tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85098579999780613732024-03-12T23:54:25.055+00:00Pádraig Ó MéalóidPádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-6262490470967238752022-11-07T16:11:00.002+00:002022-11-07T16:11:45.149+00:00Kevin O'Neill Interview, Dublin, 7 August 2011<p>I interviewed the late Kevin O'Neill in Dublin one Sunday afternoon in 2011. It was a good day. Here's the interview, along with my note to the editor of the Forbidden<span> Planet blog, where it originally resided. The FP blog still exists, but all the old content is gone, so today seemed a good day to republish this myself. Kevin O'Neill was a good man, and he shall be missed.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieQcLp9eQciVQsD1bsGpdgDFgQLiodHFtjaDc4zpMnbLwQNZjCBk3NpvzCMmjLuH3WLfDdzUiBeWzL5TKPC1fZt1xOxzgXG9zQv9UhTWEQ6alQjijispV0yDOMUliqZ44_OISf-EfBwCoegE3QUOG7J8eTLZLaQj1ruAX5zQ1AOgPTG3efMSDHHKItlw/s847/Kevin%20O'Neill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="847" data-original-width="680" height="369" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieQcLp9eQciVQsD1bsGpdgDFgQLiodHFtjaDc4zpMnbLwQNZjCBk3NpvzCMmjLuH3WLfDdzUiBeWzL5TKPC1fZt1xOxzgXG9zQv9UhTWEQ6alQjijispV0yDOMUliqZ44_OISf-EfBwCoegE3QUOG7J8eTLZLaQj1ruAX5zQ1AOgPTG3efMSDHHKItlw/w296-h369/Kevin%20O'Neill.jpg" width="296" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Here’s my recent interview with Kevin O’Neill. The thing is, the interview was done at midday on a Sunday, and I think both Kevin and myself were a bit bewildered at doing something like this at a time like that. So, it’s disjointed in parts, we both tail off the ends of sentences sometimes, and I regularly break the most fundamental rule of interviewing, which is that the question should never be longer than the answer. In fact, seeing as we seemed to get on well almost from the beginning, it quickly became a conversation, rather than an interview, although you can see me trying to drag it back to a Q&A format occasionally. However, having said all that, I think I’d rather have it exactly as it is [including this explanatory note, if you like, Joe], as this is what was actually said, pretty much exactly. I could do a version that is tidied-up, and has a more linear flow, if The Editor wishes, but here it is, as is, for the moment.</p><p>One of the things that you’re not going to get from reading this is how entertaining it all was. Occasionally I’ve marked the bits where we did a lot of laughing, but most of the time it was all very good humoured. Really, you had to be there...</p><p style="text-align: center;">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Interview with Kevin O’Neill</b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Conrad Hilton Hotel, Dublin</b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Noon, Sunday 7th August 2011</b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Pádraig Ó Méalóid: ...It’s now recording. Most of my recordings start we me saying, ‘Is this thing on?’ Now... How was the signing? Was there a good crowd?</span></p><p>Kevin O’Neill: It was good. It was good fun. Really nice people.</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, Kevin’s very good, Kevin in the Forbidden Planet, I’ve known him a long, long time. </p><p>Eh, I have a list... I was reading an old interview, and looking at your Wikipedia page, and things like that. Right, 1969. You actually started as an office boy on Buster in 1969, I think, didn’t you?</p><p>KON: 1970, yeah.</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, you were 16, so 1970, yeah. So, you kinda have some recollection of 1969, actually 1969, which you obviously don’t with the previous stuff, so some of what you’re doing is... were you working in London then?</p><p>KON: Yes I was. What happened was, I had a place in art school, or could have had a place at art school, but my dad had to retire from his health, so I was the next one in the family to be a breadwinner, you know, it was that kind of thing. I couldn’t afford to go to art school, so I thought I’d get a job.</p><p>PÓM: Actually, I was going to ask you – are you from a large family? With a name like Kevin O’Neill, there some Irish connection...</p><p>KON: Yeah, my dad’s from Tipperary, Clogheen, and my mum’s got Irish blood in her family, so it’s a fairly big Catholic family, you know, a Catholic neighbourhood, an Irish Catholic neighbourhood.</p><p>PÓM: Where was that?</p><p>KON: South London.</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, ‘cause I’ve been looking at Punk Rock recently, because basically thirty -five years ago now it started happening, and one of the things with that is there was a lot of people, Johnny Rotten - John Lydon, Elvis Costello, lots of people who were of Irish extraction, and that seemed to be one of the things that fuelled it, and I was wondering...</p><p>KON: It is a curious... and in America as well, you get people like Frank Miller, who was certainly a Catholic...</p><p>PÓM: Was there anything like that... I think there was a certain amount of that in the people who were doing comics in the UK at the time as well. </p><p>KON: Pat Mills has an Irish Catholic background. He was an altar boy.</p><p>PÓM: Do you think all that nasty dark Catholic stuff did something to you all?</p><p>KON: I’d say it’s fuelled more of my artwork than I probably give it credit for. When me and Pat get together we credit it for quite a bit of inspiration, the Catholic background, the very old-fashioned way we were taught. The nuns were brutal, I just remember, they were really brutal.</p><p>PÓM: I was taught by the Christian Brothers – I remember telling somebody at one stage that I was almost disappointed that, I was one of the people that wasn’t abused. It’s a terrible thing when you know you’re too ugly even for a Christian Brother!</p><p style="text-align: center;">[General laughter]</p><p>I may clip that bit out. I may not... </p><p>But yes, anyway, so, what sort of a family were you from? What size of a family? You said you were the next breadwinner after your father.</p><p>KON: There were five of us, and I’ve got a surviving older brother. No-one did any art or writing in the family, my dad was a building worker, a scaffolder. I just loved comics when I was a kid, and I wanted to know how they were done. There were no conventions in those days, there was no...</p><p>PÓM: It was all completely anonymous, nobody had any idea...</p><p>KON: Absolutely, yeah. I remember writing to IPC to find out who the artists were on some of the strips. When I worked there years later they told me they used to tear up letters from kids. They couldn’t be bothered. It was terrible.</p><p>PÓM: Really? That’s terrible!</p><p>KON: That was why at 2000 AD we always made a big effort to answer letters, because it was important to people.</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, a mate of mine is still very proud of the letter he had published in 2000 AD. I think it meant something to people.</p><p>KON: I remember when I was a kid, the first letter I got with my name written on that wasn’t a birthday card was from Marvel Comics. I sent them a little drawing of Captain America when I was a kid, to Stan Lee, and I got a lovely letter back from Flo Steinberg, his secretary, to say, ‘next time you send artwork, put some backing board, ‘cause it gets all scrunched in the post.’ Kinda ‘keep it up,’ you know, it was just encouraging, which was really nice. It had the Incredible Hulk on the envelope, really exciting.</p><p>PÓM: Which must have been pretty cool to find dropping through your letterbox.</p><p>KON: They went to the trouble, they had a nice connection with their readers, so that was good. But IPC, when I joined it, when I was a kid, it was all ex-servicemen, and it was very strict – it was like a continuation of school, really. It was very, very regimented, and very old fashioned – strict on time-keeping, keep you late after work if you got in late, having to work your lunch hour, all that stuff.</p><p>PÓM: I suppose they had to churn this stuff out every week, I can’t see how it could have been conducive to...</p><p>KON: No, the military background probably helped enormously for efficiency – put the fear of god into you not be late with stuff, yeah. And it was a machine for producing material. You get good stuff that comes through the machine, and that kind of process, but you could feel it was the early seventies, and everything was changing in society, except them. They were like, this is the way we do it, comics are for kids, there’s no older readership, anyone who’s older is a delinquent or something, we don’t want their money – so that was the atmosphere. So it was really Pat, Pat Mills and John Wagner coming along that changed everything. They did new comics, Battle and Action and then 2000 AD. 2000 AD was an explosion...</p><p>PÓM: Pat Mills was involved in things like Misty as well, wasn’t he, writing all these really dark, strange, sadistic girls’ stories.</p><p>KON: Pat had his fingerprints all over...</p><p style="text-align: center;">[Brief interlude while refreshments are ordered...]</p><p>PÓM: So, yeah, 1969. I’m looking at the pages here... I mean, you put so much stuff in in the background, is there any, in this case, any of your mates, or anything like that, or people you knew at the time? </p><p>KON: There is in the Hyde Park sequence – let me point it out. Alan asked me to include something...</p><p>PÓM: Funnily enough, just a couple of weeks ago on Sky Arts they showed some footage from the Hyde Park concert. Did you see that? It’s something that Granada made – it was bizarre, ‘cause the day they showed it, the next day was the release date for that [Century 1969].</p><p>KON: On this page, that is Steve Moore, Alan Moore’s best friend, the comic writer, and that’s Bram Stokes, who owned the first comic shop in Britain, and they were... Alan sent me a photo, just that image of them sitting on a bit of grass watching, so I included them in.</p><p>[The picture is the bottom frame two pages after the double splash of the Hyde statue in Hyde Park. The pair of them are sitting under a pink Peace sign. Let me know if you need a scan for this, and I’ll send it along.]</p><p>PÓM: Yes, that particular one I though must be someone in particular. That’s not, is it? [Pointing to the figure sitting to Steve Moore’s left.]</p><p>KON: No, no. </p><p>PÓM: This is the thing – by the way, Jess Nevins, I was mentioning on Facebook that I was coming in to see you, and he says to send his best regards...</p><p>KON: Oh yeah! He’s alright, Jess.</p><p>PÓM: We correspond a bit. He was doing the annotations for this one and he’s already got lots of them online, and I send him some...</p><p>KON: Yeah, I usually see it when he sends me the manuscript of the book, and I put notes in for stuff, yeah...</p><p>PÓM: I was saying, you remember 1969, were you aware of all this stuff, The Stones and...?</p><p>KON: I was the right age, I suppose, being born in 1953, I was just the right age for The Beatles. It seemed a change from the old... My brother was a Teddy Boy, so growing up I was very aware of the shift from the fifties to the sixties. The sixties began about 1963, effectively, you know, and everything was changing. So, yeah, I was a long-haired kid at school, and then it felt very old fashioned at IPC, it was all short-back-and-sides. They hated the outside world – you walked through a door and you were back in the fifties. It was interesting – I’m glad I saw it, I saw the end of days, the end of the old way of doing comics, really, the old-fashioned way. I did hate working on Whizzer and Chips, and things like that, because it was pretty boring, week in and week out.</p><p>PÓM: How is work coming on 2009?</p><p>KON: I’ve done twenty-eight pages, a third of the way through. Yeah, it’s going very well. It could be out next spring.</p><p>PÓM: That’s not bad!</p><p>KON: By my glacial standards, that’s almost like speeding...</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, Alan is always blaming you for things being late.</p><p>KON: Well, he’s right! His scripts are usually finished years in advance.</p><p>PÓM: Well, you know, I agree with him when he’s saying, people complain about deadlines, but in ten years’ time, nobody is going to say, ‘Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if it had come out on time.’ I certainly agree with that. </p><p>If you’re doing 2009, the visual references that you generally chuck in, I mean, is that going to be difficult? Say, particularly the background things?</p><p>KON: It gets very, very difficult – copyright, trademarks, and things like that, yeah, very difficult. We just have to be crafty, fly, don’t use anything – the law is pretty complicated nowadays. It doesn’t inhibit the book really, ‘cause there’s so much else going on, particularly in the next one, yeah, we can strip things in the background, I think that’s fair use...</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, yeah, particularly if you’re not literally borrowing the character in character, if you like.</p><p>One of the things, when I was reading about your previous work, you do seem to have had a couple of instances where people just really took a dislike to your art style and your artwork. The Comic Code Authority did, I think, and IPC did with some of the stuff in 2000 AD. How do you feel about that?</p><p>KON: It makes me laugh, really. The reason I ended up at IPC was kind of an accident, really. I tried to get a job at Odhams, Odhams Publishers – Smash! and Wham! and Pow! I loved as a kid – and they’d Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid doing magnificent work, so I wanted to work with them, on those papers, but they’d just been bought by what became IPC – the Daily Mirror group – so I was directed to Fleetway House, and was swiftly made aware that they didn’t like the way Odhams did comics, they were trying to beat that subversive nature out of the artists who took over, like Ken and Leo. It was a great shame, because they were absolutely brilliant.</p><p>PÓM: Ken Reid and Leo Baxendale, and people like them – there was Dennis Law and... They were the ones who revitalised the Beano and things like that, and it is their work that is remembered and is important. Yes, editorial interference... You’re with a new publisher, and does that give you a lot...</p><p>KON: Oh, it’s totally different, because the problem with League was – well, you probably know the story: originally it was just for WildStorm, when WildStorm were independent, but WildStorm, before we even started, were sold to DC, and Jim Lee sorted that out so that the League book was protected, it was...</p><p>PÓM: It was meant to be firewalled, but it wasn’t really.</p><p>KON: No. The inevitable happened, and DC gradually crept into the picture more and more, so the dam was always going to burst with Alan. Alan’s... he’s a very, very patient man... no means no – you can go so far... They seemed to do things, whether by accident or design, that deliberately made things even worse than they were to begin with, which was quite bad. So in the end it just became untenable, and it’s, I think, the one ABC book that Alan actually owns with an artist, so we could take it away to someone else...</p><p>PÓM: It was always the case that all of the other stuff, the Tom Strongs and Promethea, and all that, were all owned by WildStorm - owned by ABC comics, which was owned by Wildstorm, which is now owned by DC – but the League, and only the League, was a separate entity – I’m not entirely sure why that was – are you?</p><p>KON: I think it’s a by-product of... the film rights were sold before the comic was even – before the first issue was written, just based on a synopsis – and part of the contracts was that the publishing rights belonged to the creators, so it was embedded, and I think we weren’t strictly meant to be part of the ABC one, we were just subsumed into it.</p><p>PÓM: I suppose from a marketing point of view, it was handier for them. What did you think of the movie? Did you see the movie?</p><p>KON: I didn’t recognise anything, you know. I got sent the screenplay, and I remember opening it up and thinking, I must have the wrong thing. It was set in Venice, and the Bank of England, and all this kind of stuff - Leonardo’s plans, it was a crazy thing, really, it was crazy. But it was a vehicle for Sean Connery – once they said that... If Mina’s not the prime character, you’re immediately off on a tangent, and it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.</p><p>PÓM: And they do kinda do this thing where she does something vampirey, and I always though one of the endearing things about the League is that there’s always this possibility that she might have been infected with, quote-unquote, some sort of superpowers, or whatever, but that never actually manifests, and we’re always left wondering if there is or isn’t.</p><p>KON: Exactly, yeah. It doesn’t really bother the film makers that they’d be left with, ‘what’s this woman doing here?’, whereas in our book she’s the strongest character, she’s just very formidable, she controls everybody, and runs damage on everything, so she’s possibly the only character who could have kept Hyde and the Invisible Man together and in the same place at the same time. But, yeah, I have to say, they dabbled with it so much on the film. But it’s never going to stop – people are always going to ask about it. It’s repeated and repeated, it’s on TV all the time.</p><p>PÓM: Yes, it was on quite recently. Last night, I think, Watchmen was as well, which is just a truly dreadful, dreadful film. I did at one stage try to persuade Alan that V for Vendetta was quite good, of the movies, of all of them...</p><p style="text-align: center;">[Sound of Kevin O’Neill choking]</p><p>PÓM: ... but I don’t know how completely I succeeded. But of all of them it’s the one I like. </p><p>What... I’m looking at my notes here... [sound of papers being gone through] Yes. Research. How much research do you have to do, or is this stuff you’ve already read, or do you say, ‘let me go out and find what I can that relates to 1969,’ or 2009, or whatever?</p><p>KON: Well, it’s funny, ‘cause Alan would have done tons of research doing From Hell, of Victorian London, but I had loads of books on Victorian London, where I grew up in south London it was very old, the buildings were very old, it was near Woolwich, and the old docks, near the old bombed-out buildings, it was fascinating, so I grew up with quite a few books. What I did was re-read all the Victorian novels, and started to work my way out to curious things like Richard Marsh’s The Beetle, a fantastic barmy book which you’re not too aware of, maybe...</p><p>PÓM: I know the name, and I don’t know an awful lot more about it...</p><p>KON: it outsold Dracula, back in the day, but he sold... he needed money desperately, so I think he sold the copyright for like ten pounds, or something, and lived to regret it for the rest of his life. He never wrote another book near as popular, but it outsold Dracula. It’s completely mental, absolutely mental, very disturbing. So it’s fun, it’s actually fun researching, and finding... reading The Mysterious Island and going, ‘oh yeah, Nemo’s actually an Indian character,’ an Indian background, and that influenced the way the Nautilus was done, it was the whole way we handled him: before it was either James Mason or a man from the old engravings with the white beard, a Father Christmassy sort of character. So, yeah, the research is pretty important. Now it’s just, it’s finding... once we started – originally we just had the main characters interacting with each other, and I think at one point Alan said, ‘let’s have the coach come from the Charles Dickens book,’ kinda thing, and then somebody thought, ‘oh, we can start using lots of things like that,’ just in the background, shop names and stuff, but when you come closer to the present everything is possible: newspapers, cans of food – there’s a fictional version of almost everything nowadays, but it is kinda bonkers. Since the Black Dossier it’s just nuts, ‘cause we feel a slight obligation to make the effort to find a fictional version of almost anything you see.</p><p>PÓM: One of the things I noticed in 1969 particularly is that, a lot of it is actually reflecting what was happening in the real world at the time, and they are, rather than just being fictional characters and having adventures, they’re also reflecting real word stuff - there really was a Rolling Stones, and there’s a band in this, there was a Hyde Park concert, so that’s a kind of a strange extra layer to it that wasn’t there before.</p><p>KON: yes, and the Norton character, the Iain Sinclair character, he’s talking from the real world into the fictional world.</p><p>PÓM: Yes, I noticed that very much...</p><p>KON: Which makes it fascinating, ‘cause they’re completely baffled by what he’s saying...</p><p>PÓM: I think everyone is. I’ve attempted to read books by Iain Sinclair, and I’m kinda going, ‘I’m none the wiser.’ I’ve made a couple of efforts at Slow Chocolate Autopsy. Have you read Slow Chocolate Autopsy?</p><p>KON: Yeah, I love Iain’s work. It’s a very particular style, though, isn’t it?</p><p>PÓM: It certainly is that, yeah.</p><p>KON: His writing on London is fascinating, I must say.</p><p>PÓM: To go back to Jess Nevins: the fact that Jess, and a huge amount of contributors from all over, at this stage – everyone send them on to him – that they’re doing that, and you have these annotations, and you have this... there’s a kind of a symbiotic relationship between the two in a way.</p><p>KON: There is now, yeah. When we first saw what Jess had done, on the first series, we were completely astonished. We knew while we were doing stuff, maybe a couple of people will get this, but it doesn’t really matter if they don’t, ‘cause it just amused us, but when we saw that people actually quite like it, and they actually like contributing to the notes and stuff, and he was seeing connections that we hadn’t made, and he was occasionally seeing things which we hadn’t intended, but he missed other bits and pieces.</p><p>PÓM: Something I came across, just yesterday, somewhere completely different – on the internet – was a reference to... the Rolling Stones did the second gig, the second Hyde Park free concert. The third one, the last band to play, their last song was called ‘Out Demons Out,’ which I thought was fascinating. I must get the name – I’ll drop the name of the band into the interview and pretend I knew it all along... [It was the Edgar Broughton Band.]</p><p>KON: Yeah? I didn’t know that. How interesting. I’ll tell Alan that, ‘cause he’s quite interested in coincidence.</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, sometimes these things, these extra layers just add themselves.</p><p>KON: I know, absolutely, yeah.</p><p>PÓM: I think as well, the great thing about the annotations, and uniquely of any other artwork, is that everyone gets to... everyone gets the opportunity – I mean, it’s like we were all sitting there, waiting for the off, waiting for the thing to be published, waiting for Jess to put up the first set of annotations so that everyone could then go, ‘yes, that’s this, and that’s that.’ You don’t do the internet?</p><p>KON: No, nor does Alan. No, it’s funny, we’re completely distanced from it, so we just, we see the manuscripts, which is the first time I see any of the notes, and then I just add stuff for Jess – my annotations. I’m fascinated to see this big block of material, you know – and we keep trying to outwit him, as well, but we’ve never, no matter how obscure, there’s always someone out there. It’s really weird – the book had only been published a couple of days and some young guy mentioned in one of the comic shops how he liked Zom of the Zodiac. Now, Zom of the Zodiac is like, so obscure, but there’s always somebody on the internet, I suppose, who knows these things.</p><p>PÓM: The other thing is, it does bring these things back into... there must be people – I have tracked down some of the old source material, or gone looking – I got a copy of Performance, several months back at this stage, and I’ve just picked up the video for... the DVD of The Rutles, because I haven’t seen it in years, and I was going, I remember The Rutles! So in a way you’re giving a new lease of life to some of this stuff as well, I think.</p><p>I have a question here that says, ‘Was DC difficult towards the end,’ but I think we might have kind of covered that...</p><p>Anyone you really wanted to use that you couldn’t? Any characters? Or that you couldn’t find a way to use?</p><p>KON: Nothing major, I don’t think. I mean, it’s a pity, as you mention Marvelman, it’s a pity we couldn’t have used Marvelman, ‘cause I always liked him when I was a kid, I thought he was a fantastic character, but it’s... it’s one of those characters that is now almost toxic, anyone who touches Marvelman, it’s like a curse, you know, you just want to pass it straight on, which is a terrible state of affairs for the character to end up in.</p><p>PÓM: As I said, I’ve researched the thing in enormous detail for the past several years. The book was going to be called Poisoned Chalice, because both Alan and Neil refer to it as a poisoned chalice in different interviews I saw, and now I find that my own curse of Marvelman...</p><p>[Earlier I had mentioned to Kevin that the book I’ve written on Marvelman is now without a publisher, as MonkeyBrain Books, who had contracted to publish it, were taking a break from publishing, at least for the time being, leaving it without a home for the moment.]</p><p>KON: Isn’t that weird? </p><p>PÓM: And even Kimota!, George Khoury’s updated Kimota!, seems to be on permanent hold – that was meant to be – there’s an updated version, and that hasn’t come out either, so it’s kind of bizarre...</p><p>KON: I was saying to someone yesterday that it was really odd that Marvel are printing the old black and white stuff in too expensive editions that no American kid would even understand. I mean, if ever a strip that needed a softback cheap edition...</p><p>PÓM: Like the stuff they usually do, the big, thick old Spider-man... The story is bizarre beyond all belief and – there’s one thing I came across, which is... the Millers, and because of some stuff that the son had been publishing, reprinting some of the American real nasty stuff, the EC things, you know, this brought about the Children’s and young Persons’ Harmful Publications Act in 1955. There was only one prosecution under it, in 1970, which was the Millers themselves were prosecuted under it, and even that as well, that fifteen years later they were prosecuted under this thing that they brought about themselves...</p><p>KON: And Mick Anglo is still alive.</p><p>PÓM: Mick Anglo is still alive. I get the impression from the interview he did recently with Marvel that he’s not all there, really, it seemed to me, you know. But even the whole argument about whether he owns it or not, I don’t... he was commissioned to do it, and to a very specific brief – the Millers, and I’ve reason to believe Fawcett were aware of this as well. I got to have some correspondence with Arnold Miller, who was the ‘and Son’ in L Miller and Son... I’ll have to cut all that bit out.</p><p>KON: I’m sorry about that. It was an interesting digression for me, because I’m fascinated by the story. I’d love to read it.</p><p>PÓM: I’ll print it out, all 95,000 words of it as it stands, and send it on to you. </p><p>Right. Do you have any other current work? </p><p>KON: No. Pitifully, this is all I do, you know. I know it sounds... someone asked me the other day, ‘Well, obviously you’re doing...?’ and I just burst out laughing. If only I’d the time to do anything else. People think I’m dead for two years, and then a book comes out, you know. Apart from Dodgem Logic I haven’t done anything else. There might be some new pages for the Marshall Law collection next year, when that finally surfaces – hopefully.</p><p>PÓM: I was going to ask you – so is that due next year?</p><p>KON: I hope, yeah. We keep trying to get a date out of them. It’s got an editor, I think, for the reprint, but nothing’s been put together yet. We’ve contracted to do it, so it will happen. I’ve no idea when.</p><p>PÓM: That’s Top Shelf...? </p><p>KON: No, we’ve took it away from Top Shelf. It’s DC. DC are doing it.</p><p>PÓM: Oh, is it? Oh, I see!</p><p>KON: Which amused us greatly, ‘cause Paul Levitz when he was there I think hated Marshall Law with a great vengeance.</p><p>PÓM: You haven’t foresworn from ever working for DC again then, obviously.</p><p>KON: No, not really. I’ve never had any big falling out with them. I’d the same reasons to be uncomfortable that Alan had, with certain people – Like Paul Levitz, we just didn’t get on, none of us really got on...</p><p>PÓM: And he was one of the people who was making things difficult, wasn’t he, with Black Dossier...</p><p>KON: Yeah, Paul has a very particular idea of comics, and how DC should function. He had his way, but it didn’t leave much wiggle room for people like us, you know. I’m sure we just made him very uncomfortable.</p><p>PÓM: Aggressively independent people like yourselves! And quite rightly... Yes, the Marshall Law omnibus. It’s going to be quite big, I think, isn’t it? It’s one volume?</p><p>KON: I think they’re going to split it into different volumes. I think with the retail climate being what it is, you don’t have to do a big volume – I don’t see how anyone can afford it anymore, spending a hundred dollars on a box set of something. Maybe later, to do a nice big edition would be cool – but I like trade paperbacks, I like the affordable versions of things.</p><p>PÓM: I think the trade paperbacks are lovely to read, but things like this [I pull a copy of the slipcased two-volume hardcover Absolute edition of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume one from my bag] ...</p><p>KON: They’re nice editions.</p><p>PÓM: The Absolute editions. They’re very lovely things to have, even if it almost never gets taken down.</p><p>KON: I know, I know. The same with my version, yeah.</p><p>PÓM: You know, books aren’t just for reading, sometimes books are just for having! And... Actually, there’s a thing – because you’re not on the internet, you don’t have any dealings with the internet, but you’re going to do something set in 2009 – in 2009 the internet does play a large part in people’s lives, just in general, so are you going to make any effort, or are you just going to blithely ignore it?</p><p>KON: Well, we do have scenes with mobile phones, which for us is like inventing the atom bomb, or something! [Much general laughter] Actually, Alan doesn’t have a mobile phone. At least I’m slightly in the late twentieth century, if not the twenty-first century. But, no, funnily enough, let me think...</p><p>PÓM: I think Alan is actually going backwards, because there was something I was reading recently, where he said he no longer has a television...</p><p>KON: That’s right. They turned the signal off, the analog signal, and he... you see, he’s forgotten why he was making the stand, he’s completely forgotten why, but he doesn’t miss having a TV. So, yeah, you’re right, he is rolling, gradually rolling back to the Spinning Jenny, or something like that.</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, I saw something that Leah wrote about him, at some point, saying he doesn’t believe in the twenty-first century... A man is entitled to his beliefs, I suppose.</p><p>KON: I was telling him I was dreading drawing the present day, because I realised that all the stuff I’ve drawn since I started was avoiding the present day. Everything was either the future, it’s alien, it’s superheroes, it’s abroad, it’s anything that’s not my world, the real world around me. I just wanted to draw to escape from that, when I was growing up. But drawing 1969 now is drawing a historical period for me, even though I probably would have found it less interesting...</p><p>PÓM: And even ‘77...</p><p>KON: Yeah, it was a nice shift, actually, it’s such a short gap between those periods, the shift in society was massive.</p><p>PÓM: Slowly but surely actually the League is filing in... you started in 1898, and we have something in 1910, we have something in the 1950s, and the sixties, and the seventies, and then there’s the one-shot he was talking about doing with Mina and the Seven Stars, is that a kind of a plan...?</p><p>KON: That’d be in 1964, that’d be set in.</p><p>PÓM: There’s another incident with Mina in Arkham that gets mentioned a couple of couple of times. Is that ever, are we ever going to find out what that is?</p><p>KON: Yeah, we’d like to do that, cause that’d be a kinda big – Alan’s a huge Lovecraft fan...</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, no shit!</p><p>KON: ... and my first published work was a HP Lovecraft fanzine illustration, the first thing I ever had published, so... We’ve certainly not made our mind up what the next book will be. It might be the supergroup, but we’re checking out all the... just checking out if it’s possible to do that, really. Or it’ll be a big Blazing World epic, which we’re quite keen to do, and I’d still like to do more with the Golliwog, I love the Golliwog character. The Americans seem a bit baffled by it... I was at a signing and a lady came up to me, a Black photographer, and she said, ‘Look, I really like your book...’ I knew what was coming, she said, ‘I really liked the Black Dossier, but I have a problem with the,’ I think she called it a pollywog. I explained, oh, it’s actually a really heroic Black character, in fact it’s the only heroic Black character of the fiction of that period. It was created by Florence Upton, it’s not a racist character at all. Her mother wrote the verse to accompany her illustrations. She didn’t copyright it – her spelling ends with a double G, golliwogg – she didn’t copyright it, everybody ripped it off, they changed the spelling and ripped off the image, and all the minstrel kind of golliwogs were post her, or contemporary with her. Her original inspiration was I think a minstrel doll which is in the museum back home, the toy museum.</p><p>PÓM: I have to say, with golliwogs, as a kid a golliwog was this toy, this creature, I had no concept it was meant to be a caricature...</p><p>KON: I’ve heard that a lot. I didn’t, when I was a kid, I never saw it as a black character, I saw as like an alien thing...</p><p>PÓM: yeah, so I think Alan’s take on it is... if you were to ask me what it was I’d say, ‘a strange looking... creature.’</p><p>KON: And the relationship with the Dutch dolls is pretty authentic, actually – the books are very, very odd. They were hugely popular – a lot of children’s illustrated fiction of that period, there’s a kind of slightly erotic undercurrent running through them. The Arthur Rackham illustrations, there’s a lot of nudity in those illustrations which you wouldn’t have seen when I was growing up, but they were in the old books that I was buying.</p><p>PÓM: Things like Peter Pan, I suppose, and especially Alice...</p><p>KON: The Water Babies...</p><p>PÓM: the old story about Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell is a thorny subject, although comprehensively covered by Bryan Talbot in Alice in Sunderland! </p><p>What am I going to ask you next? I don’t know. Yes! Em, no, not that. You really do, your artwork is quite slow. I mean, is... As I was saying, Alan is always saying, ‘well, it’s Kevin’s fault.’ He’s always blaming you for everything. He also blames you for trying to drive poor Jess mad. Is it just that, I presume it just takes as long as it takes. Is it all research, or...</p><p>KON: It is. I was saying to someone, you’d think as I get older it would get quicker, but... I suppose, because we keep shifting time-period as well, it’s starting over again. I got quite used to the Victorian period by the conclusion of that era, 1910 was close enough that it wasn’t a big shift, but the Black Dossier drove us mad.</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, I suppose Nemesis and Marshall Law were really, between one thing and another, fantasy landscapes that they were in, if you like, whereas this had to be some semblance of...</p><p>KON: It is, yeah. When I first started, I was going, ‘I can’t even do this,’ because there was lots of scenes of people talking, sitting around, which I’ve never really drawn before – everyone’s running, or being blown up, or chopping heads off, things like that. So, yeah, that was a big shift for me, so I really did slow down, and I tried to lose a lot of bad habits as well, which you pick up when you’re doing other stuff, you know. I’d been doing a lot of fill-in issues of DC books before starting League, I wasn’t doing Marshall Law – we couldn’t find a publisher, by the end it was impossible to find a publisher for Law.</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, it was jumping all over the place.</p><p>KON: The nineties were a really bad time for comics, they were really sliding down. Comic stores were going bust, Marvel did their own distribution, do you remember that?</p><p>PÓM: Yes, kinda...</p><p>KON: It all went horribly wrong so, yeah, I was just filling in. The League came along at the perfect time for me, but I did have to think, right, OK, I’m going to draw this really differently to anything else.</p><p>PÓM: How did you end up getting the gig at League? </p><p>KON: It’s odd. I went to Comic Showcase in London – Paul Hudson, it was his shop, he was a friend of mine. I walked in the door and he said, ‘Oh, I hear you’re doing a book with Alan Moore.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ve got to ring Alan tomorrow about something else, nothing to do with working together.’ But I don’t know what he means, that just scuttlebutt. I rang Alan, we were talking about some IPC stuff, contract things, stuff from the old days, nothing very important, but right at the end of the conversation he went, ‘Oh, I don’t know if you’d be interested, but I’m sort of thinking of this idea, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and it would be...’ and listed these fictional characters, and it’s the best idea I’ve ever heard. So he said, I’ll send you a synopsis, and he sent me a synopsis, which was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. So I said, yeah, fine, I’d love to do it, and it started like that. Then we talked about the characters, so when the first script was being written we could have embedded in it the Indian heritage for Nemo, and we talked about the state Quatermain would be in by that point – I’m glad we didn’t, we were talking about giving him African tribal scarification, tattoos and things on his face, but it wouldn’t have given him much of a stealth capability, going undercover.</p><p>PÓM: No, when he was sitting, in the 1950s, sitting in the bar, waiting for Mina to lure Jimmy Bond...</p><p>KON: We became so obsessive, I found all the Quatermain stories I could, and there are quite a few short stories by Rider Haggard which have fascinating bits of information, so I’d ring Alan up and say, I’ve just read this story about Quatermain’s youth, where he saved a girl from fire, and she has – and it’s his first love – and she’s got a scarred neck from the fire. And that’s great, ‘cause Mina’s got a scarred neck, which ultimately we’ll reveal, so we could embed that straight in, by complete chance. But then we had the bed scene – Alan describes Quatermain getting undressed with some trepidation, and he’d be beaten up and scarred from various things in his life, so I read all the stuff again, keeping notes of when he was savaged by a lion, what bit of his body had been savaged, where he’d been shot. So all the bullet holes and everything, the scars from the lion, they’re all in the right place – I don’t know if anyone... I don’t think I even mentioned it to Jess, ‘cause that might seem too mad, completely mad...