The Miracleman Copyright Case pt. 17

Its been a bit since I blogged about the Miracleman/ Marvelman fiasco and certainly been a while since I pissed Dez Skinn off enough to post a comment, but things just keep popping up and adding fuel to the fire. And because its a legal issue, instead of every getting simpler, it just keeps getting more and more complex.

Sigh.

Rich over at Bleeding Cool has brought up two graphics, a reprint of a 1958 story that has a copyright affixed to it, and the original version, which does not. Shown here is the original panel, lacking the attribution. And all this because Pádraig Ó Méalóid keeps digging around to get to the bottom of the controversy.

Now we have to wonder if the copyright notice on the reprint has any claim, see what English law from the time that the original publisher went out of business says about rights becoming either public domain or reverting to the original artist, and see when Dez Skinn put in his claim of use on the property if they were public domain.

And I may owe Dez an apology.

But we'll see. The problem here is that the real world is messy and complicated and Pádraig Ó Méalóid will likely keep unearthing new material that will just certify how messy it all is. Certainly when Len Miller & Co, the original publisher, went out of business no one in the world would have considered that they property would have become so valuable so many years later. Moral high ground still goes to Mick, however, and his 1978 claim shows that he wanted ownership to something that he had put his time and love and hard work into.