Active Images were looking into publishing a collected edition, with an unseen 'banned' story, but now 'can't be bothered' - Read the interview with Richard Starkings:
http://www.newsarama.com/pages/CaseyRama/Casey_Starkings.htm
Reading the interview it's not so much 'can't be bothered' as a pragmatic decision not to pursue a property unlikely to be economically viable.
Active Images is a small operation that reprints works where the creator owns the rights – and with Big Dave those rights seeming to be part-owned by Rebellion, a company whose current dealings with Morrison are strained at best. An amicable deal seems unlikely under these circumstances and even if one could be found it would require more cash than Active are likely to be willing to part with. I don’t think Active Images can really be blamed here for not trying hard enough to reprint Big Dave – it is just something that is not really economical for them to pursue.
On the plus side – Active Images have brought some fantastically good comics back into print – check out strange embraces and Temptation if you haven’t already…
poifict comics business model: don't print the book that has a ready-built audience on both sides of the atlantic, print another five thousand copie of the spiral cage, let them sit in waterstones for *another ten years* while no-one buys them *all over again*, and then maybe you'll have enough money to pursue the project you should have started with! brilliant!
