Right, when I posted the covers of Valiant They Were 1, 2, 4 and 5 I said there was a reason I could not post no.3. Well, here is the reason.
Firstly, this cover was drawn in 1999 so is a bit rough and before colouring it I wanted to redraw it. You see, I was approached by someone who was going to publish a collection of Captain Hurricane and Steel Commando stories. He had seen this cover and wanted to use it, redrawn and coloured.
Fair enough.
But something was niggling me. He (Peter Nichols) would not get pinned down on what he was going to pay, when the art was needed by or when the book was to be published.
So, I checked. It appears that he had approached IPC, who were not interested and told him "We no longer get involved in comics" and then Egmont who told him the characters had "nothing to do with us". So, he thought he could produce a 150 page book reprinting all the old strips.
Now, technically the characters were never copyrighted (and it appears neither were comic titles which I only found out last week and THAT did surprise me) and after this amount of time they are "wandering the ether" BUT the original strips were paid for so unless IPC/Egmont say "That's okay" you can't do that.
So I emailed and told him what I had found out. Response was "I never actually said I'd paiy(sic) for a cover. I don't want to talk about this" End of exchange.
Comics, heh?
Oh, yes, Captain Hurricane IS based on a photo of Brian Blessed from his unbearded Z-Cars days!
Firstly, this cover was drawn in 1999 so is a bit rough and before colouring it I wanted to redraw it. You see, I was approached by someone who was going to publish a collection of Captain Hurricane and Steel Commando stories. He had seen this cover and wanted to use it, redrawn and coloured.
Fair enough.
But something was niggling me. He (Peter Nichols) would not get pinned down on what he was going to pay, when the art was needed by or when the book was to be published.
So, I checked. It appears that he had approached IPC, who were not interested and told him "We no longer get involved in comics" and then Egmont who told him the characters had "nothing to do with us". So, he thought he could produce a 150 page book reprinting all the old strips.
Now, technically the characters were never copyrighted (and it appears neither were comic titles which I only found out last week and THAT did surprise me) and after this amount of time they are "wandering the ether" BUT the original strips were paid for so unless IPC/Egmont say "That's okay" you can't do that.
So I emailed and told him what I had found out. Response was "I never actually said I'd paiy(sic) for a cover. I don't want to talk about this" End of exchange.
Comics, heh?
Oh, yes, Captain Hurricane IS based on a photo of Brian Blessed from his unbearded Z-Cars days!
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