It’s Monday and Comic-Con is over. So what happened? To be perfectly honest, not much, at least not comic-related. When San Diego began, it was a comic book event, but now and in recent years it has become more of a Hollywood event – more about promoting upcoming movies and television series than about comics. Lucky thing that many comics are becoming films and TV shows. 
There were screenings and sneak peeks at projects like District 9, Where the Wild Things Are, Legion, “Hero Up,” and amazing new video games from both Marvel and DC Comics. There were panels and buzz about “24,” the final season of “Lost,” “ Caprica” and “Smallville” the last of which promises Metallo, Zod and the Justice Society of America in its next season.
In comics news, Marvel made the intriguing announcement that they have secured the rights to Marvelman. On the other side, DC has similarly announced that they now have the rights to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. We truly live in interesting times.
Don't forget the really cool announcements about Bushmiller's Nancy and the classic Pogo strips coming out from Fantagraphics next year.
ReplyDeleteThe Marvelman/Miracleman really is big news. I know Marvel downplayed talk about reprinting the Moore/Gaiman material, but the facts are clear. Gaiman's two Marvel projects created a legal fund to untangle the Marvelman situation. Buckingham will have no problem doing what Gaiman says. Alan Moore handed his rights over to Gaiman years ago, supposedly. (And Marvel just published a book of his Captain Britain work, and Joe has tried very hard to keep at least a civil relationship with Moore, which can be hard to do.) Alan Davis has a good relationship with Marvel, so I'm sure a relationship can be reached. Really, the worst case scenario would be that the other artists- Garry Leach, Rick Veitch- won't work out deals, in which case Marvel could choose to redraw the pages.
But I don't think that'll happen. I suspect Marvel recognizes the value of this property, and threw bags of money at Anglo to make the situation work. I'm sure the same can be done for the other artists in this case. And this is a property that will generate tons of cash (what other unpublished property has such a pedigree?). Great move here by Marvel.