Six Gun Gorilla revival

[davidandrewsimpson]

An American publisher is bringing back Six Gun Gorilla, who used to appear in The Wizard.

I suspect that those of you who like Six Gun Gorilla won't be pleased by the plans, but if you're so minded you can read an interview with the writer at http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page ... e&id=44376

[Digifiend]

Seems the guy thinks the copyright lapsed. DCT might not agree.

[philcom55]

Oddly enough I just came across this character, published by Longacre Press in 1961.



Not surprisingly that seems to have been his first and last appearance! I can't help feeling that something similar will happen to Boom! Studio's version of Six Gun Gorilla. Methinks they might be getting a bit confused between UK and US copyright law...!

- Phil R.

[Lew Stringer]

Looks like Reg Parlett artwork on that Longacre Dan strip.

From that interview with Si Spurrier: "The original "Six-Gun Gorilla" stories became a public-domain property years ago, so it really was open season."

The author of the revised Six-Gun Gorilla is British, so presumably he'd have been aware that The Wizard was published by D.C. Thomson and would have contacted them regarding copyright. Just to be sure?

[Phoenix]

In case anyone is interested, here is the synopsis of the serial as it will appear in my forthcoming book This Was The Wizard, which will very soon be finished. All synopses are limited to two or three lines. The linked illustration is on a different page.

[Phoenix]

This is the heading illustration from the first instalment, which obviously I have scanned from the page itself. I do have some sort of lassoo to get rid of the text, but the result is rarely satisfactory, so I don't bother. I prefer the eraser but it does take quite a while.

[philcom55]

I hope they really have covered their bases as far as copyright goes since the character looks too good to languish in obscurity forever. On the other hand I'm still dubious: if it is 'open season' on him then it could open the stable door for countless others - and I can't see DC Thomson being very happy about that! This could well turn out to be a highly significant test case.

I can't help thinking it'd be better for all concerned if Boom! and Thomson's came to some kind of mutually acceptable arrangement - after all, they both stand to benefit if the revival is a success.

- Phil Rushton

[Lew Stringer]

I don't even understand why they're bothering to revive a character that 99% of their readership will be unfamiliar with, then changing parts of its original premise anyway.

Why not just create something new? Or do something like it and call it, I dunno, Gung-Ho Gorilla or something. Either way avoids any copyright problems.

[philcom55]

Yes, I wondered that. At least in the case of Alan Moore's Marvelman and Michael T. Gilbert's Mr. Monster they were reviving characters that they'd genuinely read and enjoyed as children. Presumably the idea here is to give an essentially new character some kind of spurious 'authenticity'?

- Phil R.

[stevezodiac]

Lets hope wildlife gunfighters don't catch on or we'll have The Outlaw Josey Whale.

I have that Wizard that Phoenix has illustrated above so I might read that story at the weekend - well Millwall aren't playing. I picked up the only 1930s Wizard that was to hand and by sheer coincidence it was that very same issue - "quite remarkable."

[philcom55]

Well, here it is! Shown below are the cover, indicia and first two pages of Six-Gun Gorilla no.1.









As far as the character design and story go I don't think anybody would have had any complaint with this comic if it had been called something like 'Gung-Ho Gorilla' as Lew suggested. What's more, I doubt that the title on its own would have ruffled any feathers either. By printing those first two pages without any mention of DC Thomson, however, it seems to me that Boom Studios have opened a real can of worms!

In effect the small print in the indicia amounts to a declaration of ownership - not just of their own version of the character - but also of the character that originally appeared in the Wizard, as portrayed in those first two pages! In fact, while I don't pretend to be an expert on US copyright law, it's my understanding that if DC Thomson don't immediately assert their rights to these images Boom Studios will henceforth be in a position to sue them for breach of copyright if they ever try to reprint their own Six-Gun Gorilla stories in America.

- Phil Rushton

[Lew Stringer]

All the promo pieces about this have referred to Six-Gun Gorilla as being an old "pulp" character, or having appeared in a "pulp magazine", and I don't recall them even mentioning that it was a D.C. Thomson character. It's as though they have no knowledge of story papers (which were considerably different to pulp magazines) or that the original publisher is still very much in existence!

[Digifiend]

Boom are certainly in breach of copyright here, DCT should've been credited at least. They weren't so I must assume that they have no permission to use the character and just assumed his copyright was lapsed. As such, I agree with Phil, DCT need to take them to court, today.

[Phoenix]

Just for the record, the two pages that look as though they could have been scanned from an original copy of The Wizard have both been modified. For the first one, the picture of O'Neil has simply been removed from its surrounding text and narrative, and the word THE has been deleted. The second, has received some Cut and Paste attention. The picture of O'Neil firing at the killers is on page 11 of issue 853, but it sits in the middle of a page of narrative. The only time an instalment is Continued from page 8 occurs in issue 852, and although it does include the wiggly line above it that appears on the BOOM version, again the word THE has been excised. As for the small ads, which do look as if they are from The Wizard, even though they quite regularly printed half a column of ads for stamp collectors (approvals, free packets and the like), and indeed occasionally one for other items (piano accordions, super skates, tents, home billiard tables and so on), I have no recollection whatsoever of a double-column layout like the one they are presenting.

[stevezodiac]

As I mentioned a year or so back there was a strip in the Hotspur called The Equaliser about a bodyguard for hire who advertised in a newspaper - just like the later tv series with Edward Woodward. DCT did nothing then.