</p><p>PÓM: I’ll send him a copy of the interview, so he knows. But I think the thing is, when you do research like that, even though people may not get all of it, I think it does enrich the finished work.</p><p>KON: It feeds through to the audience somehow. When I was a kid, most of the Mad paperback stuff, I didn’t understand the Jewish humour, but I kept going back, and I gradually got to understand it, because I was studying it, figuring it out. I just liked the attention to detail, the feeling there’s more to this than meets the eye, maybe.</p><p>PÓM: Are you happy to continue to do this - I don’t know if I can say ad infinitum - until they take your pen out of your cold dead hand?</p><p>KON: I said to Alan, I made a horrible mistake a couple of years ago, I worked out roughly how many books I’ll have left in me, then I got quite scared – I forget what I worked out, I’ll just pretend I’m going to have a very, very long Mick Anglo sort of life that’s going to run well into the future, like Will Eisner or something. No, they take a devil of a long time, these books, they tend to get, they get more ambitious as they’re going along, so...</p><p>PÓM: Are you suggesting, as Alan gets madder and older, and comes up with madder and madder things...?</p><p>KON: Yeah, ‘cause no-one’s stopping us... I suppose if the Black Dossier hadn’t sold, it would have made us sit back and thing, well, OK, to keep going, we recalibrate another way to do a mad book, and see if that mad book works, but Black Dossier surprised even DC.</p><p>PÓM: I love Black Dossier. I was re-reading it – every so often I take them down – and there’s stuff in 1969 which is in Black Dossier. Let’s say, there’s stuff in Black Dossier which only really clicks into place... so it’s not just a source book for the previous volumes, but a source book for...</p><p>KON: Yeah, absolutely, and the text carries a lot of material if people do read it. I know the Black Dossier, people were expecting the third series, a conventional series...</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, a lot of people refer to it as the third volume, which it actually isn’t...</p><p>KON: It isn’t.</p><p>PÓM: No matter what they try to say. I think I might have run out of things to ask you. I’m going to ask you if you’ll sign one or two things, and what the possibility is of your drawing me a little picture...?</p><p>KON: Of course, yeah, no problem. </p><p>PÓM: I’m going to leave this running anyway.</p><p>KON: I’ll be careful what I say!</p><p>PÓM: No no! Don’t worry. Unless it’s safe for publication, you know. How did the thing in Gosh go?</p><p>KON: Oh, that was crazy. We didn’t get out until almost nine o’clock that night, and we started about two.</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, you were at two, ‘cause Gary Spencer Millidge was in before that with his book.</p><p>KON: Yeah, it was nuts. It was fantastic – they started queuing at eight o’clock. Alan attracts huge crowds – one guy flew over from Texas, and Alan said to him, ‘You’ve come from Texas?’ And he said, ‘I’ve come just for you,’ and Alan said, ‘well, are you going to go sightseeing?’ ‘No, I’m flying back tomorrow!’ Alan has no passport, unless you fly to Britain you’re not going to see him, you’ll never see him. </p><p>PÓM: I’ve tried to lure him to things over here numerous times. I’m hoping that... I have some paper, if that’s any use to you?</p><p>KON: That would be useful, yeah, ‘cause I’ve just realised I’ve got no...</p><p>PÓM: Just in case, I stuck a few sheets in here. This is a terrible question to ask a man, but are you now financially comfortable on the back of all of this? If you like, you know, it’s making you a living?</p><p>KON: Yeah, it does make a living certainly, yes. It’s one of those businesses, you put a load of effort, you put more effort in than you’re possibly sometimes rewarded for, but if you’re in the business only for going into an art business just to make money, going into advertising, or something like that, it’s a hugely unsatisfying sort of career path if you wanna do kind of wild stuff. No, we just love comics, so as long as there’s an audience who can keep it viable, you know...</p><p>PÓM: I think with something like this, and with, let’s say, a lot of Alan’s work, he’s proved that you can actually stick to your principles, and you can take the harder road, and still you can be successful. And huge quantities of talent and genius and things like that possibly also help. I’ve always admired him for the very fact that he is uncompromising.</p><p>KON: Yeah, I know. Alan, he’s turned back huge amounts of money on principle, you know, and suffered as well. People don’t really understand it. It seems to annoy people as well, they say, ‘well why don’t you do this for the money, or that,’ whereas the point is... It really annoys American Hollywood people – ‘if he doesn’t want the money, what does he want?’ He actually doesn’t want anything, he wants them to go away, and they keep offering him more...</p><p>PÓM: I’ve seen interviews with him where people are asking him essentially... do you know what I was going to ask you to draw? Any possibility of Mina with Alan Moore? Would that be possible? </p><p>KON: I’ll try...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3WfmoytO92igZAyCBdTODLEMXVG-SnNDf91nkYRpF707kbxRwKr2EdxS-YyIZD2CYasOUFELcjzvp8CrWRUatxZpGaKjrs10QkLb9jjo3Ma09XBH8fI5z2jGm9jkGwmcdhqcdCsyVXBMxIR8dGDCgd4AIYNgX8KviX7l9tkNTh7eJkznNodC_YM2-dQ/s1375/Scan%20BandW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1375" data-original-width="964" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3WfmoytO92igZAyCBdTODLEMXVG-SnNDf91nkYRpF707kbxRwKr2EdxS-YyIZD2CYasOUFELcjzvp8CrWRUatxZpGaKjrs10QkLb9jjo3Ma09XBH8fI5z2jGm9jkGwmcdhqcdCsyVXBMxIR8dGDCgd4AIYNgX8KviX7l9tkNTh7eJkznNodC_YM2-dQ/w286-h408/Scan%20BandW.jpg" width="286" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>PÓM: OK. Well, I can ask no more than that! I mean, I read interviews with Alan where people are asking him about Watchmen, and about the Watchmen movie, and about stuff that, if anyone had any sense, they’d know he’s not interested in talking about, that annoys him, and so on. And then the interviews are published and people say, ‘Ah, there he is giving out about Hollywood again,’ and he’s only doing it because people are asking him what his opinion is about stuff that they should know he doesn’t like. </p><p>KON: A lot of stuff, quotes from Alan, are misunderstood, because they don’t hear the voice behind it, because Alan’s very, very funny, he’s a very funny man, but they can seem very dry, dry comment.</p><p>[I continue to ramble on as Kevin draws.]</p><p>PÓM: A friend of mine says this a lot, that the thing that people don’t seem to get with Alan is how remarkably funny he is, and he’s very dry, very droll. He’s lately been hanging out with comedians and scientists...</p><p>KON: Yes, that’s true. </p><p>PÓM: A dangerous mix!</p><p>KON: Yeah, he’s great buddies with Stewart Lee. Yeah, I heard him on radio recently, Alan...</p><p>PÓM: He’s doing a lot of bits and pieces of all sort of strange stuff...</p><p>KON: People think because he doesn’t go to comic conventions, he’s a recluse, as if life is only a comic convention – he does a monstrous amount of work, he’s always active.</p><p>PÓM: Yeah, and he does seem to do an awful lot of work in Northampton itself, and the community. I think essentially Alan believes that Northampton is the most important place in the world. I believe the same thing about Dublin, and we’re both correct. And my wife puts up her hand there and says, ‘you’re both wrong, it’s Waterford.’ [Deirdre had come along to take photographs...]</p><p>I think I’ve run out of things to ask you. You see, I came along with a list of things here, and I know when I’m interviewing Alan, I ask Alan a question – you know you’ve got an hour, right – the terrible fear is that that question is the only question you’ll get to ask, because he’ll go, ‘Well...‘ and ramble on... Talking about art, I saw there was a photograph of you with a guy called Tom Mathews, who’s an Irish cartoonist, at the signing yesterday – white hair, moustache...</p><p>KON: Yeah, I remember Tom.</p><p>PÓM: Tom, as far as I’m concerned, it Ireland’s greatest cartoonist, his stuff is fantastic. He was saying, you draw a cartoon and maybe, weeks, months, years later, somebody looks at it and laughs. But you never hear that laughter. At least when you do these signings...</p><p>KON: You get feedback, which is great.</p><p>PÓM: Because otherwise it is a very solitary occupation. I suppose with Alan and yourself, he does do these famous monstrously long phone calls, so there’s an ongoing feedback there, I suppose, between the pair of you.</p><p>KON: Yeah, absolutely.</p><p>PÓM: I think at this stage I genuinely have run out of things, so I’ll turn this off. Fifty minutes, we got...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgusayU269T_XFk4QU7Mfzarv0uat7N06H-GAUmQlMlODr6ONByY_NKaMcGb6MtRC1NH-x4l8_9FGQWFxYBVHby3iSwa7US_0dcqgzBveucuSi4SAFSImo_LmGrxm6tJxmXxGZCWcK3csbxLTrNeOYMnWGocm1U6_JdbLPfq0AfzR6hSHJ4Q62FDCrusQ/s1504/Brief%20Pause.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1504" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgusayU269T_XFk4QU7Mfzarv0uat7N06H-GAUmQlMlODr6ONByY_NKaMcGb6MtRC1NH-x4l8_9FGQWFxYBVHby3iSwa7US_0dcqgzBveucuSi4SAFSImo_LmGrxm6tJxmXxGZCWcK3csbxLTrNeOYMnWGocm1U6_JdbLPfq0AfzR6hSHJ4Q62FDCrusQ/w359-h239/Brief%20Pause.jpg" width="359" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-710393490871808852022-03-24T19:36:00.003+00:002022-03-24T19:36:54.656+00:00Future Shock! The Story of 2000 AD<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibnptMomryvde4zrmy15WcClJ8a4bDzhbRCLbIb6N0u6R_1-Rv_iBhxqSe0CHr_k1MpE5spuOZ9d7CkTeQHngSE0KvHf0g4C0OORHNagFclumjUu1oBwS4DIBsLrrl5C9cRiQH_jE9DfIixu5dlKMA4G_NBnwGSNQreSW2AHk-2jB71hzQjhkp11EPrg/s720/Future%20Shock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="474" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibnptMomryvde4zrmy15WcClJ8a4bDzhbRCLbIb6N0u6R_1-Rv_iBhxqSe0CHr_k1MpE5spuOZ9d7CkTeQHngSE0KvHf0g4C0OORHNagFclumjUu1oBwS4DIBsLrrl5C9cRiQH_jE9DfIixu5dlKMA4G_NBnwGSNQreSW2AHk-2jB71hzQjhkp11EPrg/s320/Future%20Shock.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><i>I wrote this piece in 2017, for inclusion in the booklet in the Blu-Ray version of Arrow Video's re release of 2015's <b>Future Shock! The Story of 2000 AD</b>. I imagine enough time has passed for me to be able to post it here without upsetting the people who originally paid for it! And, rereading in now, five years later, I'm still pleased with what I wrote.</i><p></p><p><i><br /></i><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;">1976 was an interesting year. The sixties were long
since over, and their promise of peace and love had somehow not come to pass.
Long hair and flared trousers were increasingly out of place in a world that
was crueller than it used to be. Into the increasingly commercialised social
and cultural world left behind, the Sex Pistols launched their brief but hugely
influential assault on the ears, wardrobes, politics, and morals of British
youth, much to the abhorrence of pretty much everyone in the establishment.
Their concert of 4 June 1976 at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall would become
the stuff of legend, the spark that lit the fire for Punk Rock’s anarchic road
map to nowhere, and the launching pad for a thousand other bands. Predictable,
the mainstream press hated them. Old hippies </span><i style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;">really</i><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;"> hated them. But the youth of the day </span><i style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;">loved</i><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;"> them. Revolution was in the air, mere anarchy was loosed upon
the world, and something had to change.</span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A few months before that, in February 1976, a British
comics’ writer and editor called Pat Mills had created <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Action</i>, a socially realistic comic in the style of, amongst other
thing, Richard Allen’s then-popular <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Skinhead</i>
series of pulp novels, and containing stories so violent that a crusade was
started against it by right-wing social campaigner Mary Whitehouse, who would
also turn on the Sex Pistols, soon thereafter. Her crusade was eventually
successful, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Action</i> was closed
down. But Pat Mills had other ideas up his sleeve. If he couldn’t do his social
commentary one way, he would do it another.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pat Mills already had form in the UK comics business,
having started working with DC Thomson as a sub-editor - which generally meant
making the tea and removing all efforts by the comics’ artists to sign their
work, a process known as ‘bodging’ - before going out as a freelance writer,
along with his long term partner and co-conspirator, John Wagner, an
American-born Scotsman with a liking for a lot of violence in his work, much
like Mills himself. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Action</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i> would be Mills’s first major works,
but he would go on to play an important part in numerous other influential
British comics of the time, including girls’ comic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Misty</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Crisis</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toxic!</i> But <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i> is undoubtedly the jewel in his crown.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There’s this weird old trick, if you’re a writer, that
if you want to make an unpalatable point about something, you disguise it as
fantasy. George Orwell did it with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nineteen
Eighty-Four</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Animal Farm</i>. JRR
Tolkien did it with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lord of the Rings</i>.
Jonathan Swift had done it with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gulliver’s
Travels</i>, way back in 1726. And that’s what Mills did in 1977, with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i>. The name reflected a then
unimaginably distant future point, when surely things would be different to how
they were in 1977, although not necessarily for the better. There was a hint of
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2001: A Space Odyssey</i>, and a
suggestion of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Star Wars</i>. They were
going to use the future to teach us lessons about the world we were living in,
right now.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Right from the start, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i> was just what the comics readers of Britain wanted. Up
until then, British comics with titles like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Victor</i>,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Valiant</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Warlord</i> had been produced by anonymous men in cardigans and
slippers, smoking pipes and publishing endless stories about how the plucky English
Tommies had beaten those dirty Gerries in World War Two, stories which simply
weren’t relevant to anyone, in the harsher and less forgiving light of the
nineteen seventies. Unsurprisingly, the British comics business was in a sharp
decline by 1977, when IPC Magazines launched <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i>. It sold 200,000 copies of its first issue, and is still
being published today. And it’s not an exaggeration to say that it changed the
face of comics forever, both in Britain, and further afield.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Which is not to say that the opening line-up was
perfect, but it was certainly promising. Harlem’s Heroes, a kind of futuristic
take on the Harlem Globetrotters crossed with the recently released film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rollerball,</i> but with jet packs and lots
of violence, gave a glimpse of the comic’s future, as did Flesh, a strip about
time-travelling cowboys, travelling back to prehistoric times to farm dinosaurs
for their meat. Less successful was a revival of Dan Dare, which simply never
got the traction on the public’s imagination that it once had.</span><i><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i> broke with established British
comics publication standards in virtually every way imaginable. One of the ways
it differed from other comics was that it attempted to treat its readers as
equals. They published letters and artwork readers submitted, entered into
dialogue with them via the letters’ page, with Tharg the Mighty, the comic’s
green-skinned Betelgeusian editor, awarding prizes to those he particularly
liked. They also regularly held polls to find out what the readers did and
didn’t like. One of the things the readers <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i>
liked was Judge Dredd, created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, which first
appeared in the second issue, and is the comic’s longest running character,
having appeared in virtually every issue since then. What is unusual about
Judge Dredd is that, in a comic that could be seen as left-leaning, he is an
ultra-conservative and neo-fascist future policeman; judge, jury, and
executioner rolled into one, ruling Mega City One with a ruthlessness that
early twentieth century fascists could only have dreamed of. Despite this - or
indeed because of it - he has been the readers’ favourite character virtually
from the start, and any attempts to moderate his behaviour into something more
human have been violently resisted by them, every time the subject comes up.
And the readers’ wishes were always seen as being paramount, so Dredd stayed as
he was, if not more so. These days older readers, once crusty anarcho-punks, or
black and purple satin-clad Goths, but now all settled middle aged
suburbanites, still read his adventures, and still love him just the way he is.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Judge Dredd wasn’t the only strip the readers loved
which also carried a less than covert political content. There was John Wagner
and Carlos Ezquerra’s Strontium Dog, on one hand a story about intergalactic
Search and Destroy bounty hunters, or SDs, but on the other addressing issues
of racism and segregation in a grim future. And Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill’s Nemesis
the Warlock is arguably an allegory for and reaction to their childhoods as
Irish-descended Catholics being educated by middle-aged nuns preaching hellfire
and brimstone, whilst probably going through the hellfire of menopause themselves.
It’s not difficult to see that the same processes were at work here as were
influencing punk rock, with Irish-descended artists like Johnny Rotten, Elvis
Costello, and Shane McGowan, amongst many others, growing out of the oppression
of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">No Black, No Dogs, No Irish</i>
mindset that was still common at the time. Another story by Mills, Sláine,
which was loosely based on Irish myth and legend, was a less political
representation of the broader Celtic ancestry of these islands.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One important area where <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i> broke ground was in the use of female characters,
especially in what was seen at the time as being largely a boys’ comic. The
title character in Alan Moore and Ian Gibson’s The Ballad of Halo Jones remains
a high point in the characterisation of an ordinary person in extraordinary
circumstances. Other noteworthy female characters from the comic include the
schoolgirl Roxy from the story Skizz - a sort of cross between the science
fiction of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ET</i> and the grim social
realism of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Boys from the Black Stuff</i>,
and which I still cannot reread without getting a little tear in my eye at the
end - and Judge Anderson, originally a supporting character to Judge Dredd, but
popular enough to soon feature in her own stories.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One decision, to actually name the creators who worked
on their stories, was to have long-reaching, and possibly even world-changing,
consequences. Traditionally, in the UK, comics were produced without any
information of any kind about who wrote or illustrated them - in fact, most
people though they were probably created by machines, if they gave it any
thought at all. Within the first year of its existence - in fact, to be exact, in
issue #36 or, more correctly ‘prog’ #36, in October 1977 - <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i> initiated the use of what were called ‘credit cards’ - a
small text box in the bottom right-hand corner of the first page of a story, containing
the names of the writer, the artist, and the letterer in it, which meant that
for the first time readers knew who was responsible for the stories they liked
- and didn’t like. It’s true that American comics had been naming their
creators for decades, but this was the first time it was systematically used in
the British comics industry. At that time, the American and British comics
industries were both figuratively and literally separated by a vast ocean, but
the decision to put in those credit cards was to change that, in ways nobody
could have predicted. Once those writers and artists were named, it meant that
their names became their calling card, and with recognition came attention in
the fan press, and the ability to use that fan attention as a bargaining tool.
Naming them brought not only recognition, but gave them far greater control
over their own destinies within the comics business.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">At around the same time as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i> first appeared a group of British comic retailers and
fanzine publishers had between them set up the Eagle Awards, to honour comics
and their creators, named after the 1950s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eagle</i>
comic, which was at the time considered as the high point of British comic
creation. Although the awards were originally designed to focus on the creators
of the American comics that the people behind the awards were interested in, within
a few years names from UK comics started to appear on the polls.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One of the very first names from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i> to appear as a winner in the Eagle Awards was writer Alan
Moore, in 1983. Years later, Moore would say that ‘the comic industry awards
are all voted for by thirty people in anoraks with dreadful social lives.’
Despite this unflattering assessment, across the Atlantic, in New York, there
were American comics companies who must have taken them seriously, because it
was in that same year that DC Comics editor Len Wein asked him to take over
writing their ailing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Swamp Thing</i>
title. It was heading for inevitable
cancellation anyway, so there seemed no harm in letting this English guy play
with it, just to see how he did. And what he did was change it utterly, and
within a few months elevate it into one of the most important and influential
comics in America, then and since.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Alan Moore was not the only British creator from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i> to work on the other side of the
Atlantic, nor was he even the first, as artists Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons
had been there before him, working on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Camelot
3000</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Green Lantern Corps</i>,
respectively. But Moore was different, because he became the first superstar
comics’ writer, on either side of the Atlantic, and undoubtedly became the
greatest, too. Without <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i> there
might have been no <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Batman: The Killing
Joke</i>, created by Moore and Bolland, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchmen</i>,
created by Moore and Gibbons, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</i>, by Moore and Kevin O’Neill.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Other British comics writers who did early work in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i> went on to become important
across the pond, too. Writers like Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman,
Peter Milligan, and Grant Morrison, all helped to bring a modernity and a
complexity to mainstream American comics storytelling that simply had not
existed before, and undoubtedly shaped that industry into what it is today,
where every bookshop has a Graphic Novels section, where comics writers win
major literary awards, and where every university worth the name has courses
and degrees in comics’ studies. And it wasn’t just the writers, either. Besides
the abovementioned Bolland and Gibbons, and Kevin O’Neill, artists like Simon
Bisley, Alan Davis, Steve Dillon, John Higgins, and Bryan Talbot all brought
their own distinctive styles with them to American comics, so much so that
O’Neill’s first major work there, Alan Moore’s Tygers in DC Comics’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tales of the Green Lantern Corps</i> Annual
No. 2 in 1986, was immediately objected to by the Comics Code Authority, set up
in the wake of the moral panic about EC’s horror comics in the 1950s, who,
rather than point out any individual issues with his work, as was usually the
case, said the whole thing was objectionable from start to finish. DC chose to
ignore their objection, and the CCA has now been consigned to the wheelie bin
of history, whilst Kevin O’Neill’s work continues to go from strength to
strength.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This current documentary, this aptly named <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Future Shock!</i>, takes its name not only
from ‘Tharg's Future Shocks’ - a blanket title for one-off short stories by
various creators in the comic, originally created by the late Steve Moore - but
also from Alvin Toffler’s highly influential 1970 non-fiction book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Future Shock</i>, which defined the title as
meaning that sense of ‘too much change in too short a period of time,’ surely a
concept we can all appreciate all the more in these troubled times. It is full
to the brim of famous names from the past, present - and undoubtedly the future
- of this wonderful comic. Something like forty different people, mostly
writers and artists from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i>, but
also editors, comics’ scholars, and others, tell the story of the comic from
its conception, and original reception, through some rocky times here and
there, due to differences over the rights of creators to their creations, and
some bad marketing decisions, to their position now, in safer hands, and
stronger than ever.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">These days <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000
AD</i> has at least one second-generation writer, with Leah Moore following her
father Alan into their pages. Alan Moore himself does not appear in this
documentary, but none the less his presence permeates it, as does that of its
former editor and co-creator Pat Mills, who very much <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> in it. One other sad omission is current Judge Dredd writer
Michael Carroll, who used to be my postman, here in Dublin. Although only
writing Dredd stories since 2011, he’s already up in the top five most prolific
Dredd writers. Perhaps for the next documentary, in 2057, beamed directly into
our brains from the smoking stump of King’s Reach Towers, when he has
neutralised all the other contenders, and finally ascended the Throne of Tharg,
he’ll talk to us, surrounded by an army of Nth generation Moorebots,
Millsdroids and Kevborgs, still producing the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic.</span><i><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2000 AD</i> and its writers, artists, and
editors, have, in its own very special and very British way, irrevocably
changed the cultural landscape around us. The year the comic is named after has
come and gone, but for some of us <i>2000 AD</i>
will always represent the future. May it ever be thus. Splundig vur Thrigg, Squaxx
dek Thargo!</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-83477875044836008822022-03-14T16:54:00.001+00:002022-03-14T16:54:27.172+00:00Poisoned Chalice Press Titles Now On Sale!<p> Now, after having problems with Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), and having had all my titles removed from their online store, I have now listed all my titles so far up on Lulu. So, if you're looking for any of the following books, just click through the link!</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/p%C3%A1draig-%C3%B3-m%C3%A9al%C3%B3id/poisoned-chalice-the-extremely-long-and-incredibly-complex-story-of-marvelman-and-miracleman/paperback/product-1vjddjn6.html?page=1&pageSize=4" target="_blank">Poisoned Chalice: The Extremely Long and Incredibly Complex Story of Marvelman (and Miracleman)</a></p><p><span style="color: #0000ee;"><u><a href="https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/6744gq?page=1&pageSize=10" target="_blank">Mud and Starlight: Interviews with Alan Moore 2008-2016</a></u></span></p><p><span style="color: #0000ee;"><u><a href="https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/2yr426?page=1&pageSize=10" target="_blank">Steve Moore: The Hermit of Shooters Hill</a></u></span></p><p><a href="https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/p%C3%A1draig-%C3%B3-m%C3%A9al%C3%B3id-and-p%C3%A1draig-%C3%B3-m%C3%A9al%C3%B3id/let-me-ask-you-this-interviews-with-comics-people-2008-2021-vol-i/paperback/product-gedqwr.html?page=1&pageSize=4" target="_blank"> Let Me Ask You This! Interviews with Comics People 2008-2021 Vol I</a><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/p%C3%A1draig-%C3%B3-m%C3%A9al%C3%B3id/poisoned-chalice-the-extremely-long-and-incredibly-complex-story-of-marvelman-and-miracleman/paperback/product-1vjddjn6.html?page=1&pageSize=4" target="_blank"></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiiC2EZMzyjR6h15DY9KiNuW0-QLbMTJmZ4GKlHuHSRfoBh9bHXwj9QymiXb6UUZz4pyxuC5ePDD4_dgoD72K2lPShs_ojg8NmtLxoiFZ7FPQP0nxIQLpJaswbvhDptDEY3z0G6UtlSxsqSVDSjxnIDXXr26DuIlmdE6UlPZYtEgv01_SUo2qvifc3_EQ=s593" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="593" data-original-width="384" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiiC2EZMzyjR6h15DY9KiNuW0-QLbMTJmZ4GKlHuHSRfoBh9bHXwj9QymiXb6UUZz4pyxuC5ePDD4_dgoD72K2lPShs_ojg8NmtLxoiFZ7FPQP0nxIQLpJaswbvhDptDEY3z0G6UtlSxsqSVDSjxnIDXXr26DuIlmdE6UlPZYtEgv01_SUo2qvifc3_EQ=s320" width="207" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZnHPI0Zo01I6wBps0Fq20bGpwTX1YMlxuI-wu0WHNpMBsW-ZpUdZdYsaZKlDOwnK7VfCjZxoueG6cORjuxCSCsA-1gdi2p0VZMGX3tiv4VbOCYcrLzNzU3zD9tmvyOhKJQ8dV7OJQeMlImr749Qe4vkcT772epm1Iw6-8p_LUiVj_Lug2aDSkydfgBQ=s576" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="384" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZnHPI0Zo01I6wBps0Fq20bGpwTX1YMlxuI-wu0WHNpMBsW-ZpUdZdYsaZKlDOwnK7VfCjZxoueG6cORjuxCSCsA-1gdi2p0VZMGX3tiv4VbOCYcrLzNzU3zD9tmvyOhKJQ8dV7OJQeMlImr749Qe4vkcT772epm1Iw6-8p_LUiVj_Lug2aDSkydfgBQ=s320" width="213" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCueqcdYu8mV5UitOBSN8b_vWXaqEs0rQpbTfUWfnWwuEDcfxfvjWyt4GeB_p0yK6I50Pa-jZMgX6HtSC66yvSHJE7CiD3YYbeHhfzRBAysf5CkD99hV9LWRQACPSN6gJ-duB3bdr7PdC9sBDW2num6avM4bAJ0mU6_y3AZbXuUOVdhQhJF00YEhHNbQ=s576" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="384" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCueqcdYu8mV5UitOBSN8b_vWXaqEs0rQpbTfUWfnWwuEDcfxfvjWyt4GeB_p0yK6I50Pa-jZMgX6HtSC66yvSHJE7CiD3YYbeHhfzRBAysf5CkD99hV9LWRQACPSN6gJ-duB3bdr7PdC9sBDW2num6avM4bAJ0mU6_y3AZbXuUOVdhQhJF00YEhHNbQ=s320" width="213" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQd3y-rMhNqbJJU2oYjOXQxbIvm2bRMQKPZVijNp0YcsmNyNYE5JDftkDzs2e-wTGAT-eqeKKq_xVS-rfnVfMyx_k8dgDHUbjVf_QHTby3e9x0J76fs8YW5bP1i9AGLLCzdVC8mlQnl_xor4FY3vA7Fb9atKIe1JCVqd4GzOoWWaeV35faDcKjTutk3A=s576" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="384" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQd3y-rMhNqbJJU2oYjOXQxbIvm2bRMQKPZVijNp0YcsmNyNYE5JDftkDzs2e-wTGAT-eqeKKq_xVS-rfnVfMyx_k8dgDHUbjVf_QHTby3e9x0J76fs8YW5bP1i9AGLLCzdVC8mlQnl_xor4FY3vA7Fb9atKIe1JCVqd4GzOoWWaeV35faDcKjTutk3A=s320" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-64151516958209604952020-08-31T22:29:00.001+01:002020-09-01T12:09:54.714+01:00Robert ‘Pen-Face’ Farren: The Man Who Wasn’t Flann O’Brien<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">Writing to Timothy O’Keeffe of British publishers MacGibbon
& Kee on 19 August 1961, about</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">the cover art for his forthcoming novel </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">The Hard Life</i><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="font-family: helvetica; text-align: justify;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"></span></span></span></a><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><a href="#_ref1" name="ref1">[1]</a></span></span></span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">,
Flann O’Brien said,</span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaeg7P9e5BJ9WAB4A88ooLRvsjPV2bQ1b2QLfUMgeCmLYzfEivTwBV4sPnv7Vf6B3176ZAGan6JBsGPux6Q1V4O7fPqWcjs6Fm8I429him1yKEtoaGQ56fuuWd7IG9p7iV-iboNlTTp2gc/s1198/Hard+Life+UK+Cover.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1198" data-original-width="772" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaeg7P9e5BJ9WAB4A88ooLRvsjPV2bQ1b2QLfUMgeCmLYzfEivTwBV4sPnv7Vf6B3176ZAGan6JBsGPux6Q1V4O7fPqWcjs6Fm8I429him1yKEtoaGQ56fuuWd7IG9p7iV-iboNlTTp2gc/w169-h263/Hard+Life+UK+Cover.jpg" width="169" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Many thanks for your letter of the
15<sup>th</sup> August and copy of acting cover. I detest that photograph
because 1) I don’t believe it is a photograph of me at all, and 2) whoever the
man is was floothered<a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[2]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
when the picture was taken. I Feel any biographical material should be omitted,
particularly the disclosure that Flann O’Brien is a pseudonym. There is no
point in it if the real name is also given. Incidentally, if a pen-name is
admissible, why not a pen-face?</span></span></blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Little did either of them realise that the individual
elements required to bring Flann’s conjecture in that last sentence into being
were already in place, although he would not live to see it come to pass...</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">For whatever reason, there are only a
handful of good photographs of Flann O’Brien in existence, so you get to see
the same ones turning up quite regularly. He’s usually pictured wearing a hat
and an overcoat, sometimes with a wall, or a public house interior—or even a wall
in the interior of a public house—somewhere in the background. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-M8sXPwyqpTqucCLf0quR_sKJh0Lwx1wotoaQrR8hanKcRpQFH0ckSla5ZfAZ_eK4MERtBFfqWNSNv-XfyhBA73JVI7rAV8VAu5MW2sjvdffMAGt37-0jcS2ziW8QYj2EaZaDqnI23Zw/s2048/Palace+Bar+R+Farren.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1591" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-M8sXPwyqpTqucCLf0quR_sKJh0Lwx1wotoaQrR8hanKcRpQFH0ckSla5ZfAZ_eK4MERtBFfqWNSNv-XfyhBA73JVI7rAV8VAu5MW2sjvdffMAGt37-0jcS2ziW8QYj2EaZaDqnI23Zw/w162-h210/Palace+Bar+R+Farren.jpg" width="162" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">There’s one in particular that has in recent years appeared both on the cover of the Everyman’s Library edition of <i>The Complete Novels</i></span><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-indent: 36pt;">[3]</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> and the front cover of the first issue of <i>The Journal of the International Flann O’Brien Society</i></span><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-indent: 36pt;">[4]</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, aka <i>The Parish Review</i></span><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-indent: 36pt;">[5]</span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, as well as sundry other places. It even features on a postcard as part of Penguin Books’ </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">100 Postcards from Penguin Modern Classics</i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[6]</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> box set, as well as in countless places online. And it’s easy to see why designers would choose it—it’s a black and white photograph of the top half of a relaxed, friendly-looking man, with the obligatory hat and overcoat, who has one hand up to the lower part of his face in a contemplative manner.</span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTOTOzhc_6lnxH5OqyeI7wehtIb7vBhYHPDiE4xoYwjHJUSvIyaDOMpigNgFAq2omE6PNKYdVjaqjPeah8q8EnEAdebx8z2MSFnbNSwvAwW-rZPguSE9h6czByi53lUmbLlzYndUHto_tP/s1654/The+Parish+Review+1.1+%2528Summer+2012%2529+Cover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1654" data-original-width="1165" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTOTOzhc_6lnxH5OqyeI7wehtIb7vBhYHPDiE4xoYwjHJUSvIyaDOMpigNgFAq2omE6PNKYdVjaqjPeah8q8EnEAdebx8z2MSFnbNSwvAwW-rZPguSE9h6czByi53lUmbLlzYndUHto_tP/w148-h210/The+Parish+Review+1.1+%2528Summer+2012%2529+Cover.jpg" width="148" /></a></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">There are two things that mark this one
out from the other photographs, though—for one thing, the subject is wearing
glasses, which is not the case in any of the rest, and, for the other thing,
the man in the photograph isn’t actually Flann O’Brien at all, despite all the
above sources saying that it was.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This is how it all came to light: On Saturday
2 December 2017 the </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Irish Times</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
published Professor Anthony Roche’s review of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Flann O’Brien: Problems with Authority</i><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[7]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">.
