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| Copyright CPI |
I must confess I've quite enjoyed the first three issues of The Savage Sword Of Conan Reforged, where Heroic Signatures/Titan have sensitively coloured various b&w classic Marvel strips and breathed new life into them, visually speaking.
However, what I don't quite understand is this: Although CPI own the copyright on all things Conan, 'twas Marvel who originally commissioned these strips and paid for them. Surely, then, they belong to Marvel, who you'd think would retain ownership of the images even though they no longer have a license to publish them. Why, then, are Titan (or whoever) allowed to reprint Marvel strips when they never financially contributed to them when first published? Or is there something I don't know about? Like, perhaps Marvel receives a fee for the use of pages which they should really still own, even if they can't publish them on account of no longer having licensing rights to the character? If not, I'd say they should. (Get a fee, I mean.)
But that's not what this post is about - I just got carried away. (Whaddya mean I should be?!) Thought you'd like to see the covers to #s 2 & 3, as well as some interior pages to show how good the colouring is. However, this wouldn't be Crivens without a bit of criticism. Cop a gander somewhere below at the woman being seized by (spoiler alert) cannibals: to my eyes, her head is too high above her shoulders, and too far back to be entirely natural looking. I'd say Neal Adams (or an assistant) erred on this pic and should've put more work into it. Saying that, though, these are nice looking mags, and a Roy Thomas Conan Tale is usually always worth reading. (For the record, I prefer the art on the John Buscema-illustrated tale.)
In the text piece in issue 2, there's a couple of typos, but I'm not sure if the article was retyped or simply scanned from whatever issue it originally appeared. Either way, it would've been nice if they'd been corrected, as I, for one, hate anything that detracts from a mag's potential perfection. I haven't yet read the text piece in #3, so am unaware if it's error-free or not. Anyway, enjoy the piccies and feel free to leave a comment on what you think about these Cimmerian comic mags if you've bothered to buy them. (And if not, why not?!)
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I have also wondered why other companies have the right to use Marvel ( or Dark Horse etc) created strips as a matter of course in their publications unless they pay for the use of the strips. I also thought it strange they got to use Red Sonja as a separate character with the Marvel created look with the chainmail bikini especially as she is technically a Marvel creation ( bar the name)i. I haven't got issue 3 yet so will need to pick that up next time I'm in town.
ReplyDeleteIt's a puzzle, isn't it, McS? As for Red Sonja, her original name was Red Sonya, and she was a completely different character who wasn't, if I recall correctly, part of the Hyborian age. Copyright law is a strange thing which doesn't always seem consistent, or even logical. To reiterate, if Marvel don't currently have the rights to use the Howard characters, then fair enough, but the work produced when they did have the license should still belong to them, I feel.
DeleteYes, Conan Properties International is the copyright holder of Post-Howard works and the Conan the Barbarian trademark. Marvel Comics hold a Derivative Works Copyright for the comics, magazines they produced when they held the license, as do other publishers and film studios for their output. Hence, the appropriate copyright and trademark holders would all have to be payed to publish these comic collections.
ReplyDeleteThat's not what I mean though, Anon. (Please pick a name for future comments as I won't be publishing any more anonymous ones from now on.) I know CPI would need to be paid, but what I'm saying is that for Titan or Dark Horse to republish Marvel strips, Marvel should be paid (I feel) for the use of artwork they originated.
DeleteYes, Red Sonya originally appeared in a non-Conan story called "Shadow Of The Vulture" set in 1529 during the Siege Of Vienna (I've got an e-book collection of REH's most famous non-Conan stories which includes SOTV). I don't understand why Roy Thomas needed to create Red Sonja at all when he could have used Valeria from the Conan story "Red Nails". Valeria is a sword-wielding Hyborian warrior-woman so why bother creating Red Sonja?
ReplyDelete"Shadows In Zamboula" was reprinted in Marvel UK's Savage Sword Of Conan #10 dated August 1978 but I didn't have that particular issue - I bought SSOC #9 and #11 but not #10.
Or Belit, CJ, who was pretty similar to Red Sonja, character-wise, if not visually. (Maybe because she dies sooner in Howard's tale than in the comics, but that wasn't insurmountable.) Maybe Thomas just felt he wanted to add something of his own?
DeleteValeria did finally get her own mini-series from Marvel a few years ago and Belit has featured in a pre-Conan solo adventure in one of Titan's recent e-book short stories.
ReplyDeleteI notice that Savage Sword Of Conan Reforged #2 uses the original '70s cover for "The Devil In Iron" but SSOCR #3 has a brand-new cover for "Shadows In Zamboula".
Regarding the covers, CJ, each issue has two versions, one with Cover A, the other with Cover B. I've been buying the ones with covers I prefer, though I did buy both versions of #1.
DeleteAs for Conan, I'm glad I bought Marvel's last outing with the character, the six volume Epic Collections and Volume One of the Omnibus Edition. Also got the Kull The Destroyer Omnibus Edition, of which there was only one.