'Free' Megazine GN Suggestions

[bad librarian]

There probably isn't enough SOONER OR LATER to make a whole mini-trade is there? Eh, pad it out with some of Brendan McCarthy's "Brit-Cit"-era Dredd stories, and bingo! It's a book.

Alternatively, Sooner or Later plus Swifty's Return, although that might be too much.

Personally, I'd be happy to see a Brendan McCarthy Dredd collection from his exciting neon-nightmare period (such as the excellent She Devils).

SOONER OR LATER plus SWIFTY'S RETURN sounds perfect. How many pages would that run to?  Given the talent involved, maybe that'd work better as a "proper" book release.

[Mosh]

Honestly I could do without it entirely. I notice that the claim it was "FREE" on the back of the Jock edition with #275 has been changed to "BAGGED WITH" on the Snow/Tiger edition with #276. Which is slightly more honest, seeing as the Meg has increased in price by £2 to cover the costs.

Thing is, I've been reading 2000AD as a regular subscriber for around 23 years. I've filled in all the holes in my collection so I already have everything they could put into an extra novelette thing unless they start going for stories not originally published in 2kAD/Meg. At least when it was Extreme Editions, I had the choice whether to buy something I already had (at least) once. Now if I want the new stuff, I'm forced to not only get reprints but to pay an extra two quid a month for it.

I appreciate that price hikes are common these days, but 40%? For the privilege of gaining nothing new at all?

I want the new stuff. I love the new stuff. But I'm loathe to be ripped off which is how I feel at present.

Rock. Hard place.

[Subsplot]

Chopper, all of it, start witIh the early black ankd whites and  keep goeing to the  end of the  classic supersurfs.

Judge Anderson, Childhoods End

Missionary Man -  Bad Moon Risinmg (I think, the story where the demon falls out of the sky, in fact any Missionary Man by that artist, they all stuck in my mind.)

There's so many random Judge Dredd singles, Freefall, Hot Pursuit and I wouldn't mind rereading any of Rouge Trooper.

[Leigh S]

Honestly I could do without it entirely. I notice that the claim it was "FREE" on the back of the Jock edition with #275 has been changed to "BAGGED WITH" on the Snow/Tiger edition with #276. Which is slightly more honest, seeing as the Meg has increased in price by £2 to cover the costs.

Thing is, I've been reading 2000AD as a regular subscriber for around 23 years. I've filled in all the holes in my collection so I already have everything they could put into an extra novelette thing unless they start going for stories not originally published in 2kAD/Meg. At least when it was Extreme Editions, I had the choice whether to buy something I already had (at least) once. Now if I want the new stuff, I'm forced to not only get reprints but to pay an extra two quid a month for it.

I appreciate that price hikes are common these days, but 40%? For the privilege of gaining nothing new at all?

I want the new stuff. I love the new stuff. But I'm loathe to be ripped off which is how I feel at present.

Rock. Hard place.

I can understand the feeling - i feel it too!  That said, its probably not the full 2 quid, as theres more original material than previously that needs to be paid for - still, even paying a (plucked for the air) quid for the reprint isn't great for me.  Now, if it was Daily star Dredds, that'd be a different story....

And of course, if the new stuff was doing it for me, I probably wouldnt notice so much, but with only Wagner ticking all the boxes, its more apparent to my own wallet

[paulvonscott]

I'd like to see Harry 20 again.

Well... I've always argued for a nice hardback, like Fiends of the Eastern Front and Button Man (which I wish ahd carried on with the same format).  It might be hard to argue for it if it wasn't that the strip was drawn by Alan Davis, one of the big all time comic book artists and it represents some of his earliest work.  Plus it's a cracking yarn.

I'll carry on hoping, but it is fading a little.  I do love the story.

For me, a reprint of anything in this new format, including Harry 20, isn't much use to me.  Sometimes the stuff inside is entertaining enough (Lawcon) but on the whole I don't really get it.

[Proudhuff]

Zenith and/or Big Dave, just to see the apoplectic look of fury on Grant Morrison's deep-fried heroin pie-eating bald face.
I'd also volunteer to wipe my arsehole with every last page of Final Crisis, but Morrison has beaten me to the punch.

oh-oh!

[Dark Jimbo]

I'd also volunteer to wipe my arsehole with every last page of Final Crisis, but Morrison has beaten me to the punch.

oh-oh!

