Complete runs of comics on DVD

[koollectablz]

I'm forever seeing listings of these on eBay.

A lot of sellers claim that they are not violating copyright?

Is that actually true? I mean for comics like Eagle, Topper, Beezer surely the copyright is still in force? Even if the comic itself is decades old?

Even comics like Jet and Thunder, didn't rebellion acquire the rights to the characters?

Just seems that it's people ripping of creators and the rights holders, I'd love to know the actual true legal situation.

[Phoenix]

The sellers are really chancing their arm by creating these DVD compilations and then putting them up for sale, and I would never buy them, although I have frequently seen plenty of them on dealers' tables at comic and ephemera fairs, particularly in London. As far as I'm aware, D. C. Thomsons, the only company whose output seriously interests me, automatically renew copyright on all of their publications from the year dot whenever they come up for renewal. I suppose it may be a different matter if the company that produced the publications has gone out of business, but even then there must surely be some law these people are breaking.

[paw broon]

A lot of those comics on did are breaching copyright. Not all, however. For me, and many others, the problem is sellers making money/cashing in, on old, freely available material which a number of archiving/comics history sites are working hard voluntarily to preserve. Also, I notice there is a lot of recent, mainstream material offered. That can't be right. But many titles are out of copyright because of non renewal or their publishers having inserted nonconformist legal notices, often in the wrong pages, i.e. not conforming to legal requirements. Most of these titles are/were American. Hence legally available runs of Nedor, Fawcett, Avon, many Dell titles, lots of Charlton, etc. Of course, the Dell case brings into question all the reprint WDL comics. And the Fawcett and Charlton case brings up the same question for Miller reprints and other companies who reprinted those stories.

[Digifiend]

^If a comic is public domain, you can reprint it freely, just like you can with prose such as Dickens. But that's usually only the case if the publisher is defunct and the characters aren't still copyrighted, so yeah, most of this stuff is illegal.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

The arms race is perfectly legal in the vast majority of instances, but to me this is of far greater concern than these illegal dvd copies.

[starscape]

I think climate change trumps them all (so to speak), therefore we shouldn't mind the arms race

You know you are allowed to have an opinion on a variety of issues, not just the total annhilation ones?

[Lew Stringer]

I hope the people buying illegal DVDs of British comics will be buying the Rebellion reprints. After all, that's usually the excuse used for supporting piracy; "We need to archive it for future generations".

Well, Rebellion are doing just that with their official new line of classic reprint books, so will pirate-supporters ditch the discs and buy those instead? Nah, they'll carry on buying the illegal discs and supporting pirate websites, just like they did when those Century 21 books came out, which are no longer being published. Then they'll wonder why more publishers aren't reprinting the classics.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Sorry Starscape--I dip in and out of the consumer society as well as take a look at what is happening in the wider world.

I am just as much 'into' mass consumerism as anyone else on here, and comics is one of the interests I still follow.

Lew : I will look into the Rebellion reprints for example I would happily pay out for a compendium of Ken Reid material which would be better than the hit-and-miss quality of dodgy scans.

[paw broon]