Accompanying the review was a photograph of three men sitting at adjacent
tables, two on the left-hand side, and one on the right, which is subtitled as ‘</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Comic novelist and humorous columnist Flann
O’Brien (right) in the Palace Bar in Dublin circa 1945</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">.</span></span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Photograph: Hulton Getty</span></i><span style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">.’
The man on the right is not, as you might have surmised, Flann O’Brien</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[8</span><span style="font-size: xx-small; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">.
The photograph was certainly taken in the Palace Bar, though, and is actually a
companion to one mentioned above, and almost definitely taken at the same time.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Three days later, on Tuesday 5
December 2017, a letter appeared in the </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Irish
Times</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> that read,</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;"></span></p><blockquote><blockquote>Sir, – In a book review by Anthony Roche on a collection of essays concerning Flann O’Brien (Books, December 2nd), the caption on a photograph identifies the figure on the right as Flann O’Brien. This is in fact Robert Farren (1909-1984), poet, broadcaster and Abbey Theatre director. He was my father.</blockquote></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbAYorxOeis3IM35OfcSAmWdW1grlVxhLJSv6IVlmJkGZ5F9Q8qIFEBNvDkesJhhN_un7b84-587P6S1JENpatCfBRzH3u066qBeb83U0v3XFfSC3kBcKpV5j6ZoyDAcCKrNVnjo1yqzYR/s2048/Palace+Bar+Group.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1387" data-original-width="2048" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbAYorxOeis3IM35OfcSAmWdW1grlVxhLJSv6IVlmJkGZ5F9Q8qIFEBNvDkesJhhN_un7b84-587P6S1JENpatCfBRzH3u066qBeb83U0v3XFfSC3kBcKpV5j6ZoyDAcCKrNVnjo1yqzYR/w328-h223/Palace+Bar+Group.jpg" width="328" /></a><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></div></blockquote><blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Hulton Getty has issued
various versions of this photograph over the years with this misidentification;
it appears in at least two British collections of Flann O’Brien’s works.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Apart from the fact
that I recognise him, it is known—and your resident Flannorak, Frank McNally,
will I’m sure confirm this—that Flann never wore glasses.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">The figure lighting a
cigarette in the photograph is the novelist Francis MacManus (1909-1965), an
exact contemporary and close friend of my father. – Yours etc,</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">RONAN FARREN</span></p></blockquote></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The same photograph of the three men was published
alongside the letter, this time re-subtitled as ‘<i>The Palace Bar in Dublin circa 1945. The figure on the right is Robert
Farren</i>’...</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">The following week, on Thursday 14
December 2017, the self-same ‘resident Flannorak</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[9]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">,’
Frank McNally, in his regular Irishman’s Diary column in the </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Irish Times</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, had written a piece called
‘</span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">The Phantom Flann—An Irishman’s Diary
about the framing of Brian O’Nolan for a photograph he wasn’t in</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">,’ and
subtitled ‘</span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">O’Nolan spent his career pretending
to be other people. And sometimes even the other people were not who they were
supposed to be</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">.’ An extract follows:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgja6OWTsOVJhKt65jjO3toVpgrf6hK7PaWBJVrbSIGZVrGdz7VJ3P5M7_JICkezdiCO6w4zz6jHGbLyCnELrD3aqrrAJTJeb7KyDpgJK0f1FPHpHoFWKbQW8msw_758Ivete0GJMB-svQd/s754/Complete+Novels.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="754" data-original-width="465" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgja6OWTsOVJhKt65jjO3toVpgrf6hK7PaWBJVrbSIGZVrGdz7VJ3P5M7_JICkezdiCO6w4zz6jHGbLyCnELrD3aqrrAJTJeb7KyDpgJK0f1FPHpHoFWKbQW8msw_758Ivete0GJMB-svQd/w162-h262/Complete+Novels.jpg" width="162" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><div style="text-align: justify;"></div></span><p></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">On behalf of Flann O’Brien fans
everywhere, I offer belated thanks to Ronan Farren (Letters, December 5th) for
solving a mystery that had perplexed our community.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;">For some time past,
Flannoraks were aware of an ever-more-widely circulating photograph, supposedly
of the man himself, from Dublin’s Palace Bar, circa 1945. It had even appeared
on reprints of his books. But although the location was entirely plausible, as
was the hat, the bespectacled figure was clearly not Flann.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;">My best guess was Niall
Montgomery, his friend and collaborator, who did actually wear glasses. But I
happily bow to the authority of our letter writer, who assures us the mystery
man was his own father, Robert Farren, aka Roibéard Ó Faracháin, the poet. The
file is hereby closed. Getty Images, please copy.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;">It is not without
aptness, however, that the real-life Brian O’Nolan should have been supplanted
in this way: even to the extent, eventually, that the picture accompanied the
review of a new book about him in </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;">The
Irish Times</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;">, the paper his other main pseudonym, Myles na gCopaleen,
adorned for 26 years.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;">He of all people would
have understood the existentially-threatening condition implied in a common
Hiberno-English phrase: ‘He’s not himself lately’. O’Nolan spent his career
pretending to be other people. And sometimes even the other people (eg Myles,
often written by Montgomery</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[10]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;">)
were not who they were supposed to be.</span></div></blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;"></span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">Both photographs were still to be found on the Getty
Images website shortly after all of this appeared, still tagged as being Flann
O’Brien, but not long afterwards a search with his name in it yielded no
results, nor does it to this day—he had been erased, and had become a sort of
Orwellian unperson, a situation that Dermot Trellis in </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">At Swim-Two-Birds</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;"> might have sympathised with, if it wasn’t for the
fact that he had been erased himself.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgry20UlGJLQ7AACVMcMbBCKfUG3UHxwOfY_oBAyXzrA689CVxqbb7ryqxwVRAjiI8iDHtXXM1YZ_rXQp3xIbCLRRgcx2bxCqC_xT2ia7axQy8sJmxmbRGr4vMTOKY4yGJriXNyWLg8iQz7/s395/The+Third+Man.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="The Third Man" border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="346" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgry20UlGJLQ7AACVMcMbBCKfUG3UHxwOfY_oBAyXzrA689CVxqbb7ryqxwVRAjiI8iDHtXXM1YZ_rXQp3xIbCLRRgcx2bxCqC_xT2ia7axQy8sJmxmbRGr4vMTOKY4yGJriXNyWLg8iQz7/w178-h202/The+Third+Man.jpg" width="178" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Now, there’s nothing I love more than
a mystery, and the more intractable it is, the more I like it. As far as I
could see, there were several questions that I wanted answers to—various
variations on those old </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">what</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">where</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">when</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">why</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, and </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">who</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> kinds of questions. Who took the
photographs, and when and where did they take them, and for what reason? Why
did they end up on the Getty Images site, and how did they end up being
misidentified as Flann O’Brien? And who was the mysterious third man in that
group shot?</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[11]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
There was digging to be done, so I started with what I definitely had: that
photograph.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">According to the information on the
reverse of the Penguin Books postcard, the photograph is © Hulton-Deutsch
Collection/Corbis</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[12]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">,
whereas the inside front flap of the dustjacket on the Everyman’s Library book
says that it’s © Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. And, as indicated
above, the </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Irish Times</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> had subtitled
the picture as Photograph: Hulton Getty. There were several names attached to
the photograph, and I’d need to find a concrete starting point for all this to
help me make some sort of sense of what had happened, like why there were so
many different names, for a start. In cases like this the Internet is our friend,
and the much-maligned Wikipedia is always a good starting point. So...</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimT3WUlf7XApR4rsSBGMcIoElYbrvFFNSclFtO-3bBrvkldWN7kmGMlyHM38FQ1qMbM9SuOubT5DuZBCVKnKjxfogEPkwHmMQJwfMrd7IdzI2JZ4k6TLwWb_6dqkTp76vI-o4hp6_pn_M3/s290/Edward+Hulton.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="290" data-original-width="261" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimT3WUlf7XApR4rsSBGMcIoElYbrvFFNSclFtO-3bBrvkldWN7kmGMlyHM38FQ1qMbM9SuOubT5DuZBCVKnKjxfogEPkwHmMQJwfMrd7IdzI2JZ4k6TLwWb_6dqkTp76vI-o4hp6_pn_M3/w209-h232/Edward+Hulton.jpg" title="Sir Edward Hulton" width="209" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br />The most recent iteration of the
various related corporate entities whose names are attached to that photograph
is gettyimages.com, the online presence of Getty Images, Inc, whose headquarters
are in Seattle, Washington, having originally being founded as Getty
Investments LLC in London in 1995</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[13]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">.
Essentially, they buy up older photo agencies and archives and digitize their
collections, thereby enabling worldwide online distribution. In 1996 they
bought the Hulton Picture Collection for 8.6 million pounds, which gave them
the rights to some fifteen million photographs from the British press archives,
dating back to the 19th century. Getty bought this collection from Brian
Deutsch, where it was originally called the Hulton-Deutsch collection. Deutsch
had, in turn, bought the collection from the BBC, who had bought it in 1957
from Sir Edward Hulton, who had set up the Hulton Press Library in 1945 as a
semi-independent operation to manage the growing photographic archive of </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, a British photojournalistic
magazine published by the Hulton Press from 1938 to 1957.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Once the magazine folded Hulton apparently
lost interest, as he sold the archive—a move that, in 21</span><sup style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;">st</sup><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> century hindsight,
was perhaps not as financially astute as he might have thought. Still, with </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> we have arrived as far back
as we can go, and exactly where we need to be, as it turns out</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[14]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">.
And we have managed to touch base with every single corporate name under which
that photograph was attributed—Getty Images, Hulton Archive, Hulton-Deutsch
Collection, Hulton Getty, and </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture
Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">—except Corbis, about whom I’m just going to quote a large chunk of
text from Wikipedia, because it’s just too bewildering for me to try to
succinctly synopsise, as I write this, so you may read it or not, as you
please:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">[Corbis] was founded in Seattle by
Bill Gates in 1989 as Interactive Home Systems, and later renamed Corbis. The
company's original goal was to license and digitize artwork and other historic
images for the prospective concept of digital frames. In 1997, Corbis changed
its business model to focus on licensing the imagery and footage in its
collection. [...] In January 2016 Corbis announced that it had sold its image
licensing businesses to Unity Glory International, an affiliate of Visual China
Group. VCG licensed the images to Corbis's historic rival, Getty Images, outside
China. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">So now you know—although we’re strayed very far from
our original starting point. None the less, the date of some sort of
semi-amalgamation with Getty in 2016 doesn’t quite explain their name being on
the back of that Penguin Books postcard, as that dates from 2011. But there’s
only so far we can go chasing down rabbit holes that are also potentially cul-de-sacs,
so that’s as far as I’m going on this particular one.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Was any of this relevant, though?
Well, yes, I thought it was. The two photographs, especially the one of Robert
Farren, lovely and all as they were, were obviously professionally taken
photographs, rather than simply the product of happenstance. The attribution of
the photograph as having been taken in 1945, whilst it would prove to be wrong,
was nonetheless at least a pointer in the right direction, and the fact that
the date coincided with the establishment of the Hulton Press Library in the
same year might not be entirely a coincidence, but simply a misattribution
based on someone presuming that one date was the same as the other—although we’ll
never know for sure. And, by now, I was sure that that this was all converging
on the fact that those photographs had featured in </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> around that time. Everything seemed to point towards
that—that they were almost definitely professionally taken, that they had been
on the Getty Images site, and that one of the founding blocks of that
collection had been the photographs from the Hulton Press Library, itself the
archive of </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">’s
photographs. And the attribution on the back of the postcard had even
specifically mentioned the magazine. So all I had to do was to figure out how
to prove that...</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ERm13o2RCRqD1A8mx56366eGs4iiEhAO_fP7gAKdsJV6pQD5taTqlRBNIsL9urRi24EJuLlBtIHolfnR_K7ZUR3Ny2RJbVwLIECixAddOPCdJaPP0tiIwLi2KzrQvS31KdH3uCkSi8HU/s1328/Picture+Post+1942+Cover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1328" data-original-width="1001" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ERm13o2RCRqD1A8mx56366eGs4iiEhAO_fP7gAKdsJV6pQD5taTqlRBNIsL9urRi24EJuLlBtIHolfnR_K7ZUR3Ny2RJbVwLIECixAddOPCdJaPP0tiIwLi2KzrQvS31KdH3uCkSi8HU/w198-h262/Picture+Post+1942+Cover.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>My next stop was the website of the
National Library of Ireland. They had just one issue of <i style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;"> in their catalogue</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;">,
it looked like, dated 11 April 1942. Could this be the one I was looking for?
It certainly looked like it might be</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;">.
There was a feature in it called ‘In Eire To-Day,’ which was also the subtitle the
issue was catalogued under. I no longer live in Dublin, but a week-long visit
there to go buy books at the annual Trinity College Booksale meant I could
easily go around the corner to the NLI and have a look at it for myself. And
that’s exactly what I did. But, before I went, I would still occasionally put
various possible search terms into Google, to see if I could find some
combination that would throw out a viable result.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">I wish I could remember what specific
terms I used that night—it is likely to have been as simple as ‘Robert Farren’
& ‘Palace Bar’—but the very first result returned was for the Getty Images
website, for an entry tagged with the date 11 April 1942, a date I had seen
only a short while before on the NLI website. It is absolutely true to say that
the hairs on the back of my neck, at least proverbially, stood up. I had,
finally, found what I was looking for. The truncated Google search result (with
my putative search terms highlighted in bold, as it would have looked) read,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">...www.gettyimages.com › detail ›
news-photo > irish-wri...</span></i> </p></blockquote><blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Irish writer, broadcaster and Abbey
Theatre director, Robert...</span></i> </p></blockquote><blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-family: helvetica;">...
Abbey Theatre director, <b>Robert Farren</b>
at the <b>Palace Bar</b> in Dublin, April
<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>1942. Original publication: Picture Post - 835 - Abbey Theatre - pub 11th <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>April
1942.</span></i></p></blockquote><blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></i></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">C</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">licking through the link brought me to a page on the
Getty Images site with that familiar photograph of Robert Farren, but now with
text saying,</span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Robert Farren </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Irish writer, broadcaster and Abbey
Theatre director, Robert Farren (1909 - 1984) at the Palace Bar in Dublin,
April 1942. Original publication: </span><i style="font-family: helvetica;">Picture
Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> - 835 - Abbey Theatre - pub 11th April 1942. (Photo by Haywood
Magee/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)</span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">It even had the photographer’s name listed. Most
importantly, it stated quite clearly that the image had appeared in a
particular issue of the </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">,
and that issue of </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;"> was
equally clearly listed on the National Library of Ireland’s online catalogue. And,
as I said, I was going to be in Dublin within a few days, and would have an
actual copy of the very issue of </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">Picture
Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;"> that had that photograph of Robert Farren in it put into my own trembling
hands. This part of the mystery, at least, was solved. Except that it wasn’t...</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">* * * * *<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJVWCKhNaeZ7HCShNRBMzJlAtB7e7gnprw-e98xuXhvNWHkMjuEh_RU45-vrwcv3uSSRrBzt7t_uppK-HGVF8xOwb8mzPNsj6LNCUb2NYBOvLD1guacWi62TMbzwCX5RFbDk1TJAs9go9E/s807/Booksale+2020+Poster+Colour.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="807" data-original-width="620" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJVWCKhNaeZ7HCShNRBMzJlAtB7e7gnprw-e98xuXhvNWHkMjuEh_RU45-vrwcv3uSSRrBzt7t_uppK-HGVF8xOwb8mzPNsj6LNCUb2NYBOvLD1guacWi62TMbzwCX5RFbDk1TJAs9go9E/w252-h328/Booksale+2020+Poster+Colour.jpg" width="252" /></a></div><br />The 2020 TCD Secondhand Booksale took place in the
Exam Hall in Trinity College’s Front Square from Tuesday 18 to Thursday 20
February 2020. On one of those days I was also going for a stroll up to the National
Library of Ireland, which was at most five minutes away, and my precious
documentary proof would be there waiting for me. I entered through the tiled
and pillared rotunda of the entrance hall, bade a good day to the security
guard on duty, deposited everything except an iPad Mini, a pencil, and a note book
in one of those ‘set your own secret combination on the lock’ glass lockers,
and ascended the marble and stone staircase which so many other great
intellects had ascended before me, presented myself at the front desk in the main
reading room, and asked the librarian behind the desk to supply to me forthwith
my issue of <i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">. He pointed
out that there were actually two different issues of the magazine on the
catalogue, and not just a generic listing indicating they had a copy or copies
of </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">, and then a specific
listing for the actual issue they had provided a date for, which was what I had
convinced myself I was looking at, that first time I had looked it up in their
catalogue. None the less, I had the date I was looking for to hand, and they
did actually have that issue so, after having gone off for a pot of tea in the
excellent Café Joly on the ground floor whilst it was being retrieved from the
archives, I returned shortly thereafter and, finally, I was given their copy of
</span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;"> #835 published on 11
April 1942. I was, at least on the inside, incandescent with excitement.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">I sat down at my desk, put the
magazine down on the support cushion, and turned the first page. The first few
pages were almost all advertising, as was the fashion at the time, except for
some remarkably jingoistic readers’ letters on page 3—somewhat understandable
in light of the war, I suppose—and a contents list on page 5. The promise of
the front page, with its </span><b style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><i>IN EIRE TO-DAY</i></b><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> strapline was
certainly fulfilled by the contents listed: An article by Cyril Connolly called
‘</span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Neutral Eire is Slowly Changing Under
the Impact of the World’s War</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">’ runs through the whole thing, taking in photo
features like ‘</span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Eire, Land of Talk</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">,’ ‘</span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Dominant Influence in Eire is the Catholic
Church</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">,’ </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Can Eire Defend Herself?</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">,’
and ‘</span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">In the Abbey Theatre</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">,’ all of
which took up pages 7 to 15. Somewhere amongst all that, surely, I would find a
photograph of Robert Farren, and maybe even a previously undocumented image of
Flann himself?</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">I turned the page once more. And I
kept turning pages, until I got, not only to the end of those pages that
covered the Irish content, but to the very back page of the magazine itself.
And not one of those pages contained a photograph of either Robert Farren or
Flann O’Brien. I was sure I must have missed a photograph, or somehow turned
two pages at the same time, or in some other way overlooked the very thing I
was looking for. So I went back to the start, and checked everything—the date,
the issue number, and then scrutinised anew every single photograph on every
single page, making sure as I did so that I was checking every consecutive page
number, just in case. But to no further avail. That photograph, which was
originally said to be Flann O’Brien, but wasn’t, was also not in the issue of </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> I was told it was in. The very
magazine that had been the bedrock of what became Getty Images had deceived me
not once, but twice, with the same image. What on earth was going on?</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTp15ZvbRKXW61LF-LWsGSGCcceHxPcCFXFj0Mtw38ADawoaNrnoxDiGgn7cKEbufrkXe_bHADIHzgSp97XWb5R-YpncCqVLlD_o2XQbtTMIwq9S-bozept_G89QheK91MpI1OtcKyBapE/s653/Smyllie+in+the+Palace.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="653" data-original-width="482" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTp15ZvbRKXW61LF-LWsGSGCcceHxPcCFXFj0Mtw38ADawoaNrnoxDiGgn7cKEbufrkXe_bHADIHzgSp97XWb5R-YpncCqVLlD_o2XQbtTMIwq9S-bozept_G89QheK91MpI1OtcKyBapE/w242-h328/Smyllie+in+the+Palace.jpg" width="242" /></a></div><br />I did the only thing possible, which
was go through it all again, even more carefully. The thing is, there <i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">were</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> photographs taken in the Palace
Bar, in the ‘</span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Eire, Land of Talk</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">’
section, and of the Abbey Theatre, accompanying the ‘</span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">In the Abbey Theatre</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">’ section, obviously enough. There’s a
photograph of legendary </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Irish Times</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
editor RM Smyllie in his office, another of him in the Palace Bar, along with
journalists Alec Newman and MJ McManus, and one further picture from the
Palace, showing a person identified as ‘Pierce Beasley’</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17" style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[17]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
talking to artist Desmond Rushton. And the photographs of the Abbey show both
an interior and an exterior of the original building, with the useful
information that it had once been a morgue. There’s a photograph of a scene of
a pub fight</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18" style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[18]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
from Seán O'Casey’s</span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> The Plough and the
Stars</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, and half a dozen head shots of actors, and one more photograph of an
Abbey Theatre producer. But none of these people were who I was looking for.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">I conceded defeat, handed the copy of
</span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> back to the person
behind the counter, and went back to the Booksale, and eventually back home,
unsure of what had actually just happened. However, I was not without either
resources or further plans.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">I decided the possibility existed
that there might have been different versions of the individual issues of </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">. After all, there were
local editions of papers like the </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Sunday
Dispatch</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, which would publish Myles na gCopaleen’s Column Bawn column in
the early 1950s in their Irish edition, so maybe there had been different local
editions of </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> for different
markets? I’ll tell you now that this wasn’t true, especially seeing as this was
during the war years, when such extravagances weren’t exactly welcomed. None
the less, it did lead me to buying myself a copy of the 11 April 1942 edition
of </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, just to see. But the
contents of that were exactly the same as the one I’d already looked at, of
course—although it did mean I had a chance to do more than just have a look
through it in the library.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">There was that other Irish-themed copy
of </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, though. The one I’d
originally overlooked on the NLI online catalogue. I bought a copy of that,
too, just in case. But it was a complete non-starter, for lots of reasons. If
nothing else it dated from almost two years earlier, 27 July 1940, which meant
it pre-dated the first Myles na gCopaleen penned Cruiskeen Lawn column in the </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Irish Times</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> by nearly three months. And
most of the Irish contents in that particular issue was about showing how poor
we all were, it looked like. So that particular cul de sac was entirely cut
off.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">As a last resort, and seeing as I
actually had access to me own copy, I set myself to reading Cyril Connolly’s
essay in the April 1942 issue. It would be fair to say that it was at the very
least condescending, and often substantially worse than that, and there were quite
a few ‘</span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Oh do you fucking think so?</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">’ moments,
as I read through it. But, near the end, I found this:</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Culture itself struggles on, not
really taking that advantage of being out of the war which culture should, but
represented by some interesting young poets and writers. There is Robert
O’Farocháin, a gifted young poet, Francis MacManus, a novelist, Flann O’Brien
(a Gaelic Beachcomer), Donagh McDonagh, a poet whose father was executed in
1916, and the story writer, Niall Sheridan.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">At last I had found at least a tenuous link between
that photograph, originally thought to be Flann O’Brien, but later revealed to
be Robert Farren, aka Roibeárd Ó Faracháin</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19" style="font-family: helvetica;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[19]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">,
and the 11 April 1942 edition of </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">Picture
Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">. Was there any way to explain why the photograph </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">wasn’t</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;"> in that issue, though, even though it was listed on the
Getty Images website as having been so? Maybe there was.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">In the Wikipedia article about </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Picture Post</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> there’s this paragraph,
with bold emphasis added by myself:</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">As the photographic archive of <i>Picture Post</i> expanded through the Second
World War, it became clear that its vast collection of photographs and
negatives, <b>both published and
unpublished</b>, were becoming an important historical documentary resource.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">So, if there had been a batch of photographs taken in
the Palace Bar by their stringer photographer, Haywood Magee, which were for
that issue, it would be reasonably that some would be used, and some not. And
the unpublished ones would probably be in the Hulton archive alongside the
published ones. Somewhere along the line, possibly when they were being
digitised for the website, or possibly well before that, someone made a
partially educated guess about who was who, going on the above paragraph from Cyril
Connolly’s essay, and decided that the nice man in the black hat looked a bit
like the only one of that group that there were a handful of photographs of to
provide any sort of comparison, and tagged it as Flann O’Brien, and further
presumed that, if the photographs were taken for that issue, then they must
have been </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">in</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;"> that issue, and all the
pieces fit together at last. The secret origin of Flann’s Pen-Face was revealed
at last.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 36pt;">There were still a few loose ends
that needed tying up, but I think I can provide answers for those as well. Who
was the third man in the photograph that contains Robert Farren and Francis
MacManus? </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 36pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQeT1OfBSl6d-e2QIX9KIKefP2Ki_LCpTxEfCisyRcTVMpFEitdX6Te5GSts4jYzrzMHgRImhghAirmCRYeA2ZRDgz3R_Ex9uQZRdX7CYCfWLrLcqDZySEOK4cMzMuTYrxA89hyphenhyphenhd1GqRw/s380/Niall+Sheridan.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="380" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQeT1OfBSl6d-e2QIX9KIKefP2Ki_LCpTxEfCisyRcTVMpFEitdX6Te5GSts4jYzrzMHgRImhghAirmCRYeA2ZRDgz3R_Ex9uQZRdX7CYCfWLrLcqDZySEOK4cMzMuTYrxA89hyphenhyphenhd1GqRw/w194-h166/Niall+Sheridan.jpg" width="194" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 36pt;"><br />It’s likely that he was one of the five young writers listed
together—</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 36pt;">Robert
Farren, Francis MacManus, Flann O’Brien, Donagh McDonagh, and Niall Sheridan.
The first two are already in the photograph, it’s definitely not Flann, so it’s
down to Donagh McDonagh and Niall Sheridan. From various online photographs of
McDonagh I’m pretty sure it cannot be him, so that pretty much leaves Niall
Sheridan. And there’s a certain resemblance between that third man and a grainy
old photograph of him from the <i>Irish
Times</i>. Perhaps somebody in the know will read this, and can confirm or deny
that. And, if it is indeed Niall Sheridan, then Flann might not be in the
picture, but at least one of the occasional (but not <i>often</i>) substitute Myles na gCopaleens is.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">The one other thing, to go right back
to where I started out, is the business of Flann’s letter to Timothy O’Keeffe
of 19 August 1961, about the cover art for his forthcoming novel </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">The Hard Life</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, where he said,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Many thanks for your letter of the
15<sup>th</sup> August and copy of acting cover. I detest that photograph
because 1) I don’t believe it is a photograph of me at all, and 2) whoever the
man is was floothered when the picture was taken.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 36pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-indent: 36pt;">I Feel any biographical
material should be omitted, particularly the disclosure that Flann O’Brien is a
pseudonym. There is no point in it if the real name is also given.