[Tweak72]

Can I throw Luke Kirby's hat into the ring?

Yes, but Alan McKenzie will sue whoever picks it up.

erm why?

[worldshown]

Tweak, details are on Hipster's blog.

http://hipsterdad.livejournal.com/184225.html

[IndigoPrime]

I do wonder about McKenzie's statements. The suggestion must be that he wasn't contracted at all during his time on 2000 AD, or that the contract was, frankly, dreadfully written by idiot monkeys. Generally, when you work for a company, what you create there remains theirs, unless your contract specifically states otherwise. And so while Morrison perhaps has a case for Zenith (albeit not a watertight one) in that copyright was never technically assigned (which in itself is debatable—several of the publishers I work for state categorically that on completing and submitting a feature, they then get the rights, or at least joint rights), I fail to understand how a contracted employee would be able to use the same argument.

[Dandontdare]

Tweak, details are on Hipster's blog.

http://hipsterdad.livejournal.com/184225.html

Why can't people just answer a simple question without posting a link? I was also intrigued by this comment and followed the link, but I'm not going to spend an hour trawling through someone's blog to find out what someone else meant by a comment!

If you know what was meant by:

Can I throw Luke Kirby's hat into the ring?
Yes, but Alan McKenzie will sue whoever picks it up.

than please just say so! I still want to know what this means, but life's too short to play "hunt the reference"

[IndigoPrime]

life's too short to play "hunt the reference"

It's hardly a hunt—McKenzie posts in the thread linked to earlier. The gist, though, is that 2000 AD at the time worked on a fairly standard system of copyright reverting to the publisher upon payment. Some creators have taken umbrage at this, claiming that contracts were never signed. McKenzie is in this camp, saying that he never officially signed away rights to Luke Kirby. However, unless he had no contract as editor, I find it amazing that he wouldn't have a standard clause stating work he did was owned by his employer.

[The Legendary Shark]

*sigh*

Why can't these people just have a meeting and come to some amicable, middle-ground arrangement? Say they're both right in this case and split the royalties equally. They all get a splash of dosh, we all get Luke Kirby back. Everybody wins. But no, I guess that's just too simple...  

I'd love to see some of the old comedy shorts again; things like Captain Klep, Dash Decent and Bonjo From Beyond the Stars. There may not be enough material there for a full collection, but I'd still like to read it all once more.

Oh, and I quite enjoy the books bagged with the Megazine, even though I already have a full collection of 2KAD and the Meg. Don't ask me why, I just like them.

[alpha2167]

Generally, when you work for a company, what you create there remains theirs, unless your contract specifically states otherwise.

I'm not sure (can someone check?), but I have a feeling that copyright and ownership work the other way?  i.e. unless your contract *specifically* says so (i.e. usually if you're specifically contracted as  "work-for-hire" or are "commissioned"), anything you create is yours until otherwise signed away?  i.e the contract must state that rights pass to the publisher (or whover).  I'm not just thinking comics here, just generally.  

That would mean if you create something first (probably as a freelancer) outside a contract and then later submit it to someone else for publishing, unless you pass rights the copyright still belongs to you.

Of course, any 'employer' with half a brain will make sure that this is in your contract if you're doing "work for hire" making it a moot point in most cases. But if there's no specific note of rights or ownership in your contract it means it's yours if you created it.

S.

[IndigoPrime]

My post was written in a haze. What I meant to say was that every single contract I've ever had put in front of me had a rights clause in it, stating that whatever I did for a company was theirs, full-stop. Also, with publishing today (and during the nine years I've been freelancing), every publisher has a generic rights-reversion clause, which states that your work becomes theirs (either exclusively or non-exclusively, depending on the publisher) upon a certain action being taken (either your acceptance of the commission, your submission of the work, or your acceptance of the payment). This is whether or not you've signed a de-facto contact and is binding. The exceptions are when something isn't run (in which case you tend to get a kill fee) or when something is outright rejected.

Unless Fleetway had the most stupid lawyers and legal team on the planet, I can't really imagine the rights issue being such an open and shut case on behalf of the contributors, but more so for the in-house team. There's probably room for argument, but unless there really were no contracts whatsoever for the in-house editorial team, I can't really see how McKenzie can make the argument he's making. Clearly, however, I (and we) don't have all the facts, so this is just speculation.