Lew says, companies (incl. Rebellion) are " reprinting the classics." and making the suggestion that dvd scans are the reason that these "classics" are no longer being published. Perhaps the fact that some of the Rebellion collections to come are not very good, or not very appealing to many fans and collectors, never mind the general public, is more of a reason. I have to say that One-Eyed Jack doesn't appeal to me, nor does most of the material in Action, for example, and I also don't find it and other Action strips particularly well done, being, as they are not that well written and with art that does nothing for me. Sort of shock for shock's sake. That apart from most Action material being very derivative of movies/tv shows that never tickled my fancy.
Nor do I have scans of One-Eyed Jack.
So I wont buy the collection and I don't think that strip can be considered a classic. Buying a book that I don't fancy isn't a brilliant idea. I will, however, rush out and buy The Leopard of Lime Street, a strip I find highly entertaining.
At the Edinburgh Con the other weekend, I bought, among many physical comics, the Big Finish Avengers book - from Deadhead, a local comic shop. So good. Well put together, well printed and quite, quite charming. But i have no idea how well it is selling, although it might do weel because of the tie-in with the audio versions Big Finish produce. I have and have had for a few years, some quality scans of the strips, but I prefer the physical book. It comes down to personal taste in the end, and for Rebellion and other publishers, if the public don't buy the book, it could well be because they just aren't interested and know nothing about comics.
The Frank Quitely exhibition at Kelvingrove has received huge levels of publicity in places you would never think would cover such a show. Because joe public knows DC Thomson, Superman, Batman, X-Men. The afore-mentioned joe public knows nothing or next to nothing about One-Eyed Jack. Very little to do with dvd scans of old comics.
Publishers shy away from reprinting old comic strips because they don't sell well unless they are mainstream. Notice the titles Titan are reprinting. They might well get away with "classic" X-Men but not "classic" One-Eyed Jack, or TNT Tom, or Billy the Cat, or The Silent Three, or Ace Hart and on and on.........
I'm sure this wont be of interst, but i think it's important, in Spain and other mainland European countries, the reprint books of Rip Kirby, Modesty Blaise, James Bond and other strips sell really well. The internet being available there doesn't seem to have hurt sales. Nor in Netherlands has it stopped De Rode Ridder and other long running comics.
It's a pity, but in Britain, the vast majority just don't care about comics, unless it's on in the local multiplex.
I and others, will keep on trying to archive all the material that publishers wont reprint. And we'll offer our time and efforts, voluntarily, to keep records of our great comics history.
To any of the other members who are interested, don't buy the dvd scans. The material that is pd is readily available for free on any number of sites. And the stuff that is not, leave it alone if it worries you. Or, better still, instead of some of you complaining, write to ebay, trading standards, organisers of marts and cons, pointing out your concerns - and keep doing it. You never know. If you feel strongly stop moaning and start pushing.
Talking about stuff is easy, doing something about is work.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

As I have said before on here Paw, I would pay 50 quid or more for a quality reprint book of I SPY [the black-and-white pages] even although I have decent copies of the original comics.

I will be surprized if I ever see it though: just too risky a venture for a serious publisher looking to stay in business.

One of the reasons these dvd copies have taken off is because of the low cost outlay of digital copying/piracy.

I am not saying it's right I am saying it is easier and cheaper and less risky financially r to put out scan-versions.

Fairly recent technology has made this possible: whatever the legal ethics of this field, it is part of human endeavour, just like unlicensed vinyl bootlegs of unreleased Beatles material found a wide audience prolificated in the 70s.

[Blake Edmonds]

I grabbed a Tiger & Roy Of The Rovers set to read on my tablet, both are woefully incomplete. I guess the complete sets are/were floating around somewhere online, but I could only find the same ones as on the DVDs. Ended up buying a whole bunch of physical comics off eBay to (nearly) complete my sets.

[Phoenix]

I would pay 50 quid or more for a quality reprint book of I SPY [the black-and-white pages] even although I have decent copies of the original comics.

That doesn't make any sense to me, Rab. Why on earth would you do that? When I bought the book containing all the instalments of The Avengers from Diana it was because I didn't have any of them, they hardly ever get advertised for sale, and when they do emerge onto the market they are prohibitively expensive. Also I needed to read them for a project I'm working on without having to go down to London to consult them in the British Library.

[Kashgar]

There aren't too may complete sets of the longer run titles out there. I think there are ones for Valiant and for Hornet and a virtually complete one for Hotspur but certainly none for say Lion, Tiger or Victor and they've barely scratched the surface with comic titles like Dandy, Beano, Topper or Beezer. But, complete or not, they really shouldn't exist in the first place as, in all the above instances and many more, they are illegal.
Thanks to over forty years of diligent collecting I suppose I'm in the enviable position of not being tempted by what I don't need but I'd like to think that I wouldn't succumb to the temptation to buy them in any case.

[philcom55]

I must admit that I did recently acquire a complete run of Valiant on DVD from a friend, even though I already own most issues of the actual comic. Since then I've found that it's much more convenient to use the disc for casual reference or making scans, but in my opinion there is no comparison between a digital copy and the real thing. As far as reprints are concerned I'm not so enthusiastic - unless they are shot from original art or expertly enhanced like John Ridgway's 'colourized' Space Ace stories - and would just as soon see the copyright owners release legal DVD collections of their own.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

There is also a tendency to 'zip' through the material on a disc too quickly---a real comic is more likely to be savoured in comparison.


Real paper comics is the way to go for the serious comic buff.

I regard myself as a fairly keen comics fan [not as obsessive as some I have encountered] and I find comics on dvd offer an opportunity to see a lot of stuff I would probably not see otherwise.