Incidentally, if a pen-name is admissible, why not a pen-face?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The thing is—and this is very much the leitmotif for this essay—that cover for MacGibbon & Kee’s original 1961 publication of The Hard Life has no photograph, whether of Flann or anyone else, anywhere on the dustjacket. Nor is there any biographical material, and therefore no disclosure of the author’s name being a pseudonym. But this particular mystery at least has a more easily found possible solution—none of the things Flann objects to in that letter are in the UK first edition, but every part of it is to be found on the inside back flap of the dustjacket of the American first edition, published by Pantheon Books of New York in 1962. This is what it says:</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></p><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkTkcLQ_UJW3JQdiSdaaTEkr7C_B97_Jl447TN1zXNrzZ4WH5rKp4jWCX3TXVToZ0J3GG_rsNpm86cvIjsNuC0n19CkVzYYdFG3CcZ4r6eT2DCavX70-2RDty_nz2Ozi0D-7lF48VNjfgW/s1222/The+Hard+Life+US+Back+Flap.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1222" data-original-width="549" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkTkcLQ_UJW3JQdiSdaaTEkr7C_B97_Jl447TN1zXNrzZ4WH5rKp4jWCX3TXVToZ0J3GG_rsNpm86cvIjsNuC0n19CkVzYYdFG3CcZ4r6eT2DCavX70-2RDty_nz2Ozi0D-7lF48VNjfgW/w184-h410/The+Hard+Life+US+Back+Flap.jpg" width="184" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br />Flann O’Brien was born in County Donegal a few years before the First World War. In 1943 Time wrote: “On one Irish matter there is no argument in all Eire: the favorite Irish newspaper columnist is Brian O’Nolan, who write for the Irish Times....O’Nolan, a novelist, playwright and civil servant, writes a six-a-week column titled Cruiskeen Lawn (The Little Overflowing Jug) under the pseudonym Myles na gCopaleen (means Myles of the Little Horses)....” Since then, Flann O’Brien has let down none of his three personalities: he has continued to be Ireland’s favorite spoofer and iconoclast in the Irish Times; he has been Secretary to three successive Ministers in the Irish Local Government and is Principal Officer of the Town Planning section; he has written several plays in Gaelic and has seen the extraordinary first novel that he wrote in his youth, At Swim-Two-Birds (Pantheon, 1951), rhapsodically acclaimed in England when it was reissued there last year. The Hard Life, written in a completely different style from that of his first, Joycean novel, represents the fourth dimension of this versatile writer.<span style="font-size: xx-small;">[20]</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">And the article was topped by a photograph. The
photograph, unlike much of the information in that paragraph, dates from the
same time as the book and, although there is no doubt that the man in it does
indeed look floothered, there is no doubt that it is Brian Nolan himself, only
a few years before his untimely death in 1966. </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">Sic Transit Gloria Mundi</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt;">, as he might have put it himself.</span></p><div><hr size="1" style="text-align: left;" width="33%" />
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><!--[endif]-->
</span><div id="ftn1">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"></span></b></span></b></span></a><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><a href="#ref1" name="_ref1">[1]</a></span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span><span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Hard Life</i>, Flann O’Brien, MacGibbon & Kee, London, 1961;
Pantheon Books, New York, 1962</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[2]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> Maebh Long, in her excellent <i>The Collected Letters of Flann O’Brien</i>
(Dalkey Archive Press, Dublin, 2018) added a footnote to this, saying that it
was an <i>Irish colloquialism</i> meaning <i>drunk</i>. I can offer no further or better
explanation.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[3]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> <i>The Complete Novels</i>, Flann O’Brien, Everyman’s Library/Random
House, London, 2007</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[4]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> Now known as the <i>Journal of Flann O'Brien Studies</i>.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn5">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[5]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> <i>The Parish Review</i> #1, International Flann O’Brien Society, Vienna,
2012</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn6">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[6]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> <i>100 Postcards from Penguin Modern Classics</i>, Penguin Books, London,
2011</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn7">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[7]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> <i>Flann O’Brien: Problems with Authority</i>, Ed. Ruben Borg, Paul Fagan,
& John McCourt, Cork University Press, Cork, 2017</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn8">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[8]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> Nor was the photograph taken in
1945, but I’ll be coming to that later on.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn9">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[9]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> Although some of us prefer
Flanneur.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn10">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[10]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> I take issue with the use of the
word ‘often’ here, but that is very much an argument for another day, and one
that Frank McNally is not entirely unfamiliar with upon my part. Research, as
ever, is ongoing.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn11">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[11]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> Was he by any chance a policeman,
and did he have a bicycle? No, probably not.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn12">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[12]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> I have a few copies of that
postcard—although it originally came as part of a set of 100 postcards some
sellers, both in the actual and virtual marketplaces, break up these sets, and
sell the postcards individually—you can buy the entire box online for something
like €15, so even selling them for a mere £/$/€1 each, there’s plenty of profit
to be made. I have it on good authority that, certainly at the time the
inadvertent imposture came to hand, that Penguin UK had about 2,000 boxes still
to hand. Anyway, I like to have a few to hand to send to people, particularly
since I found out about the inadvertent imposture on the sitter’s part.</span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn13">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[13]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> The Getty in Getty Images is
Italian-born Mark Getty, who holds an Irish passport, and is the grandson of
John Paul Getty, the oil tycoon, once reckoned to be the richest private
citizen in the world, and notorious for his penny-pinching ways. Still, he’s
dead now, for all the good it did him, and sure there’s no pockets in shrouds.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn14">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[14]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> To synopsise the foregoing
paragraph: Sir Edward Hulton set up the Hulton Press Library in 1945, which he
sold to the BBC is 1957, who sold it to Brian Deutsch in 1988, who then sold it
to Getty Images in 1996. Who, at the time of writing, appear to still own it.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn15">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[15]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> There’s actually two, but I didn’t
notice that the first time I looked. And there’ll be more about that a little
further on, anyway.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn16">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[16]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></b></span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">There
had been an article by Allen Barra in the <i>Wall
Street Journal</i> on 17 March 2011 (aka Saint Patrick’s Day) entitled ‘Flann
O'Brien—Tall Tales, Long Drink,’ which was accompanied by the now-familiar
photograph, subtitled ‘<i>The
author/columnist at the Palace Bar in Dublin, 1942</i>.’ So this date was
looking possible, as well.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn17">
<p class="MsoFootnoteTextCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[17]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></b></span></a><span> He was born Percy Beazley, but
later used a gaelicised version of his name, Piaras Béaslaí, so misattributed
here, regardless of which language you’re talking about. Piaras Béaslaí wrote
an Irish language science fiction novel called <i>Astronár</i>, which I’m looking for a copy of. If you have one, get in
touch!</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn18">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[18]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span> Presumably on the basis that, if
you can’t get a good pub fight in an Irish pub, then one on the stage of the
Abbey Theatre is probably the next best thing.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn19">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[19]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span> So, once again, with Robert
O’Farocháin, <i>Picture Post</i> had failed
to get an Irish writer’s name right, in either language...</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn20">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/P%C3%A1draig/Documents/+Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann%20O'Brien/Robert%20Farren%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Wasn't%20Flann.rtf#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[20]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">It’s amazing how many errors, mistakes, and out-of-date material you can get
into one paragraph, all the same, isn’t it?</span></span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div><p></p>Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-88281675836266275012018-11-04T15:18:00.000+00:002018-11-04T16:56:25.451+00:00Poisoned Chalice: The Extremely Long and Incredibly Complex Story of Marvelman (and Miracleman)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: start;">On Tuesday the 30th of October, after nearly ten year of writing it, on and off, I finally published </span><b style="text-align: start;"><i>Poisoned Chalice: The Extremely Long and Incredibly Complex Story of Marvelman (and Miracleman</i></b><span style="text-align: start;">).</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPvxe584xnqZBZ3EfkZ3k1o0JVxSdChWTg8KEiiCBAlRxemipu7Kd3FHXmf8OWUD6mF3DVXieUbZxOUxrFIGzSb20zjUg8y9Od8NJYMDDuwkiS8S1Q935kNLpvKKhJLbT6Jc2jk8e_jfS2/s1600/poisoned+chalice+cover+20181102+lulu+Chopped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1313" data-original-width="843" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPvxe584xnqZBZ3EfkZ3k1o0JVxSdChWTg8KEiiCBAlRxemipu7Kd3FHXmf8OWUD6mF3DVXieUbZxOUxrFIGzSb20zjUg8y9Od8NJYMDDuwkiS8S1Q935kNLpvKKhJLbT6Jc2jk8e_jfS2/s640/poisoned+chalice+cover+20181102+lulu+Chopped.jpg" width="408" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(Isn't that cover fabulous, by the way? My old friend <a href="https://www.michaelowencarroll.com/" target="_blank">Michael Carroll</a>, who has been writing <b>Judge Dredd</b> stories for <b><i>2000 AD</i></b> since 2010, did that for me.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Whilst nothing will ever match the story of <b>Marvelman</b> for complexity, my own story whilst writing this had its own twists and turns -- I had, long before I started writing this, been fascinated with the whole complex nature of it, although it's fair to say that I had no idea just how complex that complexity was going to turn out to be. I had written a brief piece about it for some sort of publication - a con programme book, or something like that (possibly for <a href="http://theycameandshavedus.lostcarpark.com/about.htm" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">They Came and Shaved Us</a>, in October 2003, now that I think about it - which was held to commemorate ten years of <a href="http://www.sproutlore.com/sproutlore.php" target="_blank"><b>Sproutlore, the Now Official Robert Rankin Fanclub</b></a>, which I had a hand in setting up... But I digress!) - and fiddled about with it a bit after that, every now and then. I eventually decided to address myself to it properly, and thought that I could make some sort of article or blog post out of it. It kept growing, though, the more I looked into it, and it was around 2009 that I realised that what I was writing was inevitable going to be, if not a book, then at least book-sized. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And that, as a wise man once said, was where my troubles began. Not long after I decided to go for it, and turn it into a book - I reckoned, with a lot of effort, I could bring it up to about 50,000 words - I got diagnosed with Prostate Cancer, which led to all sorts of exciting surgical procedures, and more bizarre side effects than you could shake a big stick at. This, unsurprisingly, slowed my urge to write anything, except perhaps my will, down to effectively zero. But we get used to everything and, although my damned cancer is still there, the medication has it stunned into submission for the moment, and my specialist assures that I could easily live another twenty years. So I got back to writing again.<br /><br />As well as that, after a <i>really</i> long time when nothing had happened, news started to trickle out that the rights to <b>Marvelman</b> - and, by this time, his bastard offspring, <b>Miracleman</b> - were going to be sorted out, once and for all, and that <b>Neil Gaiman</b> was going to finally get to finish the story he had been forced to discontinue when <b>Eclipse Comics</b> went belly up in the mid-nineties. I dug down into the details, and back into the past, and talked to some people off the record, interviewed some other on the record. That 50,000 word book I thought I'd be lucky to stretch to eventually ended up at over 90,000, and the story is nowhere near its end yet. But right now it's as completely up to date as it can be, until the next time something happens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you're interested in comics history, then <b><i>Poisoned Chalice</i></b> is a book I think you need to read. It stretches from the birth of superhero comics in America all the way to right here in 2018. It features <b>Superman</b>, <b>Captain Marvel</b>, <b>Marvelman</b>, <b>Miracleman</b>, and several other comics icons. It covers the 1980s <b>British Invasion</b> of American comics, and those writers most associated with it, writers like <b>Alan Moore</b>, <b>Neil Gaiman</b>, <b>Grant Morrison</b>, and others. There's also <b>Todd McFarlane</b>, and <b>Eclipse Comics</b>. And <b>Mick Anglo</b>, who started it all. Not to mention <i>loads</i> of people assuring us that things were <i><b>Coming Soon</b></i>, even when the obviously weren't. It is, like so many great comics stories, a tale of good and bad, of good guys and bad guys, and of a sort of justice, in the end.<br /><br />After all these years, and after spending a good chunk of my life looking into it, I'm still fascinated by the story of <b>Marvelman</b>, and all the people involved with it. I hope that, if you read this book, you'll feel some of that fascination.</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">Poisoned Chalice </i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">is currently available to buy, in both physical and electronic versions, via these fine electronic shopping emporia: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1916493904?pf_rd_p=855cdcfd-05d9-474f-b84d-8286a3530ba1&pf_rd_r=JY1JBWGGV0PJC918JS3Q" target="_blank">Amazon.co.uk</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1916493904/ref=nav_timeline_asin?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1" target="_blank">Amazon.com</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poisoned-Chalice-P%C3%A1draig-%C3%93-M%C3%A9al%C3%B3id-ebook/dp/B07JZY23YX/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">KindleUK</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Poisoned-Chalice-P%C3%A1draig-%C3%93-M%C3%A9al%C3%B3id-ebook/dp/B07JZY23YX/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">KindleUS</a>, and <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/p%C3%A1draig-%C3%B3-m%C3%A9al%C3%B3id/poisoned-chalice-the-extremely-long-and-incredibly-complex-story-of-marvelman-and-miracleman/paperback/product-23858084.html" target="_blank">Lulu.com</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Thank you for reading this far. Now go buy my book!</span></div>
Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-9022484333805219042012-03-31T13:37:00.022+01:002012-04-05T00:16:10.369+01:00Marvelman Bibliography: Part 4 - Marvel Comics<p>A bibliography of Marvelman (and his occasional <i>nom de guerre</i> Miracleman) is a complicated business, so I’ve decided to do it in <strike>four</strike> five parts:</p><li>Part 1: L Miller & Son Ltd/L Miller & Co Ltd<br />
<li>Part 2: Quality Communications Ltd<br />
<li>Part 3: Eclipse Comics<br />
<li><a href=http://slovobooks.blogspot.com/2012/03/marvelman-bibliography-part-4-marvel.html>Part 4: Marvel Comics</a><br />
<li>Part 5: Everything Else, and Bibliography</li><br />
<p>If you’re wondering why you might not have seen any of these before, it’ll be because this one, the fourth one, is actually the first one I’m writing. This paragraph will eventually disappear when I’ve finally done all those pages. In the meantime, here’s what Marvel have been up to so far, since they bought Mick Anglo’s rights to Marvelman in July 2009.</p><p><center><b>---------------<u>COMICS</u>---------------</b></center></p><p><b><u>24 July 2009</u></b>: Marvel Comics <a href=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22203>announces</a> it has bought Mick Anglo’s copyright in Marvelman.</p><p><b><u>8 July 2010</u></b>: <a href=http://marvel.com/comic_books/issue/33420/marvelman_familys_finest_2010_1><b><i>Marvelman Family’s Finest</i></b> #1</a> - <a href=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18166.html><b>Sales</b></a>: 17,739</p><blockquote>“<i>A recluse Astro-Scientist discovers the key word to the Universe, one that can only be given to a Boy who is completely honest, studious, and of such integrity that he would only use it for the powers of good. He finds such a Boy in Micky Moran, a Newspaper Copy Boy, and treats him in a special machine which enables him to use the secret. Just before the Scientist dies, he tells Micky the key word which is KIMOTA. Micky Moran remains as he was, but when he says the Key Word KIMOTA he becomes Marvelman, a man of such strength and powers that he is Invincible and Indestructible!</i>” And with those words in 1954’s <i><b>Marvelman</b></i> #25 began the saga of one of the most storied characters ever to emerge from the British comics market. Now, thrill to the adventures of Marvelman, Young Marvelman and Kid Marvelman as they take on enemy agents, mad scientists and more in this “best of” series! #1 of 6</blockquote><p><b><u>21 July 2010</u></b>: <a href=http://marvel.com/comic_books/issue/29286/marvelman_classic_primer_2010_1><b><i>Marvelman Classic Primer</i></b></a> #1 - <a href=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18166.html><b>Sales</b></a>: 16,943<blockquote>Who is the mysterious Marvelman? The answer to that question is one of the most mysterious in comics lore. Created in 1954 by writer/artist Mick Anglo, the character enjoyed a long run in the British comics market as one of its most powerful heroes. A few decades later, the character was revived with a dark, moody, deconstructionist bent, and produced one of the most important works of comic art in the medium's history. But now, miracle of miracles, Marvel has stepped up to the plate to deliver on the promise of Anglo's incredible characters. The Marvelman Primer will help readers unfamiliar with that character get up to speed on the past, present and future of Marvelman stories. We'll check in with Mick Anglo, Neil Gaiman and others who contributed to this character’s history over the years. It was the news that swept the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con and the Marvelman Primer explains why!</blockquote>Actually, many of the things promised don’t appear, and it’s hard to see exactly what Marvel were trying to do with this. Whatever it was, I really don’t think it succeeded. Note where it says ‘miracle of miracles’: They never mention Miracleman, but someone can’t resist an oblique reference...</p><p><b><u>4 August 2010</u></b>: <a href=http://marvel.com/comic_books/issue/33422/marvelman_familys_finest_2010_2> <b><i>Marvelman Family’s Finest</i></b> #2</a> - <a href=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18350.html><b>Sales</b></a>: 9,324 (-47.4%)</p><p><b><u>1 September 2010</u></b>: <a href=http://marvel.com/comic_books/issue/33425/marvelman_familys_finest_2010_3><b><i>Marvelman Family’s Finest</i></b> #3</a> - <a href=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18551.html><b>Sales</b></a>: 6,151 (-34.0%)</p><p><b><u>6 October 2010</u></b>: <a href=http://marvel.com/comic_books/issue/33426/marvelman_familys_finest_2010_4><b><i>Marvelman Family’s Finest</i></b> #4</a> - <a href=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18751.html><b>Sales</b></a>: 4,707 (-23.5%)</p><p><b><u>3 November 2010</u></b>: <a href=http://marvel.com/comic_books/issue/33429/marvelman_familys_finest_2010_5><b><i>Marvelman Family’s Finest</i></b> #5</a> - <a href=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18918.html><b>Sales</b></a>: 3,993 (-15.2%)</p><p><b><u>1 December 2010</u></b>: <b><i>Marvelman Family’s Finest</i></b> #6 - <b><u><b>Sales</b></u></b>: Below 3,811</p><p>The lowest sales recorded on the relevant page on ICv2.com - <a href=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/19109.html>Top 300 Comics -- December 2010</a> - is 3,811, so the presumption is that the sales of this must be lower than that figure. For some reason there is no page for this issue on the Marvel Comics website, even on their <a href=http://marvel.com/comic_books/series/9920/marvelman_familys_finest_2010_-_present><b><i>Marvelman Family’s Finest</i></b></a> page, originally leading me to believe that it hadn’t actually been issued, but I’ve seen a copy, so it definitely does exist.</p><p>So, that’s all the Marvelman comics Marvel have issued. The <b><i>Marvelman Classic Primer</i></b> sold 16,943 copies, so, in total, between the six issues of <b><i>Marvelman Family’s Finest</i></b> and the one-shot primer, Marvel sold maybe 60,000 of these comics in all. I’m no expert on the sales of comics these days, but I’m guessing that’s not really very good.</p><p>Next up is sales of collected volumes.</p><p><center><b>---------------<u>BOOKS</u>---------------</b></center></p><p><b><u>11 August 2010</u></b>: <a href=http://marvel.com/comic_books/collection/33592/marvelman_classic_vol_1_hardcover><b><i>Marvelman Classic</i></b></a> Vol 1 - <a href=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18351.html><b>Sales</b></a>: 2,080<br />
Reprints <i><b>Marvelman</b></i> #25 - #34, excepting #26, which they could not find a copy of, despite some intensive searching.</p><p><b><u>23 February 2011</u></b>: <i><b>Marvelman Classic</b></i> Vol 2 - <a href=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/19571.html><b>Sales</b></a>: 303<br />
Reprints <i><b>Marvelman</b></i> #35 - #44</p><p><b><u>2 March 2011</u></b>: <a href=http://marvel.com/comic_books/collection/36221/marvelman_familys_finest_hardcover><b><i>Marvelman Family's Finest</i></b></a> - <b><u>Sales</u></b>: Below 352<br />
Reprints <i><b>Marvelman Family's Finest</b></i> #1 - #6</p><p><b><u>11 May 2011</u></b>: <a href=http://marvel.com/comic_books/collection/39404/young_marvelman_classic_hardcover><b><i>Young Marvelman Classic</i></b></a> Vol 1 - <b><u>Sales</u></b>: Below 343<br />
Reprints <i><b>Young Marvelman</b></i> #25 - #34</p><p><b><u>14 September 2011</u></b>: <b><i>Marvelman Classic</i></b> Vol 3 - <b><u>Sales</u></b>: Below 296<br />
Reprints <i><b>Marvelman</b></i> #45 - #54</p><p><b><u>18 January 2012</u></b>: <b><i>Young Marvelman Classic</i></b> Vol 2 - <b><u>Sales</u></b>: Below 285<br />
Reprints <i><b>Young Marvelman</b></i> #35 - #44</p><p>Marvel’s reprint programme for the 1950s L Miller & Son/Mick Anglo era Marvelman comics seems to have halted for the moment - unsurprisingly, I suppose, looking at those sales figures. However, if they had continued as they were, reprinting 10 issues per volume, with 2 volumes per title per year, they would have eventually ended up with 66 volumes in all: 31 <b><i>Marvelman Classic</i></b>, 31 <b><i>Young Marvelman Classic</i></b>, 3 <b><i>Marvelman Family</i></b>, and 1 <b><i>Marvelman Family's Finest</i></b>, but it would have taken them until 2026 and, at $34.99 per volume, the whole collection would have cost just over $2,300. And perhaps by 2026 they might finally have sorted out all their problems with the 1980s Marvelman, and could start reprinting those, as well...</p><p><center><b>---------------------------------------------</b></center></p><p>Sales figures are from <a href=http://www.icv2.com/index.php>ICv2.com</a> (you can find a handy index to their monthly sales reports on their <a href=http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/1850.html>Top 300 Comics & Top 300 GNs Index</a> page), with percentages on those figures from <a href=http://www.comicsbeat.com/>The Beat</a>. Wherever I say that sales of a book are ‘Below X,’ that means that the particular book is not recorded on the Top 300 sales list for that particular month, and the X figure is the sales of the book at #300, the lowest selling title of that month. How far below that figure the individual titles' sales are is anyone's guess.</p><p>If you’re interested in what Marvel have had to say about their purchase of Marvelman, and their plans for the character, you might want to look at this blog entry: <a href=http://slovobooks.blogspot.com/2012/01/whats-news-on-marvelman-marvel-replies.html>What's the News on Marvelman? Marvel Replies...</a></p>Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-38746236695429621982012-03-19T14:15:00.009+00:002012-05-01T23:47:18.919+01:00Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane: The Story So Far (March 1993 - May 2012)<p>On the 27th of January, 2012, Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane finally settled their long-running legal dispute over Gaiman's share of various Spawn properties. And when I say ‘long-running,’ this is very nearly an enormous understatement. Although Gaiman and McFarlane’s first meeting in court was on the 1st of October, 2002, nearly ten years ago now, the cause of their dispute goes back nearly ten years before that, with roots set in place some years before that, again. So, in an attempt to put it all into some sort of context, I’m listing what I see as the main points of their dispute, in chronological order, as exactly as I can, along with some earlier events, to put it all into context.</p><p><b><u>August 1985</u></b>: <b><i>Miracleman</i></b> #1, reprinting stories originally published in <b><i>Warrior</i></b>, is published by Eclipse Comics in California. At this time, the copyright for Miracleman (recently changed from Marvelman, which it was originally), is believed to be owned by Alan Moore, Garry Leach, Alan Davis, and Dez Skinn in a ratio of 30% - 30% - 30% - 10%.</p><p><b><u>February 1986</u></b>: Dez Skinn and Garry Leach sell their rights to Miracleman to Eclipse Comics, at least partly due to their unhappiness at Eclipse Comics’ Editor-in-Chief cat yronwode’s choice of Chuck Beckum as the next Miracleman artist, from issue #6. Garry Leach at this stage also owns Alan Davis’s share, so has 60% in total, with Dez Skinn still owning his 10%, meaning that Eclipse end up buying a 70% stake in the character.</p><p>One of the clauses in the contract between the parties says,</p><blockquote>Transfer of Rights: Eclipse shall not assign or otherwise dispose of its rights in the Ownership hereunder to any third party except to Rights Holder, or a new corporation or entity in which the majority stockholders of Eclipse are and remain the majority stockholders or managing partners.</blockquote><p><b><u>7 March 1989</u></b>: Alan Moore transfers his 30% share in Miracleman to Neil Gaiman, who shares it with Mark Buckingham. </p><p>According to an article in <b><i>The Comics Journal</i></b> #185, in March 1996 (which I shall be referring to again shortly),</p><blockquote>Under an agreement signed by Alan Moore on March 7, 1989, transferring his one-third ownership, the agreement states that Gaiman and Buckingham ‘will, in their turn, pass on their part of the trademark to their successors on the strip, or failing that, return the trademark to Alan Moore to keep or pass on as he sees fit.’</blockquote><p>However, Gaiman and Buckingham’s first Miracleman story has actually appeared a few months beforehand. Issue #4 of Eclipse’s company-wide crossover, <b><i>Total Eclipse</i></b>, cover dated January 1989, contained a ten-page Miracleman story called <i>Screaming</i>, which would later be reprinted in <b><i>Miracleman</i></b> #21.</p><p><b><u>1 April 1989</u></b>: After being given Alan Moore’s share of Miracleman, Neil Gaiman signs a contract with Eclipse publisher Dean Mullaney which states, amongst other things, that Gaiman is clearly the owner of his own work, and that he will produce eighteen 26-page issues of the comic for them. You can see the contract on Daniel Best’s excellent <a href=http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com.au>20th Century Danny Boy</a> blog, in <a href=http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/miracleman-neil-gaimans-writers.html>this</a> post. According to this agreement, Eclipse Comics owns two-thirds of the rights to Miracleman, with Gaiman and Buckingham sharing one-third, slightly different from the previous 70% - 30% split.</p><p><b><u>December 1989</u></b>: After long delays, Moore’s last issue, <b><i>Miracleman</i></b> #16, finally appears.</p><p><b><u>June 1990</u></b>: <b><i>Miracleman</i></b> #17, Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham’s first issue, is published by Eclipse Comics.</p><p><b><u>February 1992</u></b>: Image Comics is founded. Amongst the founders is Todd McFarlane, with his studio, Todd McFarlane Productions.</p><p><b><u>June 1992</u></b>: One of the very first comics to appear from the newly formed Image Comics is Todd McFarlane’s <b><i>Spawn</i></b>, with the first issue appearing in June 1992. It becomes obvious from early on that, although his art is seen as the comic’s strong point, his writing certainly isn’t. To counter this, McFarlane decides that he would ask some of the major comics’ writers of the time if they will each write an issue of <b><i>Spawn</i></b> for him. In the end Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Dave Sim, and Frank Miller all write issues #8 to #11, respectively.</p><p><b><u>March 1993</u></b>: <b><i>Spawn #9</i></b>, written by Neil Gaiman, is published. This issue introduces three new characters to the Spawn mythos. These were called <b>Count Nicholas Cagliostro</b> (later changed to Cogliostro), the angelic hunter/warrior <b>Angela</b>, and a character named in the script as Olden Days Spawn, and later known as <b>Medieval Spawn</b>, but without a specific name given to him in his original appearance in <b><i>Spawn</i></b> #9.</p><p><b><u>August 1993</u></b>: <b><i>Miracleman</i></b> #24, the last issue of that title to appear, is published by Eclipse Comics, although #25 was written and drawn, and you can see parts of it on Robert Ferent’s greatly informative <a href=http://miraclemen.info>Miracleman.info</a> site, <a href=http://miraclemen.info/comics/unreleased/miracleman-25/>here</a>.</p><p><b><u>December 1994</u></b>: <b><i>Angela</i></b> #1, the first part of a three-part monthly miniseries written by Neil Gaiman, and drawn by Greg Capullo, featuring the character co-created by them in <i><b>Spawn</b></i> #9, is published by Image Comics. The three parts would be collected into a single-volume trade paperback in late 1995. As well as the three issues of <b><i>Angela</i></b>, Gaiman also writes a few pages of <b><i>Spawn</i></b> #26, cover dated December 1994, as an introduction into the <b><i>Angela</i></b> story.</p><p><b><u>21 December 1994</u></b>: Eclipse Comics files for <a href=http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourts/Bankruptcy/BankruptcyBasics/Chapter7.aspx>Chapter 7</a> bankruptcy, meaning they intend to dissolve the company, and sell its assets to pay off their debts.</p><p>According to an article called <i>McFarlane Buys Eclipse Assets at Auction</i> in <b><i>The Comics Journal</i></b> #185 (as mentioned earlier):</p><blockquote>Eclipse Comics’ demise began in the summer of 1993 when cat yronwode and Dean Mullaney who, along with Jan Mullaney, owned the majority of Eclipse stock, entered into divorce proceedings. The company subsequently entered into bankruptcy proceedings after being hounded by a variety of creditors, as well as having lost a judgement to Studio Proteus owner Toren Smith. The California Superior Court awarded Smith $122,328 for the translation and packaging of several Japanese books Studio Proteus had done for Eclipse between 1988 and 1992. Eclipse also owed money to the artists who drew <b><i>Miracleman</i></b>, according to Neil Gaiman.</blockquote><p><b><u>29 February 1996</u></b>: The sale of Eclipse Comics’ assets takes place in Stony Point, New York under the order of the Bankruptcy Court. In the same article in <b><i>The Comics Journal</i></b> #185 it says,</p><blockquote><p>The final chapter in the saga of Eclipse Comics came to an end when Image impresario Todd McFarlane purchased the trademarks and character rights, along with two pallets of tangible property, of the defunct comics company at a Stony Point, New York, auction on February 29th [1996].</p><p>McFarlane beat out eight other bidders for all copyrights, trademarks, characters, and other intellectual properties, along with the remaining trading cards, film negatives and publishing agreements held for Eclipse comic books by the court. According to Mary Ellen Lynch, the attorney handling the case for the Bankruptcy Court’s appointed Trustee, McFarlane employee Terry Fitzgerald quickly won the auction with a winning bid of $25,000. She told the Journal she believes Fitzgerald bought everything that remained of Eclipse, but that ‘it will take about a year or so to close out all the details.’</p><p>The most valuable piece of the purchase may prove to be the United States Patent and Trademark office registration (number 1,447,456) of the highly acclaimed series <b><i>Miracleman</i></b>. Also presented to the bidders as part of the auction was the written agreement on trademarks and copyrights for Miracleman between Eclipse publisher Dean Mullaney and Neil Gaiman, executed on April 1, 1989. Exhibit B of that agreement includes the transfer by Alan Moore to Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham of his portion of the Miracleman trademark. Within these nine pages of legalese lie fragmentary clues to one of the most debated questions in contemporary comics: who owns the rights to Miracleman?</p><p>The agreement between Eclipse and Gaiman called for the writer to script twenty-six pages for eighteen issues, with illustrations done by Buckingham. While the agreement stipulates that Eclipse Comics owns two-thirds and Gaiman and Buckingham jointly own one-third of ‘all the characters in the Stories and all the trademarks in and to the title <b><i>Miracleman</i></b>,’ under an attached agreement signed by Alan Moore on March 7, 1989, transferring his one-third ownership, the agreement states that Gaiman and Buckingham ‘will, in their turn, pass on their part of the trademark to their successors on the strip, or failing that, return the trademark to Alan Moore to keep or pass on as he sees fit.’ This agreement, like the one between Gaiman and Eclipse, excludes the characters created by Moore and Garry Leach in <b><i>Warrior</i></b>’s Warpsmith. Though Gaiman and Buckingham were granted permission to use them, Moore and Leach retained the trademarks to ‘the Warpsmiths, the Qys and related characters.’</p></blockquote>Actually, on the same post on the <a href=http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com.au>20th Century Danny Boy</a> blog mentioned earlier (<a href=http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/miracleman-neil-gaimans-writers.html>this one</a>), you can also see the letter of acceptance of McFarlane’s bid, which includes this observation:</p><blockquote>As discussed, the onus is on you, as purchaser, to do your due diligence investigation.</blockquote><p><b><u>Later in 1996</u></b>: After the Eclipse assets had been sold at auction, and due to rumours circulating at the time that McFarlane was going to sell his company, Gaiman asks for a written contract to cover the work he had done for McFarlane, as up until then it was all done on a word-of-mouth agreement. In any case, the use of all three of the characters Gaiman had created has gone substantially beyond their original appearance in Gaiman’s stories. Without Gaiman’s knowledge or assent, McFarlane has registered copyright in his sole name for the comics and trade paperback with Gaiman’s story in it, and has copyright notices inserted that seem to indicate that the copyright is solely his.</p><p>Eventually, an agreement is reached whereby Gaiman will exchange his rights in Olden Days Spawn and Count Cagliostro for McFarlane’s rights to Miracleman.</p><p><b><u>31 July 1997</u></b>: Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane are to swap their rights for the Spawn characters and Miracleman, respectively. This never happens.</p><p><b><u>27 October 1997</u></b>: Todd McFarlane files three trademark registrations in the name Miracleman with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Apparently he doesn’t want to trade rights with Gaiman after all.</p><p><b><u>14 February 1999</u></b>: Neil Gaiman gets a letter from McFarlane telling him that he is withdrawing all his previous offers, and offering a deal to Gaiman on a ‘take-it-or-leave-it basis.’ This is that Gaiman will give up all his rights to Angela in exchange for all of McFarlane’s rights to Miracleman. It further states that ‘all rights to Medieval Spawn and Cogliostro shall continue to be owned by Todd McFarlane Productions.’ It is obvious that McFarlane isn’t going to give up without a fight, so Gaiman gets ready to give him one.</p><p><b><u>February 2001</u></b>: <b><i>Hellspawn</i></b> #6 is published by Image, and includes a character called Mike Moran (Marvelman/Miracleman’s ‘secret identity’). There are plans to have Miracleman himself appear in #13, but this never happens, as Gaiman lodges an objection.</p><p><b><u>15 June 2001</u></b>: In the meantime, McFarlane seems to have decided that not only does he own all the rights to Medieval Spawn and Cogliostro, but all the rights to Miracleman as well. In an <a href=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=122>interview</a> with Michael David Thomas published on the Comic Book Resources website on the 15th of June 2001, the relevant part says,</p><blockquote><p><b>Michael David Thomas</b>: The rights to Miracleman seem to be a source of controversy that pops up now and again. It's coming back to the forefront. What kind of rights do you have to the Miracleman character?