epidemic. [Link via Tim Rakarich]

The Onion proves it still has what it takes to skewer the zeitgiest with this satirical jibe at many trends covered daily in The Beat :
New Archie Graphic Novel Explores Rich Inner Life Of Jughead :

Publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. released a new Archie Comics graphic novel Tuesday, Heavy Is The Head That Wears The Crown, an examination of the complex inner workings of longtime Archie compatriot Forsythe “Jughead” Jones. “Readers will be fascinated by Forsythe’s agonizing realization that his love of food was really just a substitute for loving himself, something he deems impossible due to his guilt over the premature death of his baby sister, Forsythia, and the predatory sexual overtures he suffers at the hands of Mr. Flutesnoot,” author and cartoonist Adrian Tomine said.

…only a heartbeat away…
[Link via Anne Ishii]

Another epic post from John K talking about what makes a cartoonist expressive. As usual today’s kids come up short.

These are what I call “Cal-Arts expressions”. They aren’t funny, and they don’t reflect any observation of or comment on humanity.

This is a style that is the opposite of cartoony. It’s about moving things smoothly and using the poses and expressions you have seen a million times in Disney and Bluth movies. These types of artists don’t have cartoonist personalities. They aren’t wacky or zany. They aren’t hard-bitten sarcastic men who take a grim realistic view of life and then make fun of it in their cartoons.

The right kind of guy, says Kricfalusi? Dan Gordon, who drew a bunch of strips for Giggle Comics before switching to animation and creating something called the Flintstones.

There’s even a few pages posted from old comic books, like this one.

It’s easy to see why John K would take a hankering to this kind of style, and how it influenced his own. He also links to this super cool site, Ich Bin Der Chrome Dinette that posts more old cartoony comic book pages in their yellowed glory.

We admit to being big fans of this style ourselves, but we don’t think it’s quite as lost as K. thinks, although the people who are naturally attracted to this style seem to use it more for emo-core autobiographical comics than adventures in canine scampery. Mark Martin pops to mind as an old school fun time guy. The people at Lunchbox would probably also qualify. Top Shelf probably publishes more modern day cartoonists in this vein than any publisher, oddly enough, include some who don’t really succeed at it, in our opinion.

Oh well, a topic for further study.

This is, like, hilarious

(Link sent by the Witz)

Mark Evanier has a nice post noting that while Mart Nodell’s passing marks the end of one Golden Age comics creator, we are lucky enough to have a few still walking amongst us:

Paul Norris, who co-created Aquaman, is still with us at the age of 92. George Tuska, who was drawing for Will Eisner’s shop in 1939 would certainly fit anyone’s definition of a Golden Age artist. He’s still around at the age of 90. Nick Cardy, who started with Eisner at the same time, is a much younger man of 85.

Creig Flessel, who was drawing the covers of Detective Comics before Batman was in the book is alive at age 94. Jim Mooney, who drew his first comic book in 1941, is a mere 87 years of age. Joe Simon, who has a pretty impressive list of co-creations to his credit including Captain America, is 93. He started in comics in 1938. Joe Kubert, who’s 80 years old, did his first comic book work in 1942.

Irwin Hasen is 88 and he started drawing comics in 1940. His occasional partner Bob Oksner is two years older and he started doing comics about the same time. So did Bob Fujitani, who’s 86. Bob Lubbers (age 84) was illustrating for funnybooks in 1942. Carmine Infantino is 81 and he was drawing comics before 1941.

Hasen, Infantino, Kubert and Cardy at least are still around on the con circuit. Make it a point to at least say hello some time. It’s a good feeling.

The 1966 cover of Spider-man #43, drawn by John Romita Sr set an auction record, selling for $101,700 at a multi-estate sale held October 20–21 by Philip Weiss Auctions.

It was a new auction record for original artwork from the Spiderman comic books. It was also one of dozens of lots that were sold from the estate of Marvin Channing, the noted comic book storywriter. The original cover art, Sunday pages and comic books were fresh to the market, having been in Channing’s possession for more than 40 years.

Original Charles Schulz pages and a Jack Kirby Captain America cover for TALES OF SUSPENSE sold for more than $40k each. Not as much as Audrey Hepburn’s dress, but still pretty pricey. More results in the link.

We had a chance to listen to the Alan Moore interview on Fanboy Radio, and in it he dropped a bit of a bombshell into the already ravaged crater that is the rights situation of Marvelman/Miracleman. You’ll recall that this long unavailable comics classic is unavailable because the rights are in dispute among Todd McFarlane, Neil Gaiman and possibly others. McFarlane and Gaiman already had one lawsuit with the rights as part of the stake, and further legal wrangling has crawled along.

The character of Marvelman was actually created by Mick Anglo, a British comics packager of the 50s and 60s. According to Moore, he wrote his version of Marvelman with the understanding that the rights to the character “had lapsed into receivership with the bankruptcy of the company that had published his adventures.That was the entire basis upon which I wrote my Marvelman stories.”

However, now, says Moore, “We’ve since found out that apparently this was all a pack of lies from the beginning.” Anglo had never lost the rights.

Anglo is still kicking at age 90. It’s believed that relatives (perhaps the Len Miller’s niece of this LitG report?) are helping him get back the rights – which he may have had all along – would then put him in clear ownership of the Marvelman material, and possibly lead the way to it returning to print.

Moore was hopeful but the situation sounds like it is far, far, far– like, way far — from being resolved. And thus, one of the great battles of comics continues on another front.