You know, Marvel thinks it owns Miracleman because they bought the character from Mick Anglo. As noted already, Miracleman looked like Marvelman but was not. Old time British publishers were a rather shady bunch at times.
Samuel Assael (John Spencer) you can find a little more about here:
Now I parted with cash for rights and that was it. However, it seems there was some "odd" double dealing going on and that got sorted out -it is a very long and boring story.
Gerald Swan I did a deal with to rights for characters and at the time I also assumed that included rights to the actual book titles. I only found out by accident from comic historian Alan Clark that he had purchased rights to the actual titles from Swan -something Swan neglected to tell me. There was some argument between two others who had purchased rights (the same rights) to the pulp side of Swan's business.
When I enquired about Anglo and Marvelman I was told in no uncertain terms that the character was sold off when Anglo quit comics. I was told rights had gone to Alan Class of Class Comics the black and white reprint publisher. Alan didn't think so but then I recall that Ally Sloper fanzine in the 1970s was co-published by Class. He says it was not.
See a pattern here?
I've noted before how I got a phone call early one morning from Myron Fass in the USA who kept calling me "kid" (annoyingly). I purchased rights to the then Captain Marvel (the "Split!" one) and a month later I paid out more. Fass was, apparently, "a character" and in three weeks he almost drove me nuts and always phoned between 0130-0200hrs. He was definitely a shifty fella!
Thorpse and Porter I visited in the 1970s and did a deal with but by that time every penny I had was gone and, to add to problems, the person who was going to pay for printing decided that Indie music was what he wanted to get in on. I tried John Brown (who was publishing Viz at the time) and even Titan who really messed about and were definitely wasting my time deliberately -luckily I have two witnesses to what happened at Titan's rather dingy basement office.
I often laugh when I read or hear what people who never knew me at the time, never knew anything about what I was working on and never asked me later say. They are very authorative in knowing nothing. "Produce the contracts and details" often gets a very subtle but rude response. I am the most open publisher you will find and I hide nothing but I have no time to spend scanning and posting up documents that are no one's concern. Of course, these people are all peripheries these days (and for the last 20+ years).
I was told, by publishers, how to rig sales figures and literally cook the books. If you ever wondewred what happened to the excellently printed Wasted magazine: if you go to Companies house you will find this: The company confirms that its intended future activities are lawful.
Go to HM Revenue and Customs and you find that there was a, uh, tax problem.
Today it is probably harder to get away with shady dealings especially if things are posted and publicised online so dirty deals, tax evasion and a lot more are no longer possible. It is the same in the US and no doubt other parts of the world but if you go back even to the time of Penny Dreadfuls and the Platinum age there were crooked deals and the ones who got the short end were the writers and artists.
Marvel Comics have the right to Miracleman but my question, not that important unless you are a comic historian, is who did Anglo sell Marvelman to originally and I can dismiss the Amalgamated Press because I had them check and they would have made a big show of acquiring the character. Alan Class? Samuel Assael? No idea.
My guess is that reading comics is far more fun than sorting out the shennanigans!
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