Comics - Mick Anglo's Nostalgic Twenties
Having decided to start researching the 1920's for a game I play and am working on, I thought I'd trawl the boot fairs rather than bother buying second hand other peoples finds on e-bay. The boot fairs have been quite good to me over the years, while most things I like have become a difficult to find, there's always something I'm interested in to look out for.
So, having decided to look for books on the 1920's, off I went and I found one almost immediately 'Nostalgia on the Twenties'. It was within my budget, a pound, so I happily handed over my money. All praise the gods of the boot fair.
The author's name caused me to pause. Michael Anglo. I hadn't heard of many Michael Anglo's, none in fact. but I had heard a bit of Mick Anglo, the creator of Marvelman. Marvelman was a 50's comic strip, very popular at the time, but not currently well known generally. It was created to fill a gap when reprints of Captain Marvel (Shazam!) were no longer available due to a lawsuit from DC comics who claimed the character was based on Superman and essentially took the character for themselves. They later had no problem publishing both Captain Marvel and Superman simultaneously.
It doesn't look like a very credible argument today, but at the time it worked. This legal bullying is something that comic companies have a long history of. Similar tactics would be applied to Marvelman when it was resurrected in good faith by Alan Moore. Marvel Comics would decide that a Marvelman character not owned by them was beyond the pale and threatened legal action forcing a name change to Miracleman and the eternal ire of Alan Moore. Now the character seems to have finally been defeated by malevolent forces, as he is the subject of a convoluted rights dispute, trapped in a limbo, guarded by unnatural fiends who have no pity, shame or remorse.
However, it is undoubtedly so that Mick Anglo still owns the rights to the character, despite it being 'borrowed' by others, he having had at least some copyright stated on old Marvelman work and no company claims it. Not that Mick saw a lot of benefit from the character's subsequent use.
And so, we're back to Mick Anglo, and all I previously knew about the man. Not a lot more than he created Marvelman. But in tomorrow's post I'll tell you what I learnt in the fascinating book 'Nostlagia on the Twenties'.
So, having decided to look for books on the 1920's, off I went and I found one almost immediately 'Nostalgia on the Twenties'. It was within my budget, a pound, so I happily handed over my money. All praise the gods of the boot fair.
The author's name caused me to pause. Michael Anglo. I hadn't heard of many Michael Anglo's, none in fact. but I had heard a bit of Mick Anglo, the creator of Marvelman. Marvelman was a 50's comic strip, very popular at the time, but not currently well known generally. It was created to fill a gap when reprints of Captain Marvel (Shazam!) were no longer available due to a lawsuit from DC comics who claimed the character was based on Superman and essentially took the character for themselves. They later had no problem publishing both Captain Marvel and Superman simultaneously.
It doesn't look like a very credible argument today, but at the time it worked. This legal bullying is something that comic companies have a long history of. Similar tactics would be applied to Marvelman when it was resurrected in good faith by Alan Moore. Marvel Comics would decide that a Marvelman character not owned by them was beyond the pale and threatened legal action forcing a name change to Miracleman and the eternal ire of Alan Moore. Now the character seems to have finally been defeated by malevolent forces, as he is the subject of a convoluted rights dispute, trapped in a limbo, guarded by unnatural fiends who have no pity, shame or remorse.
However, it is undoubtedly so that Mick Anglo still owns the rights to the character, despite it being 'borrowed' by others, he having had at least some copyright stated on old Marvelman work and no company claims it. Not that Mick saw a lot of benefit from the character's subsequent use.
And so, we're back to Mick Anglo, and all I previously knew about the man. Not a lot more than he created Marvelman. But in tomorrow's post I'll tell you what I learnt in the fascinating book 'Nostlagia on the Twenties'.
posted by paulvonscott at 8:22 AM
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