</p><p><b>Todd McFarlane</b>: Ultimately? I've got all of them. We'll find that one out.</p><p><b>MDT</b>: You own the rights to the character, lock, stock and barrel?</p><p><b>TMcF</b>: Until someone proves otherwise.</p><p><b>MDT</b>: The only reason I ask is that Neil Gaiman has cited as a partial owner. But as far as you're concerned, you've got all of that?</p><p><b>TMcF</b>: Someone may very well prove that wrong, but I'm willing to prove the point. If somebody else thinks that they have control of this, then do something about it. Because I'll be right there on you, right now. Then we will solve this problem.</p><p><b>MDT</b>: Is it something where it's been so murky, you want to get into a courtroom and get it over with, if someone really wants to litigate it?</p><p><b>TMcF</b>: Nobody wants to litigate anything. It's a matter of people moving on with life, making a call as to what's a priority. If somebody feels as strong about Miracleman as I do, then I invite them to take as hard a stance as I will. If somebody steps that way, then we'll let somebody else decide which of us is right. Maybe neither of us will be. Maybe we'll both partially will be. Who knows? Until any of that happens, then I take the position that I own Miracleman. He was sitting there in the auction. He was a part of the auction we bought and I picked it up…</p></blockquote><p>I would like to interject here to point out that, when McFarlane says, ‘<i>If somebody feels as strong about Miracleman as I do</i>,’ he never actually explains why he feels so strongly about it, having after all never actually worked on the character.</p><p><b><u>24 October 2001</u></b>: Marvel Comics’ then Editor-in-Chief, Joe Quesada, and the company’s President, Bill Jemas, accompanied by Neil Gaiman, hold a conference call press briefing with journalists from the comics media. This is to announce the formation of a company called Marvel and Miracles LLC, founded by Neil Gaiman and lawyer Kenneth F Levin, whose purpose is to collect funds to allow Gaiman to fight his forthcoming court battles with Todd McFarlane, with any funds left over after it is all done to go to a few different comics charities. Talking at the press conference, as reported by the <a href=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=524>Comic Book Resources</a> website, Gaiman says,</p><blockquote><p>I've been talking to Todd about this for five years. I thought we'd all sorted it out in 1997 when he signed the rights over to me and handed over the film. Unfortunately, this being the modern world, sorting out takes lawyers and lawyers cost incredible amounts of money.</p><p>Alan [Moore] is completely aware of this. I've been checking with him every step of the way. I've been getting his blessing and a huge amount of moral support. And every now and then he apologizes for having given me Miracleman... It's a poisoned chalice. He's very much behind this.</p></blockquote><p>Joe Quesada also makes it clear that, if the rights are recovered, Marvel Comics will not object to the name of the character being changed back to Marvelman. It is then announced that Gaiman is to write a six-issue miniseries with the profits from both the publisher and the writer going to fund Marvel and Miracles. This will eventually become the eight-issue miniseries <b><i>Marvel 1602</i></b>.</p><p><b><u>24 January 2002</u></b>: Gaiman’s right to redress against McFarlane’s letter of February 1999 will expire in February 2002, after a three-year statute of limitations, so a month before that Gaiman files a suit under the Copyright Act, seeking a declaration that he is a co-owner of the characters that he has written for McFarlane. According to an article called <a href=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/1057.html>Miracleman Heads to Court</a> on the ICv2.com website on the 27th of January, 2002,</p><blockquote>Neil Gaiman said, ‘This suit is not about the money, it's about respecting the rights of the creator and keeping promises.’ One of the leaders of Gaiman's legal team, Kenneth F. Levin, stated that Gaiman was filing the suit reluctantly after other avenues proved fruitless, ‘We did everything we could to get this solved outside the courts.’</blockquote><p><b><u>1 October 2002</u></b>: In a court in Madison, Wisconsin, the case of Neil Gaiman and Marvels and Miracles LLC v. Todd McFarlane <i>et al</i> opens in a jury trial before Judge John C. Shabaz and an all-female jury.</p><p><b><u>3 October 2002</u></b>: In less than a week the trial is over, and the jury, after deliberating for just over a day, return their verdict this afternoon, finding for Gaiman in all specifics. They find that there was a contract between Gaiman and McFarlane in 1992, when McFarlane offered to look after Gaiman ‘better than the big guys,’ which McFarlane subsequently breached; that Gaiman has a copyright interest in the three characters that he created for <b><i>Spawn</i></b> #9; that there was a later contract in 1997, when there was to be an exchange of Gaiman’s Cagliostro and Medieval Spawn rights for McFarlane’s Miracleman rights, which again McFarlane was in breach of; and that Image Comics are in the wrong to use Gaiman’s name and biographical details on one of their trade paperbacks without his permission.</p><p>Unsurprisingly, McFarlane appeals.</p><p><b><u>7 October 2002</u></b>: The actual judgement on the case is handed down, after which the damages phase of the case is heard, at which point Gaiman could ask to have the 1997 contract enforced, and to trade his copyright in Medieval Spawn and Cagliostro for McFarlane’s copyright in Miracleman, but he chooses not to. Although he doesn’t leave the court with the rights to Miracleman, Gaiman doesn’t go away empty-handed, as he is awarded damages of $45,000 for Image Comics’ unauthorised use of his name and biographical details on the back cover of one of their books. According to an article called <a href=http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/1890.html><i>Gaiman Keeps Share of Spawn Characters</i></a> on <a href=http://www.icv2.com/index.php>ICv2.com</a>,</p><blockquote>Gaiman's attorney ... suggest[ed] in his final argument to the jury that the use of Gaiman's name in a book published in 2000, well after Gaiman and McFarlane had become estranged, was a cynical exploitation of Gaiman's increased fame and a 'slap in the face,' since Gaiman received no royalties for the book. The jury found for Gaiman in precisely the amount requested.</blockquote><p><b><u>April 2003</u></b>: Todd McFarlane releases a Miracleman statue through his McFarlane Toys company, quite possibly out of sheer spite. Gaiman says it looks ‘clenched’ (which it does) and produces a much nicer one in January 2005.</p><p><b><u>November 2003</u></b>: Marvel Comics publishes the first issue of Neil Gaiman’s <b><i>Marvel 1602</i></b>, with the profits going to fund Marvel and Miracles LLC.</p><p><b><u>5 January 2004</u></b>: Todd McFarlane’s appeal against the judgement in his case against Neil Gaiman, on the grounds that Medieval Spawn and Cogliostro were too generic as characters to be copyrightable, and that Gaiman’s time to contest McFarlane’s claim for copyright on the characters had run out anyway, begins. The appeal is heard in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, again in Wisconsin, under circuit judges Richard Posner, Michael Stephen Kanne, and Ilana Rovner, who uphold all the rulings of the original court in 2002, and dismiss both of McFarlane’s grounds for appeal. In the transcript from the appeal in 2004, Judge Richard Posner says,</p><blockquote><p>In addition to the copyright notices, McFarlane registered copyright on the issues and the books. But to suppose that by doing so he provided notice to Gaiman of his exclusive claim to the characters is again untenable. Authors don’t consult the records of the Copyright Office to see whether someone has asserted copyright in their works; and anyway McFarlane’s registrations no more revealed an intent to claim copyright in Gaiman’s contributions, as distinct from McFarlane’s own contributions as compiler and illustrator, than the copyright notices did.</p><p>The existence of a dispute over the terms of a publication contract does not alert the author to a challenge to his copyright. Quite the contrary, it presumes that he owns the copyright. If his work is in the public domain, the publisher could publish it without the author’s permission, so would hardly be likely to have promised to pay him for the ‘right’ to publish it - he would already have (along with the rest of the world) the right to publish it.</p><p>There was other evidence that right up until McFarlane’s 1999 letter, receipt of which clearly did start the statute of limitations running, he acknowledged or at least didn’t deny Gaiman’s ownership of copyrights in the three characters. There was the reference in the royalty reports to Gaiman’s being the ‘co-creator’ of the characters, the fact that McFarlane let pass without comment Gaiman’s claim in the demand letter to have created the characters, and the payment to Gaiman of royalties on the statuettes, payment that would make most sense if they were derivative works of copyrighted characters - with Gaiman the (joint) owner of the copyrights. McFarlane argues that he could have given Gaiman these royalties pursuant to contract, and he points out that under Gaiman’s work-for-hire agreement with DC Comics Gaiman received payments denominated as ‘royalties’ even though he had no copyrights. But McFarlane also contends that DC Comics would not have paid Gaiman royalties on the statuettes, so what would have been Gaiman’s entitlement to such royalties from him unless Gaiman had a copyright interest?</p></blockquote><p><b><u>25 February 2004</u></b>: In neither of the cases have the courts ruled on the copyright of Miracleman, as those rights were not part of the dispute, so their legal status remains unresolved. However, some further light is cast on what McFarlane might actually have bought in the Eclipse bankruptcy sale, and on why Gaiman might have chosen not to take the rights to Miracleman that McFarlane allegedly owned. Commenting on the case in his online journal, in a post called <i><a href=http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/02/last-legal-post-for-long-time.asp>Last Legal Post for a long time</a></i>, Neil Gaiman says,</p><blockquote><p>I used to think that McFarlane actually had some rights in Miracleman. He told me he had, after all - he'd bought what was left of Eclipse from a bankruptcy court - and that he very much wanted to swap those rights for my rights in Cogliostro and Medieval Spawn. He never sent me any of the papers, though, after I agreed to the 1997 character swap, although he sent me the film for several issues of <b><i>Miracleman</i></b>. Then, a month after sending me the film, and having told me that he had transferred his rights in Miracleman to me, he sneakily filed an application for the trademark on Miracleman. Then a year or so later, he abandoned that trademark application. (This was something I didn't know, but that came out in the run-up to the court case.)</p><p>During the legal case, the one thing that no-one was confused about was that I, and Mark Buckingham, and Alan Moore, owned the copyright to our work in <b><i>Miracleman</i></b>. That was straightforward and obvious. We owned our copyright on our material; the bankruptcy of Eclipse didn't affect our rights.</p><p>Actually that's not quite true. Todd said in some interview online before that he owned all rights to Miracleman and if anyone said different, he'd see them in court. Well, he saw me in court... </p><p>As part of the court case, we finally got to see the Miracleman paperwork. It turned out the entire paperwork that Todd hadn't sent me consisted of an expired Eclipse Trademark registration for the Miracleman logo. From another source I also got to see the original contract, under which Eclipse had obtained their license to a part share in the Miracleman character, and it was explicit in saying that in case of Eclipse folding, or even substantially changing directors, that Eclipse's share in the rights to Miracleman would revert.</p><p>So one thing that the court case did establish was that Todd obviously didn't, as he had been claiming, own all of Miracleman. As far as I can tell, or any of the lawyers working with us on the case could tell, Todd probably doesn't actually own any share of Miracleman. He certainly has no copyright in any of the existing work.</p><p>Currently (as of late 2001) Todd has another trademark application in on Miracleman, on the grounds that it was an abandoned trademark, which we've opposed.</p></blockquote><p><b><u>11 December 2004</u></b>: Todd McFarlane Productions files for <a href=http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourts/Bankruptcy/BankruptcyBasics/Chapter11.aspx>Chapter 11</a> Bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix, Arizona, after hockey player Tony Twist was awarded $15 million damages against McFarlane, due to his creating a violent character named Antonio "Tony Twist" Twistelli in an early issue of <i><b>Spawn</b></i>. They eventually settle their case out of court for $5 million in 2007, after McFarlane appeals the original amount.</p><p><b><u>Early 2005</u></b>: McFarlane still seems to believe that he had the rights to Miracleman, or at least is claiming that he believes this, as can be seen in an interview on the <a href=http://www.ugo.com/>UGO.com</a> website (The page seems not to be there any more, so I’m linking to <a href=http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/03/guns-and-statues.asp>this</a> post from the 21st of March on Neil Gaiman’s site instead):</p><blockquote><p>UGO: Has the Miracleman film gone back to Neil Gaiman or wherever it is supposed to go?</p><p>TMcF: With the lawsuit, Gaiman walked away from Miracleman. I have the trademark for Miracleman. No one wants to say it out loud, but that's what happened with the lawsuit. Everyone was like ‘Hah hah, he killed Todd,’ but unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on where you are standing - he had to pick some copyrights to some Spawn characters or pick Miracleman. He didn't pick Miracleman.</p><p>UGO: Did he take Angela?</p><p>TMcF: Yeah, he took some of the Spawn stuff. For whatever reason he walked away from Miracleman, so now Miracleman will be in the <b><i>Image 10th Anniversary Book</i></b>.</p></blockquote><p>You can read Gaiman’s comments on this through the <a href=http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/03/guns-and-statues.asp>link</a>.</p><p><b><u>November 2005</u></b>: Image Comics publishes the <b><i>Image 10th Anniversary Book</i></b>, three years late. This includes the unnamed likeness of Miracleman in Todd McFarlane’s section of the book. The character will later be identified as Man of Miracles.</p><p><b><u>14 July 2008</u></b>: As part of his bankruptcy case, McFarlane is ordered to pay $382,000 into a third-party escrow account to offset any possible losses that might arise in the Gaiman. You can see the documentation on <a href=http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/neil-gaimans-450000-payout-from-todd.html>this post</a> on the <a href=http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com.au>20th Century Danny Boy</a> blog.</p><p><b><u>24 July 2009</u></b>: Marvel Comics <a href=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22203>announces</a> it has bought Mick Anglo’s copyright in Marvelman.</p><p><b><u>6 August 2009</u></b>: Comic Book Resources <a href=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22429>reports</a> on Todd McFarlane’s reaction to the news that Marvel has bought Marvelman:</p><blockquote><p>Here’s what I know as a guy who’s been living a complicated life: I will be having meaningful conversations with my lawyer when I get home.</p></blockquote><p><b><u>7 September 2009</u></b>: In an <a href=http://www.brokenfrontier.com/lowdown/p/detail/haunted-by-comics-todd-mcfarlane-on-miracleman>interview</a> with Sam Moyerman on the <a href=http://www.brokenfrontier.com/>Broken Frontier</a> website, Todd McFarlane seems to be taking a much more conciliatory approach to the rights to Miracleman, and it makes interesting reading, in light of what he’s said previously:</p><blockquote><p><b>Sam Moyerman</b>: Finally, I'd be remiss not to bring up another topic with you. I remember waiting with baited breath for months and months after seeing an Ashley Wood drawing of Miracleman that I'm really just curious as to what your plans were for the character…</p><p><b>Todd McFarlane</b>: As you might imagine, that character has been a much talked about topic of conversation, even involved to some degree in the lawsuit with myself and Neil. It's a curious topic. I can't profess to have all the answers on it, so again I'd be sort of foolish to speak out of school.</p><p>Obviously Marvel believes they have certain rights to it. I know that I and my lawyers believe we have certain rights. The question is just what can we do to settle it and when can we settle it. One way would be for someone to just give up and say it's not worth it.</p><p>The other way would be to sit down and have a meaningful conversation like gentlemen, to find a way so that everyone can win. Not necessarily so either party can win, but for the comic community to win. To figure out a way to get this character back out there and not be a pain in the ass to the point where people have to look over their shoulder.</p><p>I don't know… we'll see where it all sort of ends up. It'll either be much ado about nothing or it'll be a hell of a book someday – the behind the scenes novel of it. "The True Story of Miracleman. Starring Matt Damon!" [laughs] But we'll find out how all that goes. I'm as curious as you are.</p><p><b>SM</b>: There are so many things with the lawsuit where there are questions that can't be discussed and impossible to answer. You were able to fit in the Man of Miracles for the Image 10th Anniversary book. Do you plan on bringing him back and using him? Have you had to push him off to the side?</p><p><b>TMcF</b>: Here's what happens that makes it tough. Every party involved has a position that they feel they are entitled to with the character. That would include Marvel, Neil, it [?] and myself. I think the prudent thing would be to see if there can't be an adult conversation to be had instead of rubbing people's noses in it.</p><p>So, for me to say I've got my Miracleman miniseries coming out the same time as yours, that would just be instigating something that might not be necessary.</p><p>Like I said, my whole hope is to just get together and have a real conversation about it. It might not necessarily solve everything, but just for everyone to state what they believe is their right and what they want to see and to see if there is any common ground anywhere in there and then move on from there.</p><p><b>SM</b>: Well I would really hope so, because as much as I would love to see Neil finish his arc, I would love to see that Ashley Wood Miracleman that was supposed to come out back when.</p><p><b>TMcF</b>: I agree it would be really cool, but I think that at this point everyone simply wants to see Miracleman done by someone who has the legal rights to get it out in the marketplace. It's always been a real curious topic amongst the fans and even amongst the lawyers because this is a complicated ball here. I'm sure if anything dramatic happens it'll become public record or Marvel and Neil will make an announcement.</p></blockquote><p>Certainly, the ‘let’s all sit down and talk like gentlemen’ approach is a long way from his previous ‘come and fight me if you think you’re hard enough’ stance. It’s almost as if he knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on, legally...</p><p><b><u>14 June 2010</u></b>: Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane are in court again, in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, where District Judge Barbara B. Crabb hears case #02-cv-48-bbc, to determine if the angel warrior characters Tiffany and Domina, both created by Todd McFarlane, who first appeared in <b><i>Spawn</i></b> #44 in March 1996, and Dark Ages Spawn, who first appeared in <b><i>Spawn: the Dark Ages</i></b> #1 in March 1999, and was created by Brian Holguin, are derivatives of the previously created characters Angela and Medieval Spawn, co-created by Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane.</p><p><b><u>29 July 2010</u></b>: Judge Crabb finds for Gaiman. In her judgement she says,</p><blockquote><p>Both Medieval (Gaiman) Spawn and Dark Ages (McFarlane) Spawn committed bad deeds in the past for which they want to make amends, both have sisters whom they loved who married men who were or became the Hellspawn’s enemies; both made a deal with the devil to let them return to Earth; and both use their powers to help the defenseless. The two characters are visually similar: both wear metal helmets and face masks with rivets; both ride horses and carry oversized swords and battle shields; both have armor shoulder pads with spikes. Both have aspects of the first Al Simmons Spawn: a ‘neural parasite cloak,’ a particularly shaped face mask, green eyes and a red ‘M’ on the chest.</p><p>Tiffany and Domina are visually similar to Angela and share her same basic traits. All three are warrior angels with voluptuous physiques, long hair and mask-like eye makeup. All three wear battle uniforms consisting of thong bikinis, garters, wide weapon belts, elbow-length gloves and ill-fitting armor bras. Angela and Domina each wear a long cloth draped between their legs and a winged headdress. Tiffany and Angela are shown in the <b><i>Spawn Bible</i></b> [Image Comics, August 1996] as having sharp wings. All three of these female characters are warrior angels who fight in the war between Heaven and Hell. When plaintiff conceived of Angela, he saw her as part of an army of 300,000 ‘female, kick-ass warrior angels, who are hunters, merciless and not very nice.’ Tiffany and Domina are part of this same heavenly army. Like Angela, Tiffany is described in the <b><i>Spawn Bible</i></b> as having failed to kill only one of the persons she intended to kill: Al Simmons, the original Spawn. Domina is a less developed character, but has superpowers substantially similar to Angela’s. She is described as having led angels into battle against the ‘superpowered Hell demon Urizen.’ Like Angela, she is headstrong and not inclined to obey Heaven’s commands.</p><p>I conclude that the newer characters are derivative and that plaintiff is entitled to his share of the profits realized by these characters and to the immediate production of all documents and other information material to the calculation of the profits.</p></blockquote><p>Even the judge in the 2010 case seemed puzzled that McFarlane couldn’t come up with a different character concept of his own, rather than try to published a character who was pretty obviously a badly-disguised version of Medieval Spawn. At one point she said,</p><blockquote><p>Much as defendant tries to distinguish the two knight Hellspawns, he never explains why, of all the universe of possible Hellspawn incarnations, he introduced two knights from the same century. Not only does this break the Hellspawn ‘rule’ that Malebolgia never returns a Hellspawn to Earth more than once every four hundred years (or possibly every hundred years, as suggested in <b><i>Spawn</i></b> #9), it suggests that what defendant really wanted to do was exploit the possibilities of the knight introduced in issue #9. (This possibility is supported by the odd timing of defendant’s letter to plaintiff on February 14, 1999, just before publication of the first issue of <b><i>Spawn: The Dark Ages</i></b> to the effect that defendant was rescinding their previous agreements and retaining all rights to Medieval Spawn.) If defendant really wanted to differentiate the new Hellspawn, why not make him a Portuguese explorer in the sixteenth century; an officer of the Royal Navy in the eighteenth century; an idealistic recruit of Simon Bolivar in the nineteenth century; a companion of Odysseus on his voyages; a Roman gladiator; a younger brother of Emperor Nakamikado in the early eighteenth century; a Spanish conquistador; an aristocrat in the Qing dynasty; an American Indian warrior; or a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I? It seems far more than coincidence that Dark Ages Spawn is a knight from the same century as Medieval Spawn. </p></blockquote><p>All of which inevitably led to a number of online pundits joking that the judge had a better imagination when it came to creating comic book characters than Todd McFarlane did.</p><p><b><u>16 June 2010</u></b>: Meanwhile, Gaiman is still waiting for payment from McFarlane after the appeals court judgement went his way in 2004, as McFarlane had declared bankruptcy in the meantime, due to the Tony Twist case. However, as Gaiman said in his <a href=http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/06/despatches-from-alternate-universe.html>online journal</a>,</p><blockquote><p>This left me one of the biggest creditors of McFarlane's bankrupt comics company. Because they've been in bankruptcy, he's paid me nothing since the 2002 court case.</p><p>Now, some years later, McFarlane's comics company is coming out of bankruptcy, and an accountant whom Todd and I have mutually agreed on is trying to sort out exactly how much money I'm owed. </p></blockquote><p><b><u>11 July 2010</u></b>: Todd McFarlane’s again attempts to register the name Miracleman with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This is opposed by Gaiman, and is not completed, pending some sort of final resolution of the rights to the name.</p><p><b><u>27 January 2012</u></b>: Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane finally settle their legal dispute over Gaiman's share of Spawn properties. According to a report on <a href=http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/01/30/neil-gaiman-todd-mcfarlane-settle-legal-dispute/>minnesota.publicradio.org</a>:</p><blockquote><p>Fantasy industry giants Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane have agreed to settle their long-running legal battle over Gaiman's share of the Spawn universe.</p><p>Their attorneys filed notice Friday in federal court in Madison saying they've reached a deal that calls for declaring Gaiman a 50% owner of <i><b>Spawn</b></i> issues #9 and #26, the first three issues of a spin-off series on the angels and the issues' contents.</p><p>Jeffrey Simmons, one of Gaiman's attorneys, declined to elaborate, saying the terms are confidential.</p></blockquote><p>So, if the settlement also contained any final agreement between Gaiman and McFarlane on issues related to Marvelman/Miracleman, we’re not going to be told, one way or the other.</p><p><b><u>24 February 2012</u></b>: An order is made to release the $382,000 McFarlane paid into a third-party escrow account on 2008, along with any accrued interest, presumably as part-payment on McFarlane’s debt to Gaiman.</p><p>At this stage, Todd McFarlane needs to account for, and pay Neil Gaiman for, his share of: </p><p><br />
<li><i><b>Spawn</b></i> issues #9 and #26, presumably also including the proceeds of any reprints of these issues in trade paperbacks;<br />
<li>The <i><b>Angela</b></i> miniseries and trade paperback;<br />
<li>The <i><b>Spawn</b></i> movie, which featured some of the characters co-created in <i><b>Spawn</b></i> #9;<br />
<li>The <i><b>Spawn</b></i> animated TV series, for the same reason as above;<br />
<li>Video and DVD sales of both of the above;<br />
<li>Any appearances of the characters Tiffany, Domina, and Dark Ages Spawn, that were found to be derivative of the characters in <i><b>Spawn</b></i> #9;<br />
<li>And, finally, the action figures based on all the above characters.</li><br />
<p>So, it seems that the $382,000 is only going to be a starter for what is going to be owed to Gaiman by the time all of that is accounted for.</p><p><b><u><strike>19 March 2012</u></b>: I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this, though. I would like to point out that these two parties have reached agreements before, and these have invariably been ignored by McFarlane. I’d like to think that this is the last time we’ll see these two in court, and that it will all finally end, but past experience doesn’t really point that way, I’m afraid. We shall see what we shall see.</strike></p><p><b><u>1 May 2012</u></b>: According to <a href=http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/todd-mcfarlane-bankrupt-no-more-neil.html>this</a> post on <a href=http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com.au/>20th Century Danny Boy</a>, Todd McFarlane has paid $1,100,000 to Neil Gaiman, according to his Summary of Disbursements, as filed with the Bankruptcy Court in Arizona for the quarter-year ending on the 31st of March, 2012, and signed off by the judge on the 24th of April.</p><p>So, it seems that it's finally over, after all this time. I mean it is over, isn't it? Right?</p><p><u><b>Addendum #1</b></u>: Amongst the posts reporting on this, I want to single out this one on <a href=http://www.comicsbeat.com/2012/03/21/must-read-gaimanmcfarlanemiracleman-the-saga/>The Beat</a>, which has some very useful comments from some people who were involved with some of the goings on I am reporting on. In particular these two:</p><p>Dean Mullaney says:</p><blockquote>A correction, please: it wasn’t cat or anyone at Eclipse who chose Chuck Beckum to continue drawing Miracleman. It was Alan Moore who picked Chuck, over my objections. I had never even HEARD of Chuck Beckum until Alan brought him to the table. But in deference to Alan, I agreed. Turns out Chuck was a really nice guy but I — and everyone at Eclipse — thought he was complete WRONG for the series. And while cat and I have our differences, this is one thing she CAN’T be blamed for.</blockquote><p>... And Dez Skinn agrees with him</p><blockquote>Oh, and I agree with Dean. We were told at the time Alan Moore had chosen Chuck Beckham to replace Alan Davis (“he’s like another Hernandez brother”, was how it was put to us on a transAtlantic call quoting Alan.)</p><p>Garry and I were in the office when we saw the end product, and both despaired.</p></blockquote><p><u><b>Addendum #2</b></u>: There was this exchange on Twitter I wanted to record, between Neil Gaiman and one of his followers:</p><blockquote><p><b><u>Neil Gaiman</u></b> [@neilhimself] - The history of the @todd_mcfarlane legal case, & how it related to Miracleman, laid out as a timeline. Well researched:[link to this post]</p><p><b><u>James Gaskell</u></b> [@big_poppa_G]: @neilhimself Any lingering creative or personal hard feelings towards @todd_mcfarlane or perceived that he has them against you?</p><p><b><u>Neil Gaiman</u></b> [@neilhimself]: @big_poppa_G read the timeline. How could you have any respect for someone who behaved like that, over and over?</p></blockquote>Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com56tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-11400671791877176592012-02-12T12:39:00.005+00:002012-03-19T14:18:54.670+00:00Is Marvelman Actually Coming Soon, After All?<p>So, as I mentioned <a href=http://slovobooks.blogspot.com/2012/01/whats-news-on-marvelman-marvel-replies.html>here</a> about a month ago, Marvel Comics’ Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso has promised that there will soon be news about Marvelman. The thing is, despite my essentially casting a large amount of doubt on that in my previous post, this may actually be the case. A number of things have all happened at virtually the same time and, at the risk of looking like a good old-fashioned conspiracy theorist, it really does look as if they might all add up to something. So, here’s a chronology of events, with bit more exposition on my part afterwards:</p><b><u>31 October 2011</u></b>: Mick Anglo dies at the age of 95. Kiel Phegley of Comic Book Resources [CBR] says ‘<a href=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=35404><i>How Anglo's passing impacts the release of Marvelman material is unknown</i>.</a>’</p><b><u>13 January 2012</u></b>: Axel Alonso, now Marvel Comics’ Editor-in-Chief, answers the question ‘<i>Marvelman in 2012?</i> on CBR by saying, ‘<a href=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=36419><i>Sit tight. We'll have some additional news soon.</i></a>’</p><b><u>26 January 2012</u></b>: Geoff Johns <a href=”http://www.newsarama.com/comics/geoff-johns-curse-of-shazam-120126.html”>announces</a> that DC’s Captain Marvel character will henceforth be called Shazam.</p><b><u>27 January 2012</u></b>: <a href=http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/01/30/neil-gaiman-todd-mcfarlane-settle-legal-dispute/>News breaks</a> that Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane have finally settled their long-running legal dispute over Gaiman's share of Spawn properties. </p><blockquote><i>Their attorneys filed notice Friday in federal court in Madison saying they've reached a deal that calls for declaring Gaiman a 50 percent owner of Spawn issues 9 and 26, the first three issues of a spin-off series on the angels and the issues' contents. Jeffrey Simmons, one of Gaiman's attorneys, declined to elaborate, saying the terms are confidential.</i></blockquote><b><u>31 January 2012</u></b>: Neil Gaiman <a href=”http://twitter.com/#!/neilhimself/statuses/164186216382726146”>Tweets</a> this: <blockquote><i>Lots of people asking ‘Who owns Marvelman/Miracleman?’ I thought that was already established: [<a href=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22206>link</a>]</i></blockquote>... with a link to the original story on CBR, dated Friday, July 24th, 2009, that announced that Marvel Comics had ‘<i>purchased the rights to Marvelman from creator Mick Anglo</i>’.</p><b><u>1 February 2012</u></b>: DC Comics - sorry, that should be DC <i>Entertainment</i> - <a href=http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2012/02/01/dc-entertainment-officially-announces-%E2%80%9Cbefore-watchmen%E2%80%9D/>announces</a> they will be publishing a number of comics series under the umbrella title of <i><b>Before Watchmen</b></i>, described as ‘<i>all-new stories expanding on the acclaimed Watchmen universe</i>’.</p><b><u>2 February 2012</u></b>: Neil Gaiman announces ‘<a href=http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/02/america-will-eat-you.html>I'm off in hiding...</a>’</p><center><b>------------------------------------------------------</b></center></p>What meaning can we squeeze out of all the above, apparently unrelated, events and announcements?</p>The thing about Mick Anglo and Marvelman is, in all the years I’ve been reading about this, I have not found one single instance of Mick Anglo stating that he owned Marvelman. Yes, he claims to have created the character - although I often think that ‘created’ is possibly too strong a word for running a quick coat of paint over an already established character at the behest of L Miller & Son, even if all parties involved were agreeable to it at the time - but he never claimed to have owned it, although this claim started being made on his behalf about five years back, or so. I’ve seen a few interviews with him, although these are by no means numerous, and the closest anyone got to asking him if he owned it was when George Khoury asked him about it in <b><i>Kimota! The Miracleman Companion</i></b> (TwoMorrows Publishing, Raleigh, 2001), where he answered, <blockquote>‘<i>I don’t know; that was [Len] Miller’s sort of thing</i>.’</blockquote>Later on he says, <blockquote>‘<i>All I was interested in was producing the stuff and getting paid on the nail, and that’s how it worked out.</i>’ </blockquote>All pretty much as one would expect in the comics business in the UK in the 1950s: the publisher had the rights to what they published - it may not have been right, but that’s a completely different argument. So, how did Mick Anglo’s death change things? Well, I suppose it meant that he wasn’t around anymore to give potentially unhelpful interviews, or to be asked awkward questions. But, at the same time, over two years passed from Marvel’s announcement in July 2009 until his death at the end of October 2011 without anyone interviewing him about Marvel’s purchasing of his supposed rights to Marvelman, which in itself seems odd, now that I think about it. If he was the visionary creator people (mostly the likes of Marvel Comics, who had a vested interest in saying so) said he was, why wasn’t there a whole slew of interviews with him about his creation? Just another unanswered question to go on an already very long list...</p>Why would the renaming of DC’s Captain Marvel have any bearing on Marvel’s likely publication of Marvelman? Well, DC’s Captain Marvel was once Fawcett’s Captain Marvel, the middle part of the line of succession that runs ‘<i>Superman begat Captain Marvel, who begat Marvelman</i>,’ so the character certainly has a place in Marvelman’s history. Undoubtedly most of the reason DC renamed the character is because Marvel Comics actually owns the trademark to the name Captain Marvel, meaning that DC can never actually use it as the title of a comic, and also because, if DC decide to exploit the character further, as far as the movies, for instance, they’re hardly likely to want a character who, every time his name is mentioned, is as good as advertising their rivals - it’s one thing having it happening in comics, where the consumer has some idea about who owns what, but if the public go to see a character called Captain Marvel in the cinema, they’re probably going to assume he’s published by that Marvel Comics company they’ve heard about. Having said that, Marvel haven’t published a comic featuring their own Captain Marvel since 2008, and in particular not since their acquisition of Marvelman - a character whose origin is directly related to Captain Marvel, just not the one <i>they</i> own. So, the net result is that, certainly for the time being, there is no character called Captain Marvel currently active in either of the two major comics universes. Which may or may not be a sign of something else going on, or of people clearing the boards for what is to come.</p>Next along we have the news that Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane have resolved their long-running dispute over the rights to various characters co-created by them for <i><b>Spawn</b></i> #9, originally published in June 1993, nearly twenty years ago now. <i>Very</i> briefly, three characters that appeared in that issue - Angela, Olden Days Spawn/Medieval Spawn, and Count Nicholas Cagliostro/ Cogliostro - were later used by McFarlane in numerous ways that hadn’t been part of the original agreement between them, a situation made worse by McFarlane then claiming that he owned <i>all</i> the rights to them, rather than sharing those rights with Gaiman. In January 2002 Gaiman sued McFarlane, looking to have his position of co-creator legally established - the suit wasn’t about the money, as most of these things tend to be, as Gaiman has stated publically, more than once, that any money he gets from the case will be donated to various comics charities. There has been a huge amount of to-ing and fro-ing in the meantime, which I’m not going to go into (go <a href=http://www.geekosystem.com/gaiman-mcfarlane-spawn/>here</a> for a brief overview). Again, though, what bearing does this have on the story of Marvelman? Firstly, there’s the fact that Todd McFarlane bought up all the assets of the bankrupt Eclipse Comics in 1996, which was said to include Eclipse’s share of Miracleman, as Marvelman was known at that time. Whilst there has been doubt cast on whether or not Eclipse had any rights to Miracleman for McFarlane to buy, or indeed had any right to sell those rights, his having these - real or otherwise - rights to a portion of Marvelman was always an unspoken part of the interaction between him and Gaiman, and it seems unlikely that they will have reached a deal between them without this issue being part of it. But, as we are told that ‘<i>the terms are confidential</i>,’ this may not become public knowledge any time soon. </p>Another reason that the end of the case between Gaiman and McFarlane is significant is because all of Gaiman’s costs for these cases were being paid for by Marvels and Miracles LLC, a company set up by Gaiman and his friend and lawyer, Ken Levin. Marvels and Miracles was announced to the world at a press conference on the 24th of October, 2001, where Gaiman was joined by Marvel Comics’ then Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, and their company president Bill Jemas. The actual funding of Marvels and Miracles itself came from two projects Gaiman did for Marvel, <i><b>Marvel 1602</b></i> (2003) and <i><b>Eternals</b></i> (2007), with both Gaiman and Marvel putting their share of the proceeds into the M&M pot. It certainly appears that Gaiman and Marvel were hand in hand on this project, and presumably the pay-off for Marvel would be that, once Neil Gaiman got the right for Miracleman - such as they were - from Todd McFarlane, that he would make these available to Marvel, or more likely simply put them to rest forever. So, one outcome of the conclusion of action between Gaiman and McFarlane is undoubtedly the removal of Todd McFarlane and Miracleman from the board, tying off at least one of the many loose ends surrounding the Marvelman story. One caveat to all of this, of course, would be the fact that this pair have reached agreements before, going back over all those twenty years, and Todd McFarlane has broken his word on pretty much every single one of those agreements. So, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, even at this stage. </p>Why do I think that Neil Gaiman’s tweet on the 31st of January is significant? Because he’s the only one of the creators of the 1980s version of Marvelman that speaks publically about it, and him referring to it, just after his positive trial result, seems to indicate that he’s still actively involved with it, and that he still sees Marvel Comics as where it’s all going to happen, and possibly even to indicate that, now that one particular roadblock has been successfully negotiated, we can expect to see some positive movement soon. It also adds legitimacy to the idea that, yes, Marvel do have rights to Marvelman, which they bought from Mick Anglo - or, more correctly, from Jon Campbell of Emotiv, who bought out Anglo. I concede that that’s a lot to read into 140 characters! </p>How could DC’s announcement that they’re going to start exploiting - and if ever there was a word that says exactly what it mean, <i>exploiting</i> has to be it - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s <i><b>Watchmen</b></i> have any bearing on this? Undoubtedly it doesn’t, but I’m fascinated by the fact that we have two major works by Alan Moore, <i><b>Marvelman</b></i> and <i><b>Watchmen</b></i>, both from early in his career, and both dealing with essentially the same idea: What would happen if superheroes were real, in a real world? In both cases we now have work based on those works: Neil Gaiman picked up <i><b>Miracleman</b></i> after Alan left, after being specifically hand-picked by Alan to do so, and the first six issues of his run, <i>The Golden Age</i>, are effectively responses to things from Alan’s run. Neil did all this at the very start of his career, before he was the major name he is now, but Moore chose him because he felt he had talent, and trusted him. </p>On the other hand, we have a series of sequels being produced to <i><b>Watchmen</b></i>, very much <i>against</i> the wishes of Alan Moore - and only receiving lukewarm support from Dave Gibbons, at best - by supposedly ‘top-drawer talent,’ who nonetheless seem to need to raid perhaps the most famous and important comics story there is, over a quarter of a century after its publication, because apparently they’ve all run out of ideas of their own. The fact that the announcement for this was made less than a week after a major development in the Marvelman story just seems like interesting timing: two major Alan Moore projects, from early in his career, still able to make the two major comic companies get excited. But not to actually treat him with respect, or anything like that - respect and earning money don’t seem to get to be in the same room, if you’re DC or Marvel, it seems.</p>And then poor old Neil Gaiman decided to go into hiding! He’s actually going on the road for a while in preparation for his new novel, but you couldn’t really blame him if he <i>did</i> go into hiding - I imagine that the time leading up to the announcement of the settlement with Todd McFarlane must have been fraught, for instance, and now that things might be forthcoming with Marvelman and Marvel, well, it’s possible that there could be some interesting things happening there, and he may just want to walk away from it all for a while. And who could blame him? </p>So, there you have it. A whole bunch of things happening in a short space of time, that may or may not be related, or have any bearing on one another. Or that may point to, as promised by Axel Alonso in the middle of January, 'additional news soon.' If there is to be news, I suspect we will not be waiting too long to hear it...<br />
