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About a week ago I posted a topic about Public Domain superheroes. I was wondering how people would feel about the use of a character that was no longer in use, and if this was morally wrong. I mistakenly used Miracleman as a point of reference, stating something to the effect that if it was up in the air, anyone could use the character. The replies were interesting, and helped me form my views on this possibility. However, I found that the topic was veering into becoming a Miracleman thread. I was told that not only would using a public domain character be morally wrong, seeing as someone who was no doubt underpaid and unappreciated and I would effectively be robbing them again, but to do so on Miracleman would be a big ol' slap in the face to Neil Gaiman. I saw this stance as being a bit odd, and tried to present my case, but found that I really should get some actual evidence to back it up. So here's a proper Miracleman thread.
If you need to bone up on the tangled history of Miracleman, you could do worse than to check here.
1) Moore (or Gaiman) was the creator of Miracleman.
Gaiman did not create Miracleman. Moore did not create Miracleman. In fact, Gaiman was not even born before the creation of Miracleman, and Alan Moore would have to have been a one year old genius to have invented the character. A man named Mick Anglo created the character in 1953. The idea that Neil Gaiman holds the rights to Miracleman because Alan Moore gave them to him ignores the fact that Alan Moore got those rights from someone else. If your definition of "creator" is so broad as to include people who worked on the title as it progressed, fair enough. But neither of the writers on the 80's version of Miracleman were the "original creators".
2) Gaiman legally owns Miracleman
No creative person has ever owned a majority of the modern version of the character Miracleman. Gaiman currently owns half of one-third. He also has temporary control of Buckingham's half of one-third. McFarlane owns two thirds, which he bought entirely legally, just as legally (supposedly; see below) as Dez Skinn, the first publisher of the modern day Miracleman bought his.
3) Dez Skinn acquired Miracleman legally
It is unknown whether Dez Skinn actually bought the rights to Miracleman from Mick Anglo, or if he just assumed that the rights were up in the air and picked them up for nothing. Either way, there is the possibility that Dez Skinn never actually had the rights to Miracleman, and therefore neither did Moore, Gaiman, McFarlane, or any of the other creators on this project. Technically, Anglo's rights may be cast aside due to the fact that he has not fought to reclaim them. Morally, however, what has happened to Mick Anglo is just a little dubious, and has been almost completely ignored.
4) Gaiman agreed to exchange Angela for Miracleman, but McFarlane backed out.
According to the Neil Gaiman, “Todd promised, in writing, that he would give me all his rights to Miracleman, pay me for his use of Angela, Medieval Spawn and Cogliostro, pay for the reprints of the stories I'd written in graphic novel form in the U.S. and all over the world and so forth. I was relieved there was some kind of agreement.”
The writer says he still has the written agreement. “He sent the film for all the Miracleman graphic novels over," Gaiman said. "I put it in the basement, and sent him a fax asking for a transfer of rights in writing and for him to clarify that he held clear title to Miracleman through Eclipse, so I could do something with it. I never heard anything from him. And I should have figured out something was wrong when the payments stopped.
”In February of 1999 I got a letter from him out of the blue saying he'd thought better of the agreement and would give me the rights to Miracleman in exchange for me giving him all the rights for Angela. This seemed kind of weird, as he'd already given me the rights to Miracleman. Either way, he's never replied to any other letters from me or from my lawyers trying to get to the bottom of any of this.”
As far as Gaiman is concerned, the agreements are still in effect even though McFarlane has not responded to requests for clarification.
“Yes, I have agreements on this from Todd, and yes, I have the film in the basement. Whether these are worth anything is anybody's guess."
Gaiman would later state that "He gave me his share of the rights in exchange for all my share in the Cogliostro character in 1997."
This seems to be a pretty sneaky tactic on McFarlane's part, if it is true. He seemed to have changed his mind about the exact terms of the trade midway through, and upped the ante. While this may be morally dubious, let it be noted that Gaiman could have conducted a trade between Angela and Miracleman but chose not to. This isn't to suggest that Gaiman made a bad decision, but to show that this whole mess could have been sorted out if he had taken the deal.
I realize that this may be a little too detail conscious, but this situation is like a comics JFK conspiracy. The more I read, the more I learn, and the more I want to learn. I'm finding that the business of comics is becoming almost as fascinating to me as the comics themselves. So, sorry if I've bored you.
The reason I've posted all this is because I find the overwhelming positivity towards Gaiman to be a little on the ridiculous side. It seems that the reason most people want Gaiman to claim (not reclaim) the rights is simply because he's a good writer and McFarlane is not. The same people who protest Mcfarlane's buying Miracleman instead of having those rights given to him by Gaiman forget that Dez Skinn, and by association Moore and Gaiman, bought those rights themselves. Or they just took them because they were there and no one was using them. The same people who say that McFarlane should not hold the rights to Miracleman because he will change the character to something other than what Moore and Gaiman had planned forget that Moore and Gaiman did the exact same thing to Anglo's version of Miracleman, and to an extent that was probably more radical than McFarlane's treatment will be. And those same people go on to say that if McFarlane wanted a Miracleman-like character, he should have just left Miracleman alone and made a copy. Of course, Moore had that same option when he purloined Miracleman himself in the 80s.
None of this is to suggest that Moore and Gaiman are morally in the wrong. Only that they seem to be on the same moral footing as Mcarlane as regards this character. I dislike McFarlane for his previous dirty dealings with Gaiman and other creators. And I would hope that he would not only pay the other co-owners a share of the profits from his recent recreation of Miracleman, or better yet, wait to publish new Miracleman stories until after this mess has been sorted out in the courts. So, yes, I do believe McFarlane should not be publishing the issue of Hellspwan with Miracleman, and I will not be purchasing this issue. But this does not mean that I believe his case is totally without merit. |
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