<br />
<br />
[Over the past many years, I've been obsessed with the story of Marvelman, so much so that I've written a book about it, called <b><i>Poisoned Chalice: The Extremely Long and Incredibly Complex Story of Marvelman</i></b>, which just keeps on growing. I managed to get it finished at one point, and had a contract with <a href=http://monkeybrainbooks.com/index.htm>MonkeyBrain Books</a>, who soon afterwards decided they were giving up publishing books. Curse of Marvelman, anyone? If you're a publisher, and you think you might be interested in publishing a really ridiculously long and detailed - I believe we use the word 'immersive' now - book about Marvelman, then leave a comment, and I'll get back to you.]Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-13937317150204801082012-01-18T13:20:00.017+00:002012-05-21T20:04:13.542+01:00What's the News on Marvelman? Marvel Replies...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi72aWRdHG3zPjJraTiVFd79sOzebAErQvycuLW65NwlMsZiLbB0s995SMhOg6DZeIh_FZ0qR_zvC9OACT3_4pQwYZDlZZmM7HpF0euTZ4RMlp7H-a4CxQEnxl6OZG3xh31k_AHzCIiSXPl/s1600/marvelman_pic2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi72aWRdHG3zPjJraTiVFd79sOzebAErQvycuLW65NwlMsZiLbB0s995SMhOg6DZeIh_FZ0qR_zvC9OACT3_4pQwYZDlZZmM7HpF0euTZ4RMlp7H-a4CxQEnxl6OZG3xh31k_AHzCIiSXPl/s400/marvelman_pic2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>On Friday the 24th of July, 2009, Joe Quesada, then Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics, accompanied by Dan Buckley, Marvel’s publisher, made an announcement at San Diego’s Comic-Con International, saying that Marvel Comics had bought the rights to Marvelman.<br />
<br />
That’s now two and a half years ago (or a bit over 900 days, if you like), and we’re all more or less still waiting for them to announce what their actual plans are. Without attempting to draw any conclusions of my own here (because I’ll be doing that somewhere else, before the year is out), I thought I’d try to find out what they <i>have</i> said in those two and a half years.<br />
<br />
It seems that various different people from Marvel Comics regularly take part in Q&A sessions on <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/">Comic Book Resources</a>, and these sessions are the primary source for very nearly all the information that follows.<br />
<br />
So, here’s what I’ve found:<br />
<br />
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The first report on CBR was on <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22203">Friday, July 24th, 2009</a>, where a somewhat triumphalist Joe Quesada made the first announcement:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"Marvelman belongs to Marvel," said Quesada, saying that the company purchased the character from creator Mick Anglo – a process that started in 2007 thanks to word from Neil Gaiman. "Mick is 94 years old, and I talked to him on Wednesday for an hour and a half," said Buckley noting that Marvel had discusses plans for the character and its stories with Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Alan Davis and Mark Buckingham, who was in the audience.<br />
<br />
"I'm excited to see this character not just at Marvel, but the continued adventures of Marvelman," said Quesada. </blockquote><br />
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The next day, <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22227">Saturday, July 25th, 2009</a>, there was more:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>The Marvel panellists had much to say on the subject, starting with Quesada saying, "Marvelman belongs to Marvel. Marvel has purchased the rights to Marvelman from Mick Anglo, who is the creator of Marvelman. He is arguably the JD Salinger of comic book characters. It is arguably one of the most important comic book characters in decades."<br />
<br />
Publisher Dan Buckley went on to describe the process behind the purchase, saying, "I'm pretty sure if you go on the internet right now, within the next five minutes you'll hear every rumour associated with this character from the 1950s through the '80s to the '90s. We started talking to Mick Anglo's people in 2007 about this, and it was a very exciting prospect. I first became aware of it through our relationship with Neil Gaiman. I really didn't know much about Marvelman at that time, but the conversation started about how we could get involved with the character and bring him back. Mick Anglo and his folks are great to work with. John Campbell who represents Mick Anglo – I want to mention him because he's done a great deal to bring him back here. He's not going to get all the kudos because he's got to do all the negotiations with me.<br />
<br />
"But it's very exciting for us to get this character that has so many great stories attached to it. We're working. We don't have a lot to say on the publishing right now. We will be publishing some Marvelman material next year. We are talking to all, besides having Mick on board – who by the way is 94 years old, and I spoke to him Wednesday for an hour and a half. It was a pleasure. We're talking to all the people who were involved in the '80s and '90s material – Alan [Moore], Neil [Gaiman], Garry Leach, Alan Davis – we've reached out to all these folks. Mark Buckingham, who is also in the house..."<br />
<br />
"The impact of this story that the character had on the industry is akin to what happened with 'Watchmen,' and we're very excited about it. We'll have a lot more details in the near future." </blockquote><br />
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Just over a week later, on <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22390">Monday, August 3rd, 2009</a>, CBR editor Kiel Phegley hosted CUP O’ JOE, a regular Q&A feature with himself and Joe Quesada, which included this:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>This is our first edition of CUP O’ JOE after the madness that was Comic-Con International in San Diego, which we are still filing reports from even today. As you can see from our complete Comic-Con news index, there were a ton of announcements, but the biggest comic book news concerned Miracleman -- known originally as Marvelman when his adventures were serialized in Britain’s Warrior Magazine. Miracleman will be back under his proper Marvelman name and under the Marvel Comics banner, ending years of legal issues surrounding the character.<br />
<br />
<b>Kiel Phegley</b>: In terms of news, we already spoke a little bit on CBR TV about the Marvelman announcement; that Marvel has obtained the rights to the character. How did you think the announcement went over with comics fans?<br />
<br />
<b>Joe Quesada</b>: I think it went amazingly well. For most people it was a jaw dropping announcement. For other, younger fans, it was a bit lost on them until they went back and looked up exactly what the character means to the history of modern comics. All in all, the response was pretty amazing, even more than I anticipated and I was anticipating a lot.<br />
<br />
[And later in the interview...]<br />
<br />
<b>Kiel Phegley</b>: The one thing that was repeated over and over by Marvel staff about this deal was the fact that Mick Anglo, Marvelman’s creator, was getting his due. I know that Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley has been playing point man in talking to Anglo and settling the specifics of the deal, but what's been your take of the man and his art?<br />
<br />
<b>Joe Quesada</b>: While most people in the States aren’t familiar with Mick’s work, over in the UK he is incredibly well respected. I actually spoke with David Hine about this a bit at one of the con parties. It was loud and crowded, but I could tell that David just had tremendous respect for the guy. I do believe that if Mick had been working here in the States, he would have been known within the American comics community as one of the classic masters. So, our hope is to expose Mick and his early work to a wider audience as well as introduce Marvelman to a whole new generation of readers who aren’t aware of how the character revolutionized how we write and draw characters today. But that’s the interesting thing about Marvelman, there has always been something magical about the character, something prophetic about it that even though he’s not a household name, he’s caused seismic creative changes within our industry on every shore.</blockquote><br />
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A few days after that, on <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22429">Thursday, August 6th, 2009</a>, CBR spoke to Todd McFarlane, to see if he had any opinion on the announcement. He did: <br />
<br />
<blockquote>CBR Executive Producer Jonah Weiland spoke with McFarlane during Comic-Con. When asked to comment on Marvel's announcement, McFarlane responded, ‘Here’s what I know as a guy who’s been living a complicated life: I will be having meaningful conversations with my lawyer when I get home.’ </blockquote><br />
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A few weeks later, on <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22645">Friday, August 21st, 2009</a>, Joe Quesada was answering more questions with Kiel Phegley, the last time they spoke about Marvelman in 2009: <br />
<br />
<blockquote><b>Kiel Phegley</b>: We've got an awful lot of questions about the status of Marvelman since Marvel's acquisition of the character. We know that for now there's nothing to report with respect to reprinting material that's already been seen in the US, but in terms of the classic character and his place at Marvel, Byzantine echoed a few readers when he asked, "Will we see the character brought into the Earth-616 continuity? Or will he be given his own universe to exist in?"<br />
<br />
<b>Joe Quesada</b>: The simple answer to this is that we’ll be making announcements about this in due time. With the acquisition of Marvelman, we inherited a character with not only a long publishing history, but a character that over the years, due to its interesting history, has become a legend in our industry. It’s because of that that we want to take great care and really think through what we’re doing with the character and how we will present him. I know fans are dying to know all the whats and hows as soon as possible, but rushing into those decisions, at the end of the day, won’t serve the character. What I can say is that when we do start to announce our publishing plans, I think longstanding fans of the character will be pleased and fans unfamiliar with the character will be intrigued.<br />
<br />
<b>Kiel Phegley</b>: hondobrode followed that up, wondering, "How would Marvelman be different than, say, the Sentry? I would think he would most appropriately fit under the MAX imprint, but I imagine that would also limit sales and exposure. Are you going to change his back-story? Can we expect Marvel to purchase any other properties?"<br />
<br />
<b>Joe Quesada</b>: All of this will be revealed in good time, hondobrode. We’ve already had some pretty fantastic idea sessions internally here at Marvel about how to go about it all, but there are other cool ideas still on the way that we’re going to be throwing into the mix. Once we’ve gathered all of this, then we’ll start laying a groundwork and foundation for the character and that’s when fandom will get all of the info it’s starving for. I wish I could be more specific, but I think this is better than rushing into things and then hearing that we should have taken our time and thought it through.<br />
<br />
Look, folks have waited for decades to see the character return. Heck, most thought he never would. So what’s a bit more time? Especially knowing that it’s finally going to happen!<br />
<br />
<b>Kiel Phegley</b>: Finally, with all the praise sent towards Marvelman creator Mick Anglo and his contributions to the original British strips, Steve Bishop wanted to know, "Given that the Marvelman series that ran in Britain during the '50s and '60s was originally printed in black and white, does Marvel have any plans to put out an 'Essential Marvelman' series?"<br />
<br />
<b>Joe Quesada</b>: Hey there, Steve Bishop. I would say it’s a very safe bet that you’ll see the older material printed. In what form, I couldn’t tell you just yet. This has also been a part of our internal conversations.</blockquote><br />
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Eight months after the last piece, on <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=25534">Friday, April 2nd, 2010</a>, we have Joe Quesada answering more questions submitted on the CBR message boards:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><b>Kiel Phegley</b>: Another piece of news ... was that Marvel is ready to release some Marvelman product starting in June with a <b><i>Marvelman Classic Primer</i></b>. You spoke at the convention about interviewing Marvelman creator Mick Anglo recently, and I'm assuming that was for the Primer. What was that experience like, and what can fans expect from this opening one-shot come June?<br />
<br />
<b>Joe Quesada</b>: Meeting Mick was a huge thrill, and despite his age, he's still spry and sharp as a whip. What was interesting about Mick is that he really doesn't understand to this day what the big deal is with respect to Marvelman and his past work. It was just a job for him back in the day. While he is certainly appreciative, he is incredibly humble about the whole thing - but also incredibly eager to see his old work in print, which is what we'll be starting with.<br />
<br />
<b>Phegley</b>: As exciting as this all is, many have been wondering what the classic material on tap for the summer means for the famed modern material? What can you say about the full rollout in terms of why you've started with the original British material and when readers might expect word on more plans for Marvelman at Marvel?<br />
<br />
<b>Quesada</b>: A publishing plan has been set internally at Marvel, and we'll be making this all public very soon. But that said, we think it's important to put MM in historical context, so it only seems fitting that we start with the original Mick Anglo creation and run. While Mick is well known in the UK, I think this will help people here in the states realize what a great artist he was. It's a perfect primer for anyone wanting to really immerse themselves in the rich history of Marvelman. So, patience, grasshopper, patience.</blockquote><br />
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The listing for the <b><i>Marvelman Classic Primer</i></b> on Marvel’s website says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Who is the mysterious Marvelman? The answer to that question is one of the most mysterious in comics lore. Created in 1954 by writer/artist Mick Anglo, the character enjoyed a long run in the British comics market as one of its most powerful heroes. A few decades later, the character was revived with a dark, moody, deconstructionist bent, and produced one of the most important works of comic art in the medium's history. But now, miracle of miracles, Marvel has stepped up to the plate to deliver on the promise of Anglo's incredible characters. The <b><i>Marvelman Primer</i></b> will help readers unfamiliar with that character get up to speed on the past, present and future of Marvelman stories. We'll check in with Mick Anglo, Neil Gaiman and others who contributed to this character’s history over the years. It was the news that swept the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con and the <b><i>Marvelman Primer</i></b> explains why. </blockquote><br />
Despite this, there was no interview with Neil Gaiman, or indeed any ‘others,’ and the interview with the late Mick Anglo was sadly uninformative.<br />
<br />
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Just five days after the last piece on CBR, on <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=25610">Wednesday, April 7th, 2010</a>, there was a quote from Axel Alonso, vice-president and executive editor of Marvel Comics, speaking at WonderCon on Sunday 4th April:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Another fan wanted to know if new Marvelman stories are coming soon, and when Marvel will reprint Alan Moore's run on the book. ‘I'm not at liberty to talk about that,’ Alonso said. ‘There will be an announcement soon about the reprint.’<br />
<br />
He added that ‘there will be new Marvelman stuff. We will be meeting en masse, all the right people, to talk about how to do it. We've already begun some of those conversations. We're very excited about this, very excited about it. We want to make sure we have the appropriate game plan to roll forth.’ </blockquote><br />
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Four months pass before we next hear from anyone at Marvel. On <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=28093">Tuesday, August 31st, 2010</a>, more than a year after Joe Quesada’s initial announcement, Marvel Comics editor Tom Brevoort was at Baltimore Comic-Con:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>With respect to Marvelman, Brevoort said, ‘Not only do we need to make sure everything is right and proper with everyone associated with the character, but we need to do Marvelman right.’ Marvelman writer Neil Gaiman has spent some time with the Marvel staff to share his ideas. Brevoort is aware of people waiting for developments with the property, but said it is still some time off in the future. ‘Not a day has gone by that we have not worked on Marvelman in one way, shape or form,’ including the remastering of the early material. </blockquote><br />
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Nearly a year passes, however, before we hear anything else. On <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=32626">Friday, June 3rd, 2011</a>, now nearly two years after Quesada’s announcement, Tom Brevoort, now billed as Marvel’s Senior Vice-President of Publishing, is interviewed by comics retailer Jud Meyers:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><b>Jud Meyers</b>: When are we getting Marvelman?<br />
<br />
<b>Tom Brevoort</b>: Honestly, the short answer is ‘As soon as everything is ready.’ It should come as no surprise that while we have overcome 80% to 90% of all the loop closing that we have to do, there's still more to be done. Everybody's ready and lined up, and now the book's been announced for two years. But we've spoken to Neil [Gaiman]. We've spoken to Mark Buckingham. Eventually, once every single thing is lined up, we'll get to a point where they can come back, finish The Silver Age and do the Dark Age story they always had planned, and we'll get the earlier four collections in some way, shape or form back into the marketplace. It should come as no shock to you that Marvelman has been screwed up in terms of one issue or another legally for decades now. So while we have gone over most of it, we really want to make sure that we have every hatch battened down before we try to roll any of this stuff out. We're getting there. <br />
<br />
I'm sorry it's taken so long since we announced the whole thing - we were excited about it! And we thought other people would be too, but we didn't anticipate it would take this long. Things move slowly, particularly because we’re trying to make sure everything is done right and above board and everyone involved is satisfied. So have patience. We're getting to it. It is coming. We will get there. We're trying to do that thing that fans talk about every once in a while where they say, ‘Rather than having this come out haphazardly, couldn't you just get the whole project done and then release it?’ We're not quite doing that, but we're doing that sort of thing. We're making sure everything is as it should be before we start to roll these out so we don't have an enormous problem after we've put two issues out and then everything is jammed up again.<br />
<br />
<b>Meyers</b>: Well, luckily it's no secret that every retailer in the world is just dying to give you all their money for this.<br />
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<b>Brevoort</b>: Me too! I can't wait to have those stories back in print as well. I have copies of all the old collections and the Eclipse issues. Hell, I have them in <i><b>Warrior</b></i>. I was buying <i><b>Warrior</b></i> back in the '80s! So I know that material forwards and backwards, and I'd love to have it back in a more modern package and in a more modern edition. We're making steady progress. One after another, things get done, but then some new complication will crop up. It's all behind-the-scenes legal stuff, and even the differences between American copyright law and UK copyright law make for a whole different set of issues to deal with. Back in the day, I don't know if Eclipse closed all those loops either. So we're trying to make sure that when we're ready to go, everything is as it should be.<br />
<br />
<b>Meyers</b>: I had to ask, my friend.<br />
<br />
<b>Brevoort</b>: That's what I'm here for. But for now the news on Marvelman is: We’re working on it! </blockquote><br />
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Four more months pass. By now, Joe Quesada, who announced that Marvel owned Marvelman, is no longer Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief, but rather their Chief Creative Officer, whatever that actually means. On <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=34946">Saturday, October 15th, 2011</a>, at the 2011 New York Comic and once again in the company of publisher Dan Buckley, they addressed the issue of Marvelman one again:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>The perennial question about new stories for Miracleman/Marvelman received the standard response that things are in the works, but no hard news was announced. Buckley said, "I will give as much as I can give... there's a lot of very complicated things to navigate to ensure that every creator involved in said property [can be taken care of properly.]" He added, "If we're going to do it, we're going to do it right, and we're not going to have anybody questioning what we're doing." </blockquote><br />
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And finally, on <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=36419">Friday, January 13th, 2012</a>, Axel Alonso, now Marvel Comics’ Editor-in-Chief, answered the question, "Marvelman in 2012?" with this: <br />
<br />
<blockquote>“Sit tight. We'll have some additional news soon.”</blockquote><br />
And that’s everything that Marvel have said about their plans for Marvelman. Which, as you can probably see, is a mixture of stonewalling, saying that things are complicated, and telling us that there’ll be news soon. In fact, we’ve been promised news ‘soon’ on a number of occasions, and told several times that we’d be given details on their plans for Marvelman, without ever being given any actual details. Will we ever actually be told anything? We’ll just have to wait and see.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.comicmix.com/media/2009/09/01/mickey-mouse-marvelman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="491" src="http://www.comicmix.com/media/2009/09/01/mickey-mouse-marvelman.jpg" width="342" /></a></div><br />
Edited on the 12th of February, 2012, to add:- When the Forbidden Planet Blog posted a piece about this - <a href="http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2012/marvel-on-marvelman-sit-tight-well-have-some-additional-news-soon/">here</a> - an artist called Andy Turnbull posted to say that he'd like it if he got some recognition for image I used: <br />
<blockquote>'<i>No way of saying this without coming across as a bit churlish, but it would be nice to have some credit for the image. Its a cropped version of a <a href="http://andyturnbull.deviantart.com/gallery/9914514#/d1z8un8">cover design</a> I did a few years ago.</i>'</blockquote>I did ask if he had any opinion on who he'd like me to attribute copyright to, but there has as yet been no reply. It's hard to know how to respond to this - On one hand, people are entitled to be acknowledged for their work. On the other hand, it's the digital equivalent of making a copy of an image on tracing paper, sharpening up the lines, and claiming it as you own. And, in a story that's all about copyright, and who might or might not own what, it almost beggars belief that someone would even want to thrust themselves into it. Still, what would I know?<center><br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------</center><br />
Edited on the 18th of March, 2012, to add: Marvel have spoken about Marvelman once again. Marvel's Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Tom Brevoort, talking at his inaugural <b>Talk to the Hat</b> panel at <a href="http://www.comic-con.org/wc/wc_reg.shtml">WonderCon 2012</a> in Anaheim, California, as reported by <a href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=37631">Comic Book Resources</a>, said:<br />
<blockquote>In terms of reprints of "Marvelman" issues, "we're working on it," said Brevoort. "We don't want to do it halfway, so we really are taking our time … but it is our absolute intention to get that material back into print. … We appreciate your patience, so as soon as we have anything to tell you, we'll let you know."</blockquote>So, when Axel Alonso said '<i>Sit tight. We'll have some additional news soon</i>' back in the middle of January, we must presume that 'soon,' in this case, means 'not really very soon at all,' and certainly longer than two months. Then again, it's a word we've been hearing a lot, over the past two and a half years.</p><center>-------------------------------------------------------------------------</center><br />
Edited on the 3rd of April, 2012, to add: At Marvel Comics' final panel of <a href=http://www.emeraldcitycomicon.com/>Emerald City Comicon</a> in Seattle earlier today, according to <a href=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=37941>this</a> report, '<i>Answering a question about Miracleman [sic], [Marvel's Senior Vice-President Creator & Content Development] CB Cebulski said big news was coming very soon.</i>'</p><center>-------------------------------------------------------------------------</center><br />
Edited on the 21st of May, 2012, to add: At the <a href=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=38769>Cup O' Joe</a> panel on Saturday the 19th of May at the KAPOW! Comic Convention in London, Marvel Comics' Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada responded to a number of questions about Marvelman, '<i>As for Marvelman, one fan's various questions about the property were evaded for legal reasons, with Quesada simply assuring the audience that "</i>it <i>is</i> coming."'</p><p>I don't wish to diminish the impact of this news, but we've been told on at least six occasions over the last two years that news about Marvelman was 'coming soon,' so perhaps someone from Marvel could help us, by telling us what definition of the word 'soon' they're using?Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-766414567024303632011-12-13T15:07:00.002+00:002011-12-13T15:49:16.815+00:00Alan Moore, The Magic Keyboard, and the NoHo Bowl of Harm<p>On the 8th of December 2011 an unusual item appeared for sale on eBay, titled <i><b><a href="http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280787579400#ht_1554wt_1059">Alan Moore’s Signed Computer Keyboard (May Have Mystical Powers)</a></b></i>. This listing further went on to say, <blockquote><i>As you know, Alan Moore is the world renowned author of <b>Watchmen</b>, <b>V for Vendetta</b>, <b>Swamp Thing</b> and a load of other fantastical gubbins, and here for sale is his old computer keyboard. He definitely didn’t write any of the aforementioned works with this, and by the looks of things, it was mainly used as an ash tray.<br />
<br />
<p>I’ve had a go on the keyboard, and in doing so, felt the power of Alan surging through it. It immediately inspired me to write a fifteen chapter novel, comparable to the Russian Masters, which took no less than four and a half hours, without even stopping for a toilet break. Unfortunately, the keyboard was not connected to a computer at the time, and all the work was lost. Therefore I cannot verify the functionality of the keyboard, as it hasn’t been rigorously tested. Or even connected to a computer since Alan owned it.<br />
<br />
<p>How did I come to have this keyboard in my possession? It’s a long and convoluted story, but here are the highlights: Portrait painting mother; a wall of death; a lack of funds (for previously mentioned wall of death); Alan upgrading his keyboard (not sure which model he has now) and a heavy dose of serendipity.<br />
<br />
<p>A short synopsis would be: Whilst on a break from sitting for his portrait, Alan asked how the wall of death was going. My response was funds are low, but spirits are high. Alan then mentioned he was upgrading his keyboard, so I tentatively enquired as to what he was doing with his old keyboard, and asked whether he would be prepared to sign and donate it to the cause, hoping it would reach upwards of seven pounds fifity, as after all, it is akin to a modern day version of Shakespeare’s quill. In mind of it being auctioned, Alan was astute enough to sign it with a non-specific message of goodwill – </i>with lots of love from Alan Moore.</blockquote><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGs0J_1YkRJs8kxiGMOIfsB1pgG5KZ48m_f9MrxUEMJX8Q0qtHwxUTGj0JQ-UmS0Yommp56kglvE4vZPOqM7tWz3xyrPrz6JDI90WMNm1t3OFqOOS4PEcic3fNd1DN3B0kEQQHKKzO-42y/s1600/AMMK+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGs0J_1YkRJs8kxiGMOIfsB1pgG5KZ48m_f9MrxUEMJX8Q0qtHwxUTGj0JQ-UmS0Yommp56kglvE4vZPOqM7tWz3xyrPrz6JDI90WMNm1t3OFqOOS4PEcic3fNd1DN3B0kEQQHKKzO-42y/s320/AMMK+2.jpg" /></a></div><p>So, the first question to ask myself was, is this genuine? The short answer is, yes, I have every reason to believe it is. This first came to my notice through a Facebook posting by a mutual friend of mine and the seller, and said mutual friend is also a friend and collaborator of Alan Moore’s, so there’s a solid and verifiable connection there between the seller and Alan himself, as far as I’m concerned. Also, the seller - who I now know to be called Bill Pollard - mentions his mother painting a portrait of Alan Moore, which he provides a link to. By pure coincidence, I’ve actually met his mother, <a href="http://www.elkepollard.com/index.htm">Elke Pollard</a>, who has indeed painted a portrait of Alan:-<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.elkepollard.com/graphics/portrait/portrait01_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="500" width="495" src="http://www.elkepollard.com/graphics/portrait/portrait01_1.jpg" /></a></div><p>Now, what’s all this about a Wall of Death? Bill Pollard told me, <blockquote><i>The truth is, it's more a ‘Bowl of Harm’ than a ‘Wall of Death’. We've not yet graduated to motors; we prefer pedal power. A bunch of Americans gave me the idea. Whiskeydrunk Cycles, the link below is to the one they built, it's based on Keiths Board Track, a touring cycle display from the early 1900's.</i></blockquote><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dQNIN9vYdsY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<p>There's also an answer to a question on the listing that sheds a little more light on this:<blockquote><i>A Wall of Death is a bowl with vertical sides, about 20 feet in diameter - the idea is to ride motorcycles around it in a horizontal position. Seeing as we don't have any motorbikes, what we will actually end up with is more a bowl of harm... hope that clears things up for you.</i></blockquote><p>So, so far, so good. While Alan was having his portrait painted by Elke Pollard in 2008, her son Bill got talking to him about the plan for a bicycle Wall of Death. A few years later they meet again, and Alan mentions that he's going to upgrade his computer (yes, he really does have one. It's not all quills and parchment and passenger pigeons in the Moore household, no matter how much you want it to be. He still won't have anything to do with the Internet, though.) Bill asks if he can have the old keyboard, and here it is, for sale, and all for a good cause.<br />
<p>So, how magical - or indeed magickal - is the keyboard? According to the eBay listing, <p><b><u>Pros and cons of owning Alan Moore’s old Microsoft Basic keyboard 1.0A</u></b><br />
<blockquote><b><u>Pros</u></b>:<br />
<li>DNA between the keys – you may be able to clone your very own Alan!<br />
<li>There are no computer viruses as it has never been connected to the internet.<br />
<li>Unique surface patterning.<br />
<li>Fag ash.<br />
<li>Sleek all-black casing with fetching violet coloured PS2 connector.<br />
<li>As an avid practitioner of Magick (Alan, not the keyboard), it may contain otherworldy powers (again, not tested), these have been protected by a magick circle and various dark items (as can be seen in the photos) since taking delivery of the keyboard, the dark items are not included in the sale, however I may be tempted to part with the empty can of Lynx if you really want it.<br />
<li>Interesting conversation piece – casually leave it lying around! Take it to parties! (Although I recommend vacuum sealing it first to retain fag ash and DNA samples)<br />
<li>Doubles up as a useful doorstop if found not to be working. (not tested as door stop.)<br />
<li>“Z” key has had very little use. </li><br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Cons</u></b>:<br />
<li>According to videogame forums, it can’t be used to play Guitar Hero 3 above intermediate level, this apparently applies to all Basic 1.0As not just Alan’s.<br />
<li>Missing pop -up stand on left hand reverse.<br />
<li>Might not work.</li><br />
<br />
</blockquote><p>Is there anything else we need to know? One questioner ask an important but often overlooked question: <blockquote><i>What does the keyboard smell like? Please give a good sniff, especially of the bubbly, ashy left side, and detail back your thoughts?</i></blockquote><p>Bill answered, <blockquote><i>Deeply-scented cheroots fuse with toasted plastic, sweaty digits and house dust. Well-seasoned tab key supports the dry scent of musky violet ps-2 connector and a savory thorny understory like a briar growing through straw mulch after being urinated on. I hope this is of some help.</i></blockquote><p>If you want to own Alan Moore's Magical Keyboard - and who wouldn't, really? - you can still bid on it <a href="http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280787579400#ht_1554wt_1059">here</a> for the next five days. It is, after all, as Bill Pollard says, <i>akin to a modern day version of Shakespeare's quill</i>.<br />
<p>The last line on the eBay listing says <b>Alan Moore Knows the Score</b>, which leads me to Pop Will Eat Itself, and eventually back to a post that mentions me. It's a strange Alan Moore world out there, and we're all in it somewhere.<br />
<br />
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/D6oSCng12xQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/5312307506/" title="Alan Moore Knows the Score by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5162/5312307506_7fc4f386ac.jpg" width="429" height="500" alt="Alan Moore Knows the Score"></a><br />
<center><a href="http://www.momentofmoore.com/post/2756957619/alan-moore-knows-the-score-from-slovobooks-on">Alan Moore Knows the Score</a></center>Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-48148847976842274682011-02-12T23:24:00.003+00:002011-02-12T23:34:33.858+00:00Swamp Thing<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">A friend pointed me at the excellent </span><a href="http://corpuslibris.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Corpus Libris</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> blog, where they're doing interesting with photographs of people and book covers, so I decided to have a go at it myself, with the help of my ever patient wife, Deirdre. So, here's me with the cover to the recently published hardcover edition of Alan Moore's <i><b>Saga of the Swamp Thing</b></i> (DC/Vertigo, 2009), featuring an illustration by Steve Bissette and John Totleben.<br /></span><br /><center><a title="Swamp Thing by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/5440085156/"><img alt="Swamp Thing" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5097/5440085156_4f0b512e38.jpg" width="475" height="500" /></a></center><em></em><em></em>Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-37436589793932547202011-01-08T00:11:00.005+00:002011-01-08T00:25:50.796+00:00Books BoughtAmongst various thing picked up today are these two lovely gems:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/5333974449/" title="Ladybird Irish by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5162/5333974449_de285670cf.jpg" width="335" height="500" alt="Ladybird Irish" /></a><br /><br />Micilín agus an dá Leipreachán<br />Máiréad Ní Ghráda<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/5333974491/" title="Pocket Pal by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5249/5333974491_82f8dc65a9.jpg" width="329" height="500" alt="Pocket Pal" /></a><br /><br />Printing Reproduction Pocket Pal<br />Advertising Agency Production Association</center><br /><br /><br />This is the thing about hunting around in charity shops and the like: you just never know what you're going to find.Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-33023924038618811002011-01-02T01:30:00.004+00:002011-01-07T12:41:36.642+00:00Bill Sienkiewicz speaks about Big Numbers #3Bill Sienkiewicz originally wrote this piece for Heidi McDonald of <a href=http://www.comicsbeat.com/>The Beat</a>, but she never used it, for reasons that are not clear. It was written in response to the large amount of interest that was generated after I managed to buy a photocopy of an apparently complete copy of <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> #3 on eBay, and <a href=http://glycon.livejournal.com/11817.html>posted it</a> online in March 2009. At the time I specifically sought out Alan Moore’s permission to do this, but didn’t have any contact with Bill Sienkiewicz, so didn’t speak to him about it. Time passed, and I even ended up ‘friended’ to Sienkiewicz on Facebook, but still didn’t mention it to him. However, after he commented on something I wrote, I plucked up the courage to actually write to him about it. As it turned out, not only was he in no way unhappy about my posting the forty pages of <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> #3, but was actually looking for somewhere to post this piece publically. So, I offered to take it, particularly as we are hoping to do an interview about his work with big numbers to follow this up. Bill wanted to rewrite it somewhat, but I persuaded him to leave it as it was, as I felt that the somewhat chaotic nature of it nicely reflects the very essence of its subject matter.<br /><br />So, enough from me: It gives me enormous pleasure to be able to publish this piece by Bill Sienkiewicz, one of the truly innovative comics artists, about one of the most ambitious comics projects I’ve ever seen.<br /><br /><center>----------------------------------------------------------------</center><br /><br />I've been getting emails and links sent to me with a fair degree of regularity since the ‘<i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> issue’ over <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> #3 hit the spotlight... again. I say 'again' because quite a few pages of issue #3 emerged a few years ago. There was speculation surrounding the pages then and, if anything, I've discovered that the ensuing years have done little to assuage, or diminish, that conjecture. And in the interest of full disclosure, I should note that having heard just about every conflicting ludicrous reason, every single link of spaghetti in the chain of events (somehow since miraculously renamed stainless steel rather than pasta), that no matter how inane the reasons given were, ultimately, each and every one - without exception - came from absolutely unimpeachable authoritative sources. <i>Heeuuge</i> air quotes around that phrase, if not actual boldface ones. By now if you haven't yet gleaned my admittedly sarcastic incredulity - yes, even at this late date - well, so be it.<br /><br />The situation is still rife with speculation. Some folks who have been emailing me ask directly about the provenance / pedigree / credits / yayas regarding those recently resurfaced art pages from that issue. It certainly seemed to me that there are quite a few readers who are at least moderately curious as to what portion of issue #3's artwork is mine and what portion was drawn by Al Columbia, who was my assistant at the time. I'll clarify as best I can, in part because this matter of speculation has exceeded critical mass; it exceeded it ten years ago, but that's one guy's opinion.<br /><br />So: Though only ten pages have been seen of <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> #3, the entire issue was drawn and completed. All of it. Not merely the ten pages circulating. Now as to who drew what: Except for a few minor backgrounds (and to be completely honest, I don't think he drew anything in that issue at all - but I will admit I may be hazy on that point - I’ll simply say that I'm erring on the side of generous caution, or cautious generosity) that except for perhaps a few possible backgrounds, that <i>ALL</i> of issue #3 - repeat: <i>ALL</i> of the artwork on <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> issue #3 was drawn by yours truly. Or, for those who prefer the obverse: <i>NONE</i> of <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> #3 was drawn by Al Columbia (and again I add the caveat - except for possibly a couple of backgrounds). Certainly Al drew no figures in the background or anything story-related. I can't imagine he'd want to take credit for my work any more than I would covet credit for work drawn by him. I imagine he'd want to take credit for - and rightly so - the work that is completely his own: meaning that of issue #4 (I personally have never seen any of the issue. I hear Al destroyed it in its entirety, but I can't say I witnessed this destruction firsthand). So I freely admit that, except for the cover - I had done covers for approximately half the series at this point - I drew nothing at all in issue #4. <br /><br />Perhaps the question as to who did what in issue #3 may have arisen due to the change in art style from the first two issues. Issues #1 and #2 were done in a more photographic, soft focus atmospheric airbrushed painterly style. While I loved the style and enjoyed working within those parameters immensely, I came to realize that by choosing to work that way for twelve issues, I was almost literally painting myself into a corner. This approach was incredibly time-consuming and ultimately proved overwhelming and unfeasible. Things were changing from issue to issue and becoming, by nature of the story, more interwoven and chaotic - the series was to have been painted completely in colour by issue #12, with each issue introducing more variables and approaches, colour being a dominant element. Adding to the workload for each issue was the necessity to thumbnail Alan's script thoroughly. <br /><br />At this point I'd like to say that everything you've heard about Alan's scripts is true, and then some. Alan's a genius, an absolute gentleman. Plain and simple. Yes, his scripts are dense. They're brilliant, layered, nuanced, variegated, textural, beautiful and daunting. Simultaneously so. And although Alan is incredibly deferential and generous as to allowances for alterations made by the artist, the scripts veritably beg, no, <i>demand</i>, to be adhered to in their totality. It's practically sacramental. <br /><br />So, I admit I found Alan's scripts a challenge of incredible dimension and beauty. Every page was a gauntlet of ornate opulence tossed at my feet, if not swung abruptly at my face, thwacking me a bloody good one. If I cursed him for this, I'm sure it was due to outright awe. Working with Alan was like going from the multiplication table to the periodic chart to quantum physics all in the space of one panel border. Concentrating only on the work Alan and I did collaboratively, foregoing for the moment his impressive oeuvre, just think of the depth and differences between his <i><b>Shadowplay</b></i> (Realpolitik via Kafka) and (though only a few issues), his <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> (Reality via Schrödinger’s Kafka.)<br /><br />So I'd do the thumbnails. I'd then use those thumbnails to choreograph, and then photograph, on average, forty five different people as characters, both primary and secondary. (I should mention that only one of these models was an actual <i>model</i> model. The rest of this Dickensian (Mooresian) cast was comprised of real people with real lives, many of whom, though not all, had little or less than zero interest in comics. Primarily, they held the preconception that comic books were <i><b>Betty and Veronica</b></i>, <i><b>Superman</b></i> or <i><b>The Hulk</b></i>. To them, <i><b>The Avengers</b></i> was less Captain America and more Emma Peel, bowlers and brollies. And some didn't even register comics to that minute extent. Some had never given a single solitary thought about comics. They had no relevance or import whatsoever in their lives. That said, I don't want to give the impression that this multi-ethnic ensemble was in any way some sort of artistically disinclined Diaspora. No, pretty much everyone actually seemed very open to this 'comic book experiment.' They were decidedly game, God love 'em, but that's not to say there weren't speed bumps and downright caldera-sized potholes en route. Several of the folks - like the sweet Indian gentleman, who posed for the role of the store owner /model train aficionado, wanted to make sure he wasn't being portrayed in any way contrary to his religious beliefs; the black father wanted to be portrayed with dignity. I understood his concerns but I tried to explain - and thus came up with a release form, that basically laid out that if the characters they were posing for did less than savoury things, it in no way reflected upon the models as people. I know this sounds exotic and extreme, but we have to remember that a great percentage of the populace have no clue as to what posing for another character means. They're simply who they are. It was an interesting adjustment. Time consuming, too.<br /><br />Then there were the parents who were understandably less than thrilled by the prospect of some crazy comic-book punk taking photos of their little darlings making Molotov cocktails. Can't say I blamed them. But the fact that the town where I lived and worked - Westport, Connecticut - and environs, happened to be the inspirational setting for the novel <i><b>The Stepford Wives</b></i> did seem particularly apropos. The contrarian in me loved the wicked irony.<br /><br />And the 'little darlings' learned a skill.<br /><br />I was certainly in the thick of it, awash in <i>actual</i> ‘big numbers,’ where coordinating this monstrous and increasingly time-consuming photographic schedule would have been - in and of itself - more than enough lunacy for any sane individual to deal with. The key word here is ‘sane.’ My favourite local watering hole was a way-station for folks in a variety of entertainment and news arenas. Everyone knew everyone. Or knew someone who knew someone. It was two degrees of separation, not six. There were amazing illustrators (Bernie Fuchs, Al Parker, Bob Peak, Robert Fawcett), actors (Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Chris Walken, Keir Dullea), artists like Charlie Reid, Bob Baxter, writers like Erica Jong, and many comic book and comic strip artists and writers - too many to name. It was Heaven. An incredible artistic hub. I mention this because I realized that with the huge chunk of reference-gathering I'd bitten off with regards to the photography of so many people, I was negotiating my way around myriad potential landmines. I came incredibly close to calling the driving force of the Westport theatre scene - Joanne Woodward herself - with a plea to recommend actors-people who knew what it entailed to act a part. The only double-edged sword would be in paying so many people for their expertise, and as importantly: for their time. Financially, <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> started to become a money pit. Too much time and effort was involved in getting the reference, leaving very little time to create the artwork. Time. The ultimate tool. The ultimate foe.<br /><br />Still, as it was, many friends made themselves available as models, gratis. One, the phenomenal cartoonist Stan Drake, who was my father-figure, my dear friend, and artistic mentor, posed as Christine's father, the gent eating his dinner whilst seated on the porcelain throne. A helluva thing. But Stan thought it was great. Odd, bizarre, but fun. John Prentice also posed. He was the abused wife's landowner dad. Frank Bolle Jr. was the traumatized cabby. And at the watering hole, I'd asked a regular, a gent I'd occasionally drink with, a gent named Harry Reasoner, to play a newsman on the English telly. He laughingly demurred. <i>C'est la vie</i>.<br /><br />Another friend of mine - the one who played the architect - actually <i>was</i> an architect. He'd formerly been a Navy Seal, and true to form, he brooked no shit. Here was as militaristic a guy as one could ever fret to meet in a dark alley or beachfront, and then there was yours truly: the most liberal confrontative wiseass comic book guy in a town of young republican bankers - needless to say, Mr. Seal and I got along famously. He loved comics. And it was he who suggested that I photograph his two sons as the architect's sons. Their ages were exactly as Alan had written. Order from chaos, indeed. (The architect's daughter was played by a friend of the woman from whom I was splitting, so tensions there were high).<br /><br />Things seemed to escalate in direct inverse proportion to levels of sanity... More, they actually degenerated: Horribly, sadly, two of the models died. One good friend drowned in a freak boating accident. His passing was horrible on so many levels. Both he and his girlfriend worked at the watering hole. The entire town of Westport mourned. It was a death in the family. Another friend, Ray, and I were fellow members of the Loyal Order of Raccoons - yes, those Raccoons - with a nod to the great Gleason. Our once-monthly meetings were really an excuse for fifteen guys to get together to play pool, cards, darts, embarrass our fellow Raccoons by holding wildly inappropriate bachelor parties etc, all done under the influence of the demon rum. Ray died from pancreatic cancer and left a wife and a four year old daughter... Art and life were distilling to a quintessence of extremes. Chaos, love, loss, overwhelmingly intense experience of going through a war together. So many people, so many lives, intersecting as lives and under the rubric of the <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> family...<br /><br />The biggest challenge to the series was yet to come. The main character, my friend who modelled for Christine, chose that particular time period to get married. Now, that shouldn't have been a real problem, right? Well, normally, probably not, except that she married into the military, and her newly-minted husband was stationed in Germany. So, after the newlyweds cut the wedding cake, and washed it down with champagne, it was <i>auf wiedersehen</i> Christine. I couldn't very well deride her by exclaiming, “<i>How could you do this to me?! To <b>US</b>? After all we'd been through?!</i>” Even I'm not that much of a narcissist. But come on, how dare she presume to have a <b>real life</b>?<br /><br />Additionally, the backdrop for this time period was chockablock with huge personal changes in my life, such as it was: the fairly well known rift with Al Columbia - well, in the comics universe, it was <i><b>Peyton Place</b></i> meets <i><b>All about Eve </b></i>. Outside of that arena, no one gave a damn, thank God. - which again only served to fuel greater levels of wild speculation. I should point out that Al and I have long since made our peace. I bear him no ill will. Chalk the feud up to the folly of youth.<br /><br />Oh, and I just remembered: the musical soundtrack for this period was The Cure's brilliant album, <i><b>Disintegration</b></i>. Coincidence? The cut <i>The Same Deep Water as You</i> seemed to become a spooky mantra. In his lyrics, Robert Smith seemed to acknowledge the coexistence of entropy and resignation. I freely admit listened to that album for weeks on end, and tossed in a fair amount of hope and redemption, just because the music was too beautiful to be so overwhelmingly bleak. To this day, the song takes me back.<br /><br />Anyway - Things couldn't continue to get more bizarre, I thought. No way.<br /><br />Until they did: i.e., between issues #2 and #3, the Seal's youngest son grew six inches in height. Got very lanky. Endured the awkwardness a breaking voice engenders. Entering puberty will do that to you. He was hardly a ‘little kid’ anymore. More, he was hardly the ‘little kid’ I needed to pose for pix of the youngest son of the architect. I just had to roll my eyes.<br /><br />Another digression: I should explain at this point that I'm not at all a slave to photography. I hate being a slave to anything that could become a crutch. Photos are tools to be used and modified for any specific need of any specific gig. I myself have posed as everyone from an old crone to a teenage alien. I would use the photo as basic position and proportional guide. Then I'd change things based on my accumulated knowledge from drawing from life - around forty sketchbooks of life drawings. Other times I'd simply 'make shit up'. Artist's prerogative. As Al Williamson once remarked to me about when he was trying to draw scenes from his imagination, rather than using photographs. He referred to it as having to ‘fall back on talent’.<br /><br />But with <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> one of the demands – prerequisites - I'd placed upon myself was to work almost exclusively from the model as possible. I was going for as great a degree of illustrative photographic verisimilitude as I could muster. Dammit, I was going to adhere to the accurate reference no matter what. It was, in retrospect, a vain attempt to control everything - everything - completely, as things swirled and collided in midair all around. This was my Stanley Kubrick period. Of course, the more I tried to control everything, the more Real Life kicked my ass. Up and down the Route 95 corridor.<br /><br />So, the more time flew by, the more detritus was spawned, the thicker the sorghum got. I realized, after reading issue three, that a stylistic alteration seemed appropriate, as I'd done in <i><b>Elektra: Assassin</b></i>. The benefit would be showing the increasingly chaotic milieu that the characters inhabited, <i>AND</i> it would also speed up the process and output of pages. (Or so I'd hoped: I needed to gain - as I said - a semblance of <i>control</i> of this runaway behemoth.) So, I switched to doing the pages in pen and ink, with additional airbrushing, spatter, and pencil on Craftint board. The stylistic - or rather technical - switch felt incongruous to some, but I was determined to make the stylistic shift work in the contextual Gestalt of the series. <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> was about finding Order in Chaos. And things couldn't have been more chaotic than they were right then and there. And besides, my work has always been about trying to make order out of messes. Or simply making messes - only messes - and nothing more than messes to my detractors' perceptions as in: “<i>What's with all his scritchy-scratchy shit? UGH!</i>” But I just did what I do. It was like breathing to me: making artistic corrections out of what to me were screaming errors begging to be addressed, making silk purses out of a sow's ear or cow sphincter, or creating a sow's ear out of silicone, molly bolts, and matchsticks... but you get the point.<br /><br />Somewhere along the way, this secular book on mathematics and chaos had blurred the boundaries between religion, and real life – or, rather than religion, more appropriately, say, spirituality - like the Gnostic gospels and pagan idolatry being co-opted for political expediency by nascent religions of Christianity and Judaism (at the time they were probably the equivalent of ‘cults’ - until they went nova for the masses.) Art bled into commerce. Commerce just bled and bled, exsanguinating like crazy. Chaos as Theme met Chaos in Reality... and the clock continued to tick down, calendar pages whirled in a parchment-based purée around my drawing board - as if from some bad film montage. Deadlines were blown. To smithereens. I couldn't sleep, and it served me right. It was entrusted to me to pull it off, to 'suck it up', grow a sack, and I was going under for the third time... Money got tighter and tighter. Productivity suffered severely. <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> became my life. Not just the series Alan and I were attempting, but Big Numbers the actual Petri dish of real life chaos. I'd lost a parent, a relationship, began a new one, went through the art assistant debacle, and realized just how far behind the proverbial eight-ball I'd placed myself. And placed Alan, <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i>, and the folks at Tundra - and of course, the all-important readers.<br /><br />So in plain English, between issues #2 and #3, my so-called life went to complete Hell personally: I'm not saying this as a 'Woe is me’ scenario. Screw that pansy bullshit. I'm reporting it for another self-serving reason: I want to confront the speculators and all these ‘excellent unimpeachable authorities’ - who, please remember, weren't even <i>there</i>! - and who are <i>still</i> actually taking it upon themselves to - quite frankly, as I see it - talk out of their asses (which is a nifty parlour trick, but as a stand-in for expository accuracy it's, well, like talking out of one's ass. Things can get pretty rotten in Denmark. Or in Oz. Or in...) Yes, I know, I'm probably spitting into the wind, stressing all this <i>stuff</i> in an effort to end, once and for all, the speculation, presumption, and ‘<i>he said - he said - she said</i>’ innuendo. As if.<br /><br />So - All this finally leads to the moment I finished up issue #3 in its entirety, after agreeing to release the reins on the series - and so I handed all the art for <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> #3 to Paul Jenkins and Kevin Eastman, and moved on to doing advertising and illustration work... A break that was imperative... and in doing so, I effectively passed the torch to Al. <br /><br />I thought that was the end of it. <br /><br />In many ways it was only the beginning. The 'behind the scenes' tumult of <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> was an amazing correlative to Alan's script. It became Art imitating Art imitating Life imitating... well, at the very least, severely blown synapses. <br /><br />For those of you not inclined to take this in any sort of light of awareness, okay. I'm not looking for absolution. I'm not looking to duck responsibility, or to make excuses. I'm simply presenting the chain of events to the best of my recollection. To give my responses (good, bad and mezzo-mezz) to each situation that arose. I take full responsibility for losing control of things that should have been in my control. I was the <i>de facto</i> adult in my studio. My assistant was a kid, in many ways ill-equipped to handle certain responsibilities. I'm sure he'd agree things were pretty off the wall back then. We were all riding a wild bull-dragon that hated spurs in its ribs. I'm hoping Al and his family have a tranquil and happy life.<br /><br />I'm blessed to count Kevin Eastman, Paul Jenkins and Alan Moore as my friends, and generous ones at that. I love these guys. They make my world brighter, both in comics and in life.<br /><br />If I may be narcissistic for a moment (‘<i>only a moment?</i>’ some of you are no doubt thinking. ‘<i>He's been writing a self-serving treatise since word one.</i>’). Nevertheless, here goes: I pride myself on being a professional, - more than ever these days - and I felt like <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> became my <i><b>Moby Dick</b></i> - the great white metaphysical whale that had gotten away from me. <br /><br />To this day, I've lamented that Alan and I never finished the series. I actually literally can't stomach the thought of it remaining a hole in our creative lives, certainly in mine. And honestly, there's not a week that goes by that I don't think about completing it, about contacting Alan and saying, “<i>Adult here. What say you? Let's kick out the jams!</i>” I understand his great disappointment, though I've no doubt he's moved on. And gotten even more brilliant, if that's possible. I've apologized to Alan personally, and to the others, for my part. And I apologize to you - the readers. You're each and every one of you a diamond, a clear reason to strive, to give something back - a something that makes some small difference - via my limited abilities and in spite of my human failings. I'm by no means religious (as spirituality and religion aren't synonyms). Even so, I'm praying I'm older, wiser, perhaps even better, than I was those many years ago. That cooler, more mature heads have prevailed. <br /><br />I've simply tried to present my side, the POV of one guy who was at the epicentre of the quake. I really doubt that what I've written will end speculation, or alter other folks' agendas. I'm not naive. I think that in hindsight, that there were simply many many factors that played a part in the <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> implosion. I was but one. A big part, but only one.<br /><br />I know what it would take to make completion of <i><b>Big Numbers</b></i> a reality. But whatever ultimately happens, this will stand as my own Chaos Theory.<br /><br />Thanks for your time.<br /><br />Bill Sienkiewicz<br />Somewhere in ConnecticutPádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-57617548627101445002010-12-19T22:50:00.005+00:002011-01-07T12:43:16.678+00:00Flann O'Brien Writes Sexton Blake...?All in all, there are three Sexton Blake titles that Flann O'Brien is supposed to have written under the name of Stephen Blakesley. I've recently bought two of these, and here they are.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/5258746997/" title="Riddle of the Blazing Bungalow by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5246/5258746997_45c04c179b.jpg" width="392" height="500" alt="Riddle of the Blazing Bungalow" /></a><br /><i>Riddle of the Blazing Bungalow</i> by Stephen Blakesley<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/5258747187/" title="Man with a Number by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5206/5258747187_64fa21dd96.jpg" width="392" height="500" alt="Man with a Number" /></a><br /><i>Man with a Number</i> by Stephen Blakesley</center><br /><br />The other title, which I have as yet to get, is <i>The Trail of Raider Number 1</i>. There is one further, almost certainly apocryphal, Sexton Blake title he is meant to have written, called <i>The Cardinal and the Corpse</i>...Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-48636509912804844052010-12-11T14:15:00.007+00:002011-01-07T12:44:02.683+00:00Christmas TV 1973<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">What we would have been watching on TV on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 1973. It's better than what's on this year!<br /><br /></span><center><a title="Christmas Eve TV 1973 by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/5251564340/"><img alt="Christmas Eve TV 1973" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5243/5251564340_02e1dae9f5_b.jpg" width="402" height="1024" /></a><br /><br /><a title="Christmas Day TV 1973 by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/5250961247/"><img alt="Christmas Day TV 1973" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5283/5250961247_c60bb33d5d_b.jpg" width="388" height="1024" /></a></center>Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-80284562280161471352010-11-21T18:23:00.005+00:002011-01-07T12:39:33.031+00:00Women Are Writing Science Fiction!<span style="font-family:verdana;">The back-copy writer for Margaret St Clair's <em><strong>Sign of the Labrys</strong></em>, published by Corgi in 1963, seems to be finding it genuinely difficult to believe that women can write SF.<br /><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbBXG0HGy8XIenE0asOdxYpXezNm6KGnvagtWr6NpxZGSzwNyCLP6V8XTfh2eSep3fd4tdM0kYk-IUgqldM4SeXYsm7-R6RhsL9l1FG74XUs9xA79R885_uOVyYt8wI-RMbvySMBoPWlhV/s1600/Labrys+Back.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 198px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542071249601202258" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbBXG0HGy8XIenE0asOdxYpXezNm6KGnvagtWr6NpxZGSzwNyCLP6V8XTfh2eSep3fd4tdM0kYk-IUgqldM4SeXYsm7-R6RhsL9l1FG74XUs9xA79R885_uOVyYt8wI-RMbvySMBoPWlhV/s320/Labrys+Back.jpg" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpTsftKPey57wWXaNAoejJiEPtnyW-J72C-sSIAdpdSwLDl_aZySP6VTnnmS192SIWUlbg0pV7uv42bRdKOfvabigyzg7WkmilBu4UI4sG5V9RsUChY1hBbQvh02m7K5yGdq5oCEJeppCR/s1600/Labrys+Front.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 198px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542071246933376530" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpTsftKPey57wWXaNAoejJiEPtnyW-J72C-sSIAdpdSwLDl_aZySP6VTnnmS192SIWUlbg0pV7uv42bRdKOfvabigyzg7WkmilBu4UI4sG5V9RsUChY1hBbQvh02m7K5yGdq5oCEJeppCR/s320/Labrys+Front.jpg" /></a></div>Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-73261045760370116632010-11-17T21:45:00.013+00:002011-01-07T12:46:30.784+00:00Cathal Ó Sándair's Réics Carló<div align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Cathal Ó Sándair was about the most popular author in the Irish language in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, but is largely forgotten today. He mostly wrote short chapbook-sized pulp adventure stories for younger readers, across all sorts of genres. His most popular series by far was that featuring the adventures of Réics Carló, a sort of Irish Sexton Blake detective character, whose escapades often featured aspects of the fantastic. </span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br />Here are the first five adventures of Réics Carló, with their wonderful bright covers.<br /></span></div><div align="center"><br /></div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 217px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540649250290549746" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinFFiafCGy7tSG0YWZe-qxVMygkz3nJ4ZUVc-mCNwR23uOKKzSifQFdtihi7P7Wk74dzv9MctcvmjlKn5Gp0NNEqVTwX0OpsGacvfZ4lxsd7jNmWwuGghndgTMRog68HXBTYta9pJHH9en/s320/01+Na_Marbh_A_d_Fhil.jpg" /> </span><p align="center"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Eachtraí Réic Carló - Uimhir a h-Aon<br />Na Mairbh a d'Fhill </span></p><p align="center"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 216px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540649262733820914" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj428YhJE5ahN-1Mn8EIdRHOfbm02jMSF58ri4vVSQTnDB3qt2A5rv5FgnAC7oDulyCfJoGS0Owxibrj1cqczWhBoUVTtLMyH0sVXNLhqj8I80DXjWNVpYUcZDfPUlQ1TuiXbtdOIbAqB0_/s320/02+Reics+Carlo+-An_tEiteallan_Do_Fheicthe.jpg" /> </span></p><p align="center"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Eachtraí Réic Carló - Uimhir a Dó<br />An tEiteallán Do-Fheicthe</span></p><p align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-k_zt6T0ZJzCynPaaCBq56G5kAn7CwAiIdvXpzsN-R3O6c2SqHZgXpPG95kHGDHLYUwsR0UTaZRdsZprpcTfXfNZT4TmI-Cw6ky-ZAPF_c4tbc4b_dS-tnH2fcazgGyO9CykHF6h3m31/s1600/03+An+Corpan+sa+Trunc.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 230px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540649292674416290" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-k_zt6T0ZJzCynPaaCBq56G5kAn7CwAiIdvXpzsN-R3O6c2SqHZgXpPG95kHGDHLYUwsR0UTaZRdsZprpcTfXfNZT4TmI-Cw6ky-ZAPF_c4tbc4b_dS-tnH2fcazgGyO9CykHF6h3m31/s320/03+An+Corpan+sa+Trunc.jpg" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Eachtraí Réic Carló - Uimhir a Trí<br />An Curpán sa Trúnc<br /></span></p><p align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdkspRFHPy5sjGewHUcCuBeAmQVkksmmIJPLLzPDTgiBE9zRNOHh7ixDq65ZsCnjieT3ogAmwWaIzIocdKrLvUU6dkEFBJj2NnbRbjPr2V-8Aw-IadGbRDd2KEN-ZqgXTpQDbAfTxnlR1Y/s1600/04+Dunmarbu+i+bPairc+an+Chrocaig+1944.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 233px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540649317867313282" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdkspRFHPy5sjGewHUcCuBeAmQVkksmmIJPLLzPDTgiBE9zRNOHh7ixDq65ZsCnjieT3ogAmwWaIzIocdKrLvUU6dkEFBJj2NnbRbjPr2V-8Aw-IadGbRDd2KEN-ZqgXTpQDbAfTxnlR1Y/s320/04+Dunmarbu+i+bPairc+an+Chrocaig+1944.jpg" /></span></a></p><p align="center"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span></p><p align="center"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Eachtraí Réics Carló - Uimhir a Ceathar<br />Dúnmharbhú i bPáirc an Chrócaigh </span></p><p align="center"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 224px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540649327062019746" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAqCY5DdvLXrhJC1_aLG-8BdJ84QP83B9w0bMtQSeErEOtUxSElvyrtOy_Qj_JhQo2lQ_-XnmtBuKAAt2Pb4luvrf_tgoHP12ZQcSJgYVBxt6T7xyOLF_9Cyk2Kg9WjQOrv9SJuEVQx34G/s320/05+Uathbhas+i+mBru+na+Boinne.jpg" /></span></p><p align="center"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Eachtraí Réic Carló - Uimhir a Cúig<br />Uathbhás i mBrú na Bóinne </span></p><em></em>Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-13320743056872221532010-01-03T18:11:00.002+00:002011-01-08T11:00:17.607+00:00Marvelman Copyright: Same Comic, Different GunAt the end of November 2009 I posted an entry here called <a href=”http://slovobooks.blogspot.com/2009/11/marvelman-copyright-i-found-my-smoking.html”>Marvelman Copyright: I Found My Smoking Gun</a>, where I stated that I’d found evidence of a copyright notice by Mick Anglo Ltd in a very early issue of <i><b>Young Marvelman</b></i>. This seemed to indicate that there was evidence of Mick Anglo at least <i>claiming</i> some sort of copyright entitlement to the group of characters as early as May 1954, right at the beginning of the nine year run of the title. As at least partial justification for my discovery I said this, “<i>Of course, it is just possible that the copyright notice was added at a later date, like when Anglo was preparing </i><b>Nostalgia - Spotlight on the Fifties</b><i> for publication, but I think this is unlikely, as he would have been more careful of its positioning, rather than having it being slightly cut off, as it is on the page that's in the book.</i>” <br /><br />But I was wrong.<br /><br />The first indication I got that I might have been a bit over eager was when I received an email from Derek Wilson saying, “<i> I have a copy of YM #38 and the copyright notice is not in the frame as shown in the </i><b>Nostalgia - Spotlight on the Fifties</b><i> book.</i>” Derek Wilson knows a thing or two about Marvelman, having provided an introductory article for TwoMorrow’s recent Marvelman issue of <i><b>Alter Ego</b></i>, which is more or less reproduced <a href=http://www.crikeyuk.co.uk/fea5%20MM.html>here</a> on the <a href=”http://www.crikeyuk.co.uk/index.html”>Crikey!</a> website. After everything I had said about conservative approaches to information and backing up any claims with further research, it seemed that I had all the while been digging my own trap, and blithely walking into it...<br /><br />So, further research was called for. I needed two things. Firstly, I needed my own copy of <i><b>Young Marvelman</b></i> #38. Although the person who wrote to me sent me a photograph of the page in question, I very much felt that I wanted to have empirical first-hand knowledge of everything I had referred to, so went looking for a copy of YM #38 on the internet, and was lucky enough to locate one quite easily. The other thing I wanted to find was another copy of Mick Anglo’s <i><b>Nostalgia - Spotlight on the Fifties</b></i>. My original copy of this was not actually the first edition published by Jupiter Books in 1977, but a later edition published by Universal Books in 1985.In the eight years between 1977 and 1985 Marvelman had been revived in Dez Skinn’s seminal <b><i>Warrior</i></b> magazine, so I felt it was important to be completely sure of all the dates of the appearances and non-appearances of the copyright notice. Again, I found a copy of this quite easily, so I’m now in a position to address the whole think once again, this time with more accuracy, hopefully, and also with even more pictures.<br /><br />So, to go back to where I started, Michael Anglo’s <i><b>Nostalgia - Spotlight on the Fifties</b></i> - originally published by Jupiter Books in 1977, and republished without any changes by Universal Books in 1985 - contained this page from <i><b>Young Marvelman</b></i> #38:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4118701179/" title="YM 38 by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2645/4118701179_07b484c75f.jpg" width="360" height="500" alt="YM 38" /></a></center><br /><br />I drew especial attention to the top right-hand panel:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4119472022/" title="YM Panel Detail by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2518/4119472022_b9c1e0514b.jpg" width="388" height="500" alt="YM Panel Detail" /></a></center><br /><br />I particularly wanted to highlight the copyright notice written on the right-hand side of the panel:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4120758770/" title="YM Panel Detail 2 by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2595/4120758770_2d27eb7a31.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="YM Panel Detail 2" /></a></center><br /><br />And that was my smoking gun. Except that it wasn’t.<br /><br />Here’s the cover of my very own recently purchased copy of <i><b>Young Marvelman</b></i> #38:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4229080310/" title="YM 38 Cover by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2751/4229080310_79618ca364.jpg" width="356" height="500" alt="YM 38 Cover" /></a></center><br /><br />And here’s a scan of page two of that comic:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4229080890/" title="YM 38 Page 2 by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2593/4229080890_13e0026544.jpg" width="354" height="500" alt="YM 38 Page 2" /></a></center><br /><br />(If you think I’ve been scanning things off centre, by the way, I haven’t. The artwork is really that far askew on the page. But I digress...)<br /><br />And here’s a scan of the top right-hand panel:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4229081000/" title="YM 38 Page 2 Detail by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4024/4229081000_6a0e56775b.jpg" width="385" height="500" alt="YM 38 Page 2 Detail" /></a></center><br /><br />So, no line claiming copyright, and the lack of that line completely undermines my earlier theory that Mick Anglo had attempted to claim at least some sort of ownership of the Marvelman characters very early on. Indeed, the indicia from <i><b>Young Marvelman</b></i> #38, which you can see <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4229080372/sizes/o/in/set-72157622273295224/”>here</a>, states, amongst other things, that “<i>All stories and illustrations are the copyright of the publishers...</i>”<br /><br />So, where did the notice come from, and why would it have appeared? The first think I wanted to know was, was it Mick Anglo who added the inscription to the page? Here’s the cover of the 1958 <i><b>Young Marvelman Annual</b></i>:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4229081218/" title="YM Annual Cover by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2800/4229081218_de4326cd4d.jpg" width="355" height="500" alt="YM Annual Cover" /></a></center><br /><br />Down in the bottom right-hand corner of this there is a line of handwritten text, which says -Mick Anglo Ltd (London) - , as you can see here:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4228314523/" title="YM Annual Signature by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4025/4228314523_d656ea0180_o.jpg" width="474" height="143" alt="YM Annual Signature" /></a></center><br /><br />You can compare this to this signature from the page in <i><b>Nostalgia - Spotlight on the Fifties</b></i>:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4120758770/" title="YM Panel Detail 2 by slovobooks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2595/4120758770_2d27eb7a31.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="YM Panel Detail 2" /></a></center><br /><br />At the risk of once more going out on a limb, I’m going to say that it’s the same hand doing the lettering in both cases, and I’m also going to suggest that the person doing the lettering is Mick Anglo himself. As far as I know, he did a lot of lettering for the comics produced by Gower Street Studios, and who else would be likely to add a copyright notice to his art after it had been used? So, is there any reason that this notice, appearing in a book in 1977, might have any significance. Well, yes, I rather think there might well be.<br /><br />In <a href=”http://bearalley.blogspot.com/2006/11/marvelman-in-news.html”>this</a> post on Steve Holland’s excellent <a href=”http://bearalley.blogspot.com/”>Bear Alley</a>, Holland says:<br /><br /><blockquote>Alan is perfectly correct in saying that the publisher -- Len Miller & Co. (Hackney) Ltd. -- didn't go bankrupt. However, it did go into voluntary liquidation. The decision was made at a meeting of directors on 21 June 1972 and the company was officially wound up on 24 September 1974. From my non-lawyerly perspective, that means that any copyrights held by the company did not go into the hands of a liquidator or trustee in bankruptcy to be sold off as an asset of the company. It was a decision made by the directors (Florrie Miller, Arnold Miller and Doreen Lewis), debts and wages were paid off and the company was shut down. The contents of a warehouse full of old unsold copies of magazines was sold off; a British dealer by the name of Brian Jepson bought a lot of it and others may have tapped into the same source. That's why you can occasionally find mint condition Miller comics, although that's increasingly rare these days.<br /><br />So where did that leave the copyright of Marvelman? The question that needs answering is: when a company shuts down voluntarily, do the copyrights held by that company remain with that company despite the fact that it no longer exists, or do the rights revert to the original creators, or do they become public domain?</blockquote><br /><br />This is why I find the date of the publication of Anglo’s <i><b>Nostalgia - Spotlight on the Fifties</b></i> so intriguing. L Miller & Co. Ltd went into liquidation in 1974, and three years later Anglo publishes a page of <i><b>Young Marvelman</b></i> artwork from 1954 with a copyright notice added to it. Miller’s copyright was now no longer in effect, as a nonexistent company can’t own anything, so Anglo is the next in line, it would seem, and certainly would have seemed so to himself, I imagine. And the copyright notice appears in the original edition in 1977, as well as in the later edition in 1985, meaning that Anglo was claiming this for himself in 1977, five years before Marvelman’s reappearance in <b><i>Warrior</i></b> in 1982, so was not motivated by the desire to capitalise on the character’s success there. It can only be that Mick Anglo wished to reclaim his own creation, even if, as seemed likely at the time, there was no likelihood of it ever reappearing, and the liquidation of L Miller & Co allowed him to, more or less legitimately, do this.<br /><br />So that’s what I’m putting forward this time: Mick Anglo attaching a copyright notice to old artwork for a 1977 publication is even better proof of his claim on the Marvelman copyright that if the same copyright notice had originally appeared in 1954. I will have more to say on all of this at a later point...*<br /><br />(*In the original article I also alluded to the fact that all of this springs out of research for what might become a book. This is something I can now confirm. In the summer of 2011 MonkeyBrain Books will publish what I’m provisionally calling <i><b>Poisoned Chalice: The Extremely Long and Incredibly Complex Story of Marvelman</b></i>. I am, to say the very least, extremely excited about this, and much of 2010 is going to be spend immersed in research for the book, as well as actually writing it. I’m already about ten thousand words into it, and I’ve absolutely no idea how long it’s going to be in the end, but long it certainly will be. It’s entirely possible that there’ll be more posts here of sidebar issues arising out of that research, though. But this post is probably the last one that will deal directly with material from the book itself.)Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-45354999729099244522009-12-30T11:06:00.005+00:002011-01-08T00:29:11.948+00:00Day of the TriffidsMy wife Deirdre has several paperback copies of John Wyndham's <em><strong>Day of the Triffids</strong></em>, and this seems as good a time as any to scan them and put them online.<br /><br /><center><a title="Triffid Cover 1961 by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4228186418/"><img alt="Triffid Cover 1961" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2759/4228186418_882491d113.jpg" width="307" height="500" /></a><br />Penguin Books, 1961, Cover Price 2/6<br /><br /><a title="Triffid Cover 1963 by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4227416525/"><img alt="Triffid Cover 1963" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2699/4227416525_64426a688a.jpg" width="310" height="500" /></a><br />Penguin Books, 1963, Cover Price 3/6<br /><br /><a title="Triffid Cover 1970 by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4228186518/"><img alt="Triffid Cover 1970" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4063/4228186518_a171e0b2cd.jpg" width="310" height="500" /></a><br />Penguin Books, 1970, Cover Price 5/- 25p<br /><br /><a title="Triffid Cover 1981 by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4228186594/"><img alt="Triffid Cover 1981" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/4228186594_0329bf4c71.jpg" width="306" height="500" /></a><br />Penguin Books, 1981, Cover Price £1.25<br /><br /><a title="Triffid Cover No Date by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4228186626/"><img alt="Triffid Cover No Date" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4051/4228186626_ea9ca1693b.jpg" width="309" height="500" /></a><br />Penguin Books, No Date Given, Cover Price £4.50<br /><br /><a title="Triffid Cover US 1962 by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4227416785/"><img alt="Triffid Cover US 1962" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4024/4227416785_384fa9b356.jpg" width="299" height="500" /></a><br />Crest Books, June 1962, Cover Price 50c</center><br /><br />There are other collections of covers for <em><strong>Day of the Triffids</strong></em>, of course, including the excellent <a href="http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/covers.html#0993">Art of Penguin Science Fiction</a>, but the covers here are special to me, because they're the ones in this house.<br /><br />I once had a first edition of <em><strong>Day of the Triffids</strong></em>, with a really badly battered dust jacket, which I managed to melt the ink all down the back of while trying to remove Sellotape marks with a nail varnish removal pad...Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-84924029923885828162009-11-25T23:33:00.005+00:002011-01-08T11:01:03.126+00:00Gladiator Vs SupermanWhile researching the history of Marvelman, I found myself going back quite a bit farther than just to the point where Mick Anglo and Leonard Miller created the character in 1953. I actually ended up going all the way back to 1930, and the publication of Philip Wylie’s novel <i><b>Gladiator</b></i>. Why? Well, If Marvelman is based on Captain Marvel, and Captain Marvel in turn is based on Superman, then I wanted to spend a little time looking at the allegation that Superman was, in his turn, supposed to be based on Hugo Danner, the protagonist in Philip Wylie’s <i><b>Gladiator</b></i>. This became the first chapter of my book, and I present it here for anyone who’s sufficiently interested to read it.<br /><br /><br /><center><b><u><span style="font-size:180%;">Gladiator Vs Superman</span></u></b></center><br /><br /><center><a title="Gladiator cover by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4133996259/"><img alt="Gladiator cover" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2650/4133996259_80113800f9_o.gif" width="251" height="370" /></a><br />The 1949 Avon paperback publication of <b><i>Gladiator</i></b></center><br /><br /><i><b>Gladiator</b></i>, published in 1930 by Alfred A. Knopf of New York, was Philip Wylie’s third published novel, although it was his first completed one. He’d written it in 1926, at the age of twenty four, under the title of <i><b>Titan</b></i>, but he didn’t want to publish a science fiction novel as his first book, and waited until two other more mainstream books, <i><b>Heavy Laden</b></i> (Knopf, 1928) and <i><b>Babes and Sucklings</b></i> (Knopf, 1929), appeared before finally allowing Knopf to publish it, in a somewhat different version than the original from 1926. The book features the life story and adventures of Hugo Danner. While still an unborn child in the womb, Danner is injected by his father, scientist Abednego Danner, with a serum that gives him superhuman strength and abilities. The young Danner discovers he can run at extraordinary speeds, and is extremely strong, and later finds that his skin in unbreakable, and that he can withstand bullets. This had really never been done before, surprising as it now seems. Previously, if there was a super-strong character, it was due to their circumstances. For instance, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter of Mars was super-strong because he was in the weaker gravity of Mars, and John W. Campbell's Aaron Munro, the protagonist of his 1934 novel, <i><b>The Mightiest Machine</b></i>, was born on Jupiter, so was very strong when he came to Earth. Hugo Danner was different, though. He was a superhuman human being, which was a completely new concept to 1930s science fiction.<br /><br />Although it didn’t sell particularly well in its original hardcover run, prompting Wylie to leave Knopf for what he saw as their lack of publicity for the book, <i><b>Gladiator</b></i> was apparently a bestseller in its day, and was reviewed widely, not only in professional papers, but also in the fan press, and was well known to the science fiction fans of the time. There was even a film based on the book, Columbia Pictures’ <i><b>The Gladiator</b></i>, in 1938, starring Joe E. Brown and June Travis. There are two reasons these days, however, that the book crops up. The first, lesser, reason is because a copy of <i><b>Gladiator</b></i> can be seen on Hollis Mason’s shelves on page nine of issue one of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s <i><b>Watchmen</b></i> (DC Comics, 1986). The other reason it is spoken of is because of its apparent influence on a young Jerry Siegel, writer and co-creator of the world’s comic book first superhero, Superman.<br /><br />Superman, co-created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, first appeared in <i><b>Action Comics</b></i> #1 in June 1938, published by Detective Comics Inc., a fore-runner of National Periodical Publications and DC Comics. The Superhero had been invented, and the world of the American comic book would never be the same again. Virtually overnight it became a huge seller, and is running to this day, with uninterrupted publication for over seventy years. A vast amount has been written over the years on the history of Superman, and by people substantially more qualified than I, so I’ll confine myself here to what is directly relevant, which is the allegation that Wylie’s <i><b>Gladiator</b></i> was a significant and substantial influence on the creation of Superman.<br /><br /><center><a title="Explorers of the Infinite by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4134023403/"><img alt="Explorers of the Infinite" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2798/4134023403_58aa1c66b3_o.jpg" width="282" height="439" /></a><br />Sam Moskowitz's <b><i>Explorers of the Infinite</i></b></center><br /><br />The origin of the allegation that Superman was based on Hugo Danner was Sam Moskowitz’s <i><b>Explorers of the Infinite</b></i> (The World Publishing Company, Cleveland, 1963), where he stated on page 278, “<i>In March 1930 the Book League Monthly, a paperback book club, offered its readership a selection filled with some startling situations: a man who could lift weights of four tons with ease, leap such distances that he almost seemed to fly, shed machine-gun bullets as a bridegroom sheds rice, rip bank vaults apart as though they were papier-mâché, or break a charging bull's neck with a side-handed cuff. The book was</i> <b>Gladiator</b> <i>by Philip Wylie. Most of today's readers will probably recognize the character: Superman, of course - the original.<br /><br />A few years later, a Cleveland cartoonist Joe Schuster [sic] and his author associate Jerome Siegel would borrow the central theme from</i> <b>Gladiator</b><i>, even paraphrase some of the dialogue, to create one of the most popular cartoon adventure strips of our time and no one would dream the idea had once been the basis of a serious novel.</i>”<br /><br />Philip Wylie’s biographer, Truman Frederick Keefer, also seems to agree. In <i><b>Philip Wylie</b></i> (Twayne Publishers, Boston, 1977) he states on page 48, “<i>One of the main challenges to Wylie in writing </i><b>Gladiator</b><i> was the need to devise spectacular feats for Hugo to perform and then to make them seem probable. Our exposure to the Superman comic strip unfortunately obscures the originality of many of these inventions, which, according to Wylie, as well as recent scholars </i>[presumably referring to Sam Moskowitz]<i>, were "borrowed" from </i><b>Gladiator</b><i>. Hugo hurtling across a river in a single leap, bounding fifty feet straight up in the air, holding a cannon above his head with one arm, killing a shark by ripping its jaws apart with his bare hands, felling a charging bull with a fist between the eyes, lifting an automobile by its bumper and turning it around in the road - all of these were, in 1930, fresh and new and very exciting to read about.</i>”<br /><br />Even the current publishers of <i><b>Gladiator</b></i> get in on the act: the back cover of the Bison Books edition, published by University of Nebraska Press in 2004, includes this, “<i>An enduring classic in speculative fiction and the reported inspiration for the original comic hero, Superman, </i><b>Gladiator</b><i> is a melancholic tale of a boy set apart because of his unique gift and his lifelong struggle to come to terms with it.</i>”<br /><br /><center><a title="Men of Tomorrow by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4134053431/"><img alt="Men of Tomorrow" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2644/4134053431_fffe34353c.jpg" width="326" height="500" /></a><br />Gerard Jones's <b><i>Men of Tomorrow</i></b></center><br /><br />There are persistent claims that Jerry Siegel had reviewed <i><b>Gladiator</b></i> in the second issue of his fanzine <i><b>Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization</b></i>, published in November 1932, most recently seen in Gerard Jones’s <i><b>Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book</b></i> (Basic Books, New York, 2004) where he says on page 78, “<i>The second issue</i> [of <i><b>Science Fiction</b></i>] <i>already had less to offer, except for one short piece that recorded Jerry's collision with a world very different from his own, one that sent his fantasies spinning in a new direction and pushed him closer to his first truly new creation: a review of Philip Wylie's <b>Gladiator</b>.</i>”<br /><br />And later, on page 80, Jones says, “<i>When other fans called Jerry's attention to </i><b>Gladiator</b><i> in 1932, it had already been on the shelves for two years. Wiley had had two more books published and was deep in his first big novel, </i><b>Finnley Wren</b><i>. He'd have cared nothing for a young science fiction fan's love of </i><b>Gladiator</b><i> (and would no doubt have been shocked to learn that eight years later he'd be preparing to sue that fan for plagiarism).</i>”<br /><br />Finally, there’s this on page 346, “<i>In </i><b>Gladiator</b><i> we find a clue to much that is mysterious about the shifting tales of Superman's creation. Siegel flatly denied that Wylie's novel had influenced him in any way, despite the timing and the striking similarities that would seem to leave no doubt of </i><b>Gladiator</b><i>'s role. His denial seems to date from Wylie's threat to sue him for plagiarism in 1940 - Siegel reportedly even signed an affidavit attesting to it - and appears to have been a self-protective act.</i>”<br /><br />Unfortunately, despite this last piece being in the <i>Notes on Sources</i> section at the rear of Jones’s book, there is no source given for any of Jones’s allegations, either of one work’s influence on the other, or of the threat of litigation.<br /><br /><center><a title="Action Comics 1 by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4134076107/"><img alt="Action Comics 1" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2552/4134076107_34e39916e4.jpg" width="363" height="500" /></a><br /><b><i>Action Comics</i></b> #1</center><br /><br />There are also persistent rumours that Wylie threatened to sue National Periodical Publications, the publisher of <i><b>Action Comics</b></i>, for infringement of copyright, as seen in the quotes above from Gerard Jones’s <i><b>Men of Tomorrow</b></i>. In a 2008 online article on io9.com, called <i><b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/”http://io9.com/5065740/superman-takes-on-other-superheroes---in-court”">Superman Takes on Other Superheroes - In Court</a></b></i>, writer Lauren Davis says, “<i>In 1940, Wylie threatened to sue Siegel and National comics for plagiarism of his work. Although nothing ever came of the suit, Siegel did sign an affidavit claiming that </i><b>Gladiator</b><i> was not an inspiration for Superman, although Siegel had reviewed Wylie’s novel in a 1932 issue of his fanzine, </i><b>Science Fiction</b>.”<br /><br />Another online article, Will Murray’s <i><b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/”http://members.socket.net/~hiebert/Essays/Of%20Iron_by_Murray.htm”">Gladiator of Iron</a></b></i>, says this, “<i>Jerry Siegel is said to have denied ever reading </i><b>Gladiator</b><i>. There are rumours that Philip Wylie threatened to sue DC Comics for copyright infringement in the early 40s. DC management had Siegel produce a point-by-point refutation of the charge. No suit was filed, as far as anyone knows. Rumour has it that Wylie backed down when he discovered his publisher had neglected to copyright </i><b>Gladiator</b><i> in the first place.</i>”<br /><br />However, as usual, no source is given for either of these claims, and a substantial amount of searching on my part has completely failed to find any verifiable evidence of either of them. And I’m not even going to <i>try</i> to chase down the allegation that <i><b>Gladiator</b></i> was never copyrighted in the first place, although this may just be a misplaced and mangled version of the later allegation that the copyright on Superman was abandoned by its owners.<br /><br />And there, if you like, I rest the case for the prosecution...<br /><br />On the other hand, there are sources that assert that Gladiator wasn’t an influence on Superman at all, or at least not as much as was being claimed by Moskowitz and those who came after him. In <i><b>Science Fiction Studies</b></i> #95 (SF-TH Inc, DePauw University, Indiana, March 2005) Gregory Feeley writes, “<i>The claim of paraphrased dialogue would seem decisive, but a comparison of the two texts shows no such similarities. It seems unlikely that Moskowitz examined either the original 1938 </i><b>Action Comics</b><i> - not readily available in the early 1960s - or went back to check newspaper archives for the 1939 syndicated strip from which the earlier version was abridged. Moskowitz, who gives no source for his contention, is notorious for uncritically accepting what the writers he takes as his subjects tell him, and the biographical sketches in </i><b>Explorers of the Infinite</b><i> and </i><b>Seekers of Tomorrow</b><i> are largely hagiographic.</i>”<br /><br />He also says, “<i>Keefer interviewed Wylie extensively over a period of years, and he provides as much scholarly information as his subject is likely ever to get. He notes that Wylie strongly believed that Superman was largely based on </i><b>Gladiator</b><i>. Keefer, a competent scholar, cites Moskowitz’s claim, but notes that Moskowitz’s source was a telephone interview with Wylie. Moskowitz’s assertion thus has no independent basis, and Keefer offers no argument to support it, although he does cite a private correspondence from a third party as supporting Moskowitz.</i>”<br /><br />The “<i>private correspondence from a third party</i>” mentioned above is probably J. Randolph Cox’s letter of January 30th 1970, as mentioned on page 159 of Keefer’s book, in the <i>Notes and References</i> section.<br /><br />With regard to the claims of litigation by Wylie against Siegel, Feeley has this to say, “<i>Wylie was rich and famous - and, as the admiring Keefer shows, very combative - in the late 1930s, but he seems never to have brought suit for copyright infringement. (The early litigation surrounding the copyright of Superman, in which its publisher figured as both plaintiff and defendant, has been widely discussed by comics historians.) By the time he spoke to the credulous Moskowitz in the early sixties, Wylie was an embittered alcoholic, with a long history - evident in his non-fiction, and acknowledged by Keefer - of exaggerating to make his points. The claim of paraphrased dialogue seems to have its origin there, and has been repeated (unchecked) ever since.</i>”<br /><br />The unsubstantiated claim that Siegel reviewed <i><b>Gladiator</b></i> can also be called into question. Science Fiction historian Jerry Weist apparently went through long-time SF fan Forrest Ackerman's complete collection of Siegel's fanzines without finding any mention of Philip Wylie at all, let alone a review of <i><b>Gladiator</b></i>. (I can’t find my source for this, I’m afraid, meaning it is for the moment unsubstantiated as well, but I saw it written down somewhere recently, and made a note of it at the time, and I’ve every reason to believe it’s correct.)<br /><br />The other regularly repeated assertion about Siegel is that he always claimed not to have read <i><b>Gladiator</b></i>, as can be seen in various quotes above. The truth is that, as usual, I can’t find any actual verifiable source for this, one way or another. I can’t find him claiming he didn’t read it, but I can’t find him claiming he did read it, either, or any reference to him ever being asked about it, one way or another. If fact, there’s so much supposition and unverified claims surrounding this story that even my own account of it here is necessarily filled with words like <i>allegedly</i>, <i>apparently</i>, and <i>supposedly</i>. I’ve quoted whatever sources I can find, but in a lot of cases even these sources are vague on the sources of their own assertions. It’s obvious to me that some of the people writing about this wrote things that they <i>wanted</i> to be true, and didn’t let the lack of factual evidence get in their way. Gerard Jones’s somewhat breathless prose is a good example of someone not letting the lack of facts get in the way of a good story. It’s also obvious that Gregory Feeley didn’t have a lot of time for Sam Moskowitz’s abilities as a popular culture historian, so even there one needs to filter what he says in light of this.<br /><br />Of course, none of the above proves that Siegel didn’t read <i><b>Gladiator</b></i>, either, and I’d have to say, for myself, that there would seem to simply be too many similarities between the two works for him not to have done so. Both characters were super-strong, virtually invulnerable, and could out-run trains. If Superman could leap tall buildings in a single bound, then Hugo Danner before him has leapt across wide rivers, and could jump fifty feet up in the air. Both broke their cribs as babies. Both kept their abilities a secret, both join football teams at one point, both spent at least some of their time forging their own brand of social justice, hunting down the likes of crooked politicians and mine-owners and making them reform their ways. Both intervene in their respective World Wars, Danner in the first, and Superman in the second. It is not just the similarities in abilities, either, but the similarities in how they dealt with those abilities, and what they chose to do with them, that make it almost a certainty, at least in my own opinion, that the young Jerry Siegel not only read Wylie’s <i><b>Gladiator</b></i>, but was profoundly affected by it. At one point, as a child, Danner says to his father, "<i>I can do things, dad, it kinds of scares me. I can jump higher’n a house. I can run faster'n a train. I can pull up big trees and push 'em over</i>." This could just as easily be a young Clark Kent speaking to his adoptive father Jonathan, right there.<br /><br />Undoubtedly there were other influences on the creation of Superman. Jerry Siegel certainly admitted having read the Doc Savage stories, for instance, although he prevaricated somewhat in actually admitting anything beyond that. He said at one stage, when asked if Doc Savage was an influence, “<i>Of course I read Doc Savage at that time, but that is so long ago that I can't really intelligently answer that question</i>,” but a number of early Superman plots are apparently lifted straight from the pages of <i><b>Doc Savage Magazine</b></i>, and the fact that Savage’s actual first name was Clark, the same as Clark Kent’s, would seem to suggest that at least some form of influence was at play. Although, at that, Joe Shuster claimed that the name actually came from Clark Gable, the film actor, so once again there’s room for doubt. Other influences, according to Siegel, included the John Carter stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the films of actor Douglas Fairbanks Senior, as well as Fritz Lang’s <i><b>Metropolis</b></i>, after which the city in the Superman stories is named.<br /><br />An interesting point in the above is that both Wylie and Siegel regularly compared their creations to, amongst others, Hercules and Atlas, who also make up the second and third letters of the acronym <b>SHAZAM</b> (<b>S</b> the wisdom of Solomon; <b>H</b> the strength of Hercules; <b>A</b> the stamina of Atlas; <b>Z</b> the power of Zeus; <b>A</b> the courage of Achilles; <b>M</b> the speed of Mercury), the magic word that transforms Billy Batson into Captain Marvel. In this case, however, this is presumably less to do with any sort of influence or plagiarism, and more to do with the fact that, in pre-Superman days, the most obvious sources for comparisons to super-strength and other more-than-human abilities were to be found in mythology, rather than anything more contemporary.<br /><br />But that was all about to change.<br /><br /><center><b>--------------------------------------------------------</b></center><br /><center><b><u>Bibliography </u></b></center><br /><center><b><u>Books: </u></b></center><br /><i><b>Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book</b></i>, Gerard Jones (Basic Books, New York, 2004)<br /><i><b>Philip Wylie</b></i>, Truman Frederick Keefer (Twayne Publishers, Boston, 1977)<br /><i><b>Explorers of the Infinite</b></i>, Sam Moskowitz (The World Publishing Company, Cleveland, 1963)<br /><i><b>Gladiator</b></i>, Philip Wylie (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1930)<br /><i><b>Gladiator</b></i>, Philip Wylie (Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, 2004)<br /><br /><center><b>--------------------------------------------------------</b></center><br /><center><b><u>Periodicals: </u></b></center><br /><i><b>Science Fiction Studies</b></i> #95, Gregory Feeley (SF-TH Inc, DePauw University, Indiana, March 2005)<br /><br /><center><b>--------------------------------------------------------</b></center><br /><center><b><u>Online Articles: </u></b></center><br /><i><b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/”http://io9.com/5065740/superman-takes-on-other-superheroes---in-court”">Superman Takes on Other Superheroes - In Court</a></b></i>, Lauren Davis<br /><i><b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/”http://members.socket.net/~hiebert/Essays/Of%20Iron_by_Murray.htm”">Gladiator of Iron</a></b></i>, Will MurrayPádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-37221574120368595252009-11-21T12:59:00.002+00:002011-01-08T10:59:14.451+00:00Marvelman Copyright: I Found My Smoking GunI've been spending quite a bit of time this year in finally getting down to writing an article about the history of Marvelman, something I've been threatening to do for at least the past six years. I say article, but it's much more likely to be a book at this stage, as I've just reached the point at which L. Miller & Son Ltd. are publishing reprints of Fawcett Comics' <i><b>Captain Marvel</b></i> comics, and I'm already nine thousand words in. I have nine chapter headings at the moment, with titles like <strong><em>From Gladiator to Superman,</em></strong> <strong><em>From Superman to Captain Marvel</em></strong>, <strong><em>From Captain Marvel to Marvelman</em></strong>, and so on. At the very end of the piece, I have a chapter called <strong><em>Who Owns Marvelman?</em></strong>, where I'm going to attempt to address the issue of who actually does own the character.<br /><br />Currently, both Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, the two most recent writers to work on Marvelman (mostly in his next incarnation as Miracleman), and two of the most honourable and respected men in the field, are of the opinion that Mick Anglo, who created the character for L. Miller & Son Ltd., held copyright all along. It's not that I wished to disagree with them, but I had always wanted to find some sort of proof that this might have been the case. I've seen a few mentions in articles about Marvelman that state that Anglo had inserted copyright notices into some of the Marvelman comics pages he produced for Miller, but in the absence of any actual proof of this, I was inclined to be cautious. In the course of the six years that I've been researching this article, I've accumulated a lot of bits and pieces in various books and magazines about Marvelman, and not all of them are wholly accurate, and I've tried to take a conservative approach to what I'm writing, so if I can't find a reliable source for a piece of information, I'm not inclined to included it, and I cite my sources as much as possible, except for information that seems to be well known, and that isn't in dispute. So, if I couldn't find some sort of proof for myself, I was just going to have to ignore it.<br /><br />There is one claim that's worth mentioning, before I move on: in the second edition of Matthew H Gore's <strong><em>The Origin of Marvelman</em></strong> (Comics Monographs Vol. 1 No 1, Boardman Books, 2006 & 2008), there is a reproduction of a copyright notice that reads, <em>Mick Anglo Ltd. © 1958</em>, which is explained thus: "<em>Anglo's claim to Marvelman is based on copyright statements like the one reproduced above. Reportedly taken from</em> Marvelman and the Ghost of Old Backwoodsville<em> in </em><strong>Marvelman</strong><em> #297 ...</em>" I have a few problems with this. Firstly, the fact that the author says, "<em>Reportedly taken from...</em>" means that he seems to have only seen a photocopy of the copyright notice, rather that the full story that the notice comes from. Secondly, this notice comes from quite late in Anglo's involvement with the character. The creation of Marvelman took place in late 1953, with his first appearance being in February 1954, in the confusingly numbered <strong><em>Marvelman</em></strong> #25. Although Miller was publishing Marvelman comics until 1963, Anglo ceased produding them in 1959 or 1960. So, a copyright notice from 1958 might only prove that Anglo belatedly decided to lay claim to the character, before finally leaving it altogether soon afterwards. Although of course to mitigate against that is the fact that Miller did actually publish the comic with Anglo's copyright notice in it. In any case, the whole thing is unclear, and not really the kind of unambiguous proof I was looking for.<br /><br />Which, finally, brings me to the main subject of this post! As I said above, in the course of my researches I have accumulated quite a number of books and magazines. One of these is <strong><em>Nostalgia - Spotlight on the Fifties</em></strong> by Michael Anglo (Jupiter Books (London) Limited, 1977). This is it:<br /><br /><br /><div align="center"><a title="Nostalgia 50s cover by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4122063894/"><img height="500" alt="Nostalgia 50s cover" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2756/4122063894_68482f3e64.jpg" width="359" /></a></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br /><br /></div><div align="left">This contains an article called The Age of Marvelman, which tells of Anglo's involvement in the creation of Marvelman, and some more general information about his early years working in comics, and the book is well worth find a copy of if you can just for this. The article is accompanied by some illustrations, and while looking at these I noticed something that I hadn't noticed before. Here's the cover of <strong><em>Young Marvelman</em></strong> #38, which is reproduced in <strong><em>Nostalgia - Spotlight on the Fifties</em></strong>: <br /><br /></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="center"><a title="YM 38 Cover by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4119996983/"><img height="500" alt="YM 38 Cover" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2508/4119996983_253d76b05d.jpg" width="349" /></a></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br /><br />And here's a comics page that's reproduced in <strong><em>Nostalgia - Spotlight on the Fifties</em></strong>, which is obviously related to the cover illustration on <strong><em>Young Marvelman </em></strong>#38:<br /><br /></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="center"><a title="YM 38 by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4118701179/"><img height="500" alt="YM 38" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2645/4118701179_07b484c75f.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"><br /><br />Here's a close-up on the top right-hand panel: </div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="center"><a title="YM Panel Detail by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4119472022/"><img height="500" alt="YM Panel Detail" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2518/4119472022_b9c1e0514b.jpg" width="388" /></a></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"><br /><br />And here's a further close-up, and a 90 degree turn anti-clockwise, of the writing on the right-hand side of that panel:<br /><br /></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="center"><a title="YM Panel Detail 2 by slovobooks, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/slovobooks/4120758770/"><img height="350" alt="YM Panel Detail 2" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2595/4120758770_2d27eb7a31.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"></div><div align="left"></div><br /><br />So, finally, it seems I have all the proof I need. Young Marvelman the character was created at the same time as Marvelman, and <strong><em>Young Marvelman</em></strong> the comic shared the same numbering as <strong><em>Marvelman</em></strong>, so started its weekly schedule at #25. It follows that <strong><em>Young Marvelman</em></strong> #38, from which the above is taken, was published thirteen weeks in the title's run, putting it somewhere in May 1954, and from this there would seem to be no other conclusion to be drawn except that right from the very beginning, Mick Anglo was claiming that he owned the copyright on Marvelman and associated characters. Of course, it is just possible that the copyright notice was added at a later date, like when Anglo was preparing <strong><em>Nostalgia - Spotlight on the Fifties</em></strong> for publication, but I think this is unlikely, as he would have been more careful of its positioning, rather than having it being slightly cut off, as it is on the page that's in the book.<br /><br />This is it. This is my smoking gun. I cannot tell you how excited I was once I put all the pieces together in my head and realised what I'd found. It gives a whole new focus to my <strike>article</strike> book. Now all I need to do is find myself a publisher...Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8509857999978061373.post-70997148831804979952009-07-26T20:33:00.000+01:002009-07-26T20:34:56.416+01:00The Obligatory First PostI have decided I need a blog, above and beyond the few I already have on LiveJournal, so here it is. I have plans for this, which I hope will actually come true...Pádraig Ó Méalóidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04280061646576271412noreply@blogger.com2