What If Alien...

[ManofTheAtom]

What's the deal with Red Sonja? I know that's been an issue for decades, but clearly Marvel doesn't own her.

I just read this because I assumed her character was public domain, but it ha s convoluted history...


https://www.cbr.com/marvel-red-sonja-conan-deal/


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Indeed.

[grendeljd]

Another late response here (I’m working on reading “new” posts all the way down to page 3 as I’ve been away for a bit)…

Inspired to respond *almost entirely* because Greg mentioned my absolute favourite (& often unfairly maligned) shared universe - the Marvel New U!!

I have a few thoughts as far as the whole issue with licensing around existing IP’s and what to do about creating new ones, and the sticky mess of how that may play out with Alien books using Valiant IP…

Just speaking from some limited personal experience (namely seeing this side of the business from my wife’s perspective as a freelance illustrator over the last 10 years), licensors (DMG) are essentially just looking to collect fees on the use of their IP by any other business (Alien), with minimal/no additional expenses involved.

They will have some degree of oversight and final approval over any form of content being produced within the IP - this is likely one of the main tasks of whomever is remaining within Valiant (did I read somewhere this year that there are currently only 3 employees left in Valiant proper?).

Everything else about it will be handled by Alien, who is a publisher themselves and can manage all that side of it. They just incur the licensing fee on top of all the other expenses required to produce and release the books. They would be responsible for making sure they don’t do anything with the character IP’s that falls outside of the copyright limitations without approval from DMG first. In a large company like Disney as an example, there is always a committee of Disney employees that will be dedicated to working with any outside creative team to ensure nothing falls outside their set of rules or guidelines for public presentation of their characters.

DMG might just have one guy (or two) rubber stamping anything Alien does… or they may care even less than that as long as they get their fee. It’s probably a really good thing that some former VEI peeps are going over to Alien to work with them on the Valiant projects - they will already have a relationship established with the ones left at Valiant, and are essentially already a team of established VEI editors etc that can get the projects underway.

The question of whether or not Alien might create new IP characters for Valiant books? It is possible - I don’t know if any new characters would actually be owned by Alien in that case or if it might fall more under a work-for-hire contract agreement with DMG. What Valiant did with the Gold Key characters was a bold & successful move for the time, but look at how it shook out since then - mostly a giant pain to deal with separated IP licenses.

Taking the example mentioned above where Matt Kindt created Divinity (among others) and Josh Dysart created The Bleeding Monk… those characters would have been made under the common W.F.H. understanding that VEI owns the right to them.

I suspect that Alien will most likely focus on putting out recognizable VEI characters and using whatever brand recognition remains as their best marketing tool for success. I’m ok with that and am looking forward to any new Valiant books from them.

I imagine that comics based on IP like Star Trek, Star Wars, Power Rangers, Transformers, G.I. Joe and the like HAVE introduced entirely original characters not present in the original source material.

For instance, that space bunny character in the Marvel Star Wars comics of the '70s.

Who owns that character, Lucasfilm or Marvel? Or do they share ownership?

What's the deal with Red Sonja? I know that's been an issue for decades, but clearly Marvel doesn't own her.

So maybe the Star Wars example isn’t the best one as Disney currently owns every side of the Marvel/Lucasfilm IP aspects and can use any or all of it at any time they want to, lol

But I understand your point - there are plenty of examples of licensees adding new elements to an existing IP in the past. I think that in general, the industry surrounding licensing IP’s in a multi-media environment has “grown up” since the hey-days of the 70’s/80’s/90’s. Companies have become much more hyper-aware of the financial value and importance of securing IP’s as an intangible asset, and the legalities surrounding it have come into much sharper focus as well. I don’t think anyone can get away with as much as easily as they could in the old “hand-shake” days - and I think that creative professionals are also a lot more aware of the power they hold as the ones who create this stuff in the first place, and are more likely to be more careful with what they do on a work-for-hire agreement.

Matt Kindt is a very interesting example of a guy in the modern era who contributed a massive slew of new creative ideas & characters to VEI. It’s a special thing that he was willing to do it freely and give so much to modern Valiant under that arrangement. There are new ideas and characters that come along at the Big 2 still, but they seem to be more limited and I notice a sort of inbred pattern to Marvel titles where every popular character seems to have to go through a phase of becoming blended into another popular character for a stint. “Iron Widow” “Gwen-pool” “Uncanny Avengers” “Red Goblin” etc. etc.

DMG/Valiant/Alien are all relatively small potato indie publishers (that’s not an insult to any of them except DMG, who think they’re bigger than they are [and I’m essentially talking about you-know-who only] - I personally love smaller publishers more than ever these days, otherwise) - I am honestly curious to see how the future of Valiant plays out at Alien in terms of seeing any new characters.

My larger point in all this rambling is that I think there’s a lot more reluctance to get into sticky legal situations in the current environment and level of awareness of this sort of thing, so it seems less likely that we will get the kinds of things you brought up at the start of this post, but I’m not forming a hard opinion against anyone out there potentially being willing to add in new IP elements to an existing licence either. Time will tell in this case.

[ManofTheAtom]

So maybe the Star Wars example isn’t the best one as Disney currently owns every side of the Marvel/Lucasfilm IP aspects and can use any or all of it at any time they want to, lol

I completely forgot, lol.

But I understand your point - there are plenty of examples of licensees adding new elements to an existing IP in the past. I think that in general, the industry surrounding licensing IP’s in a multi-media environment has “grown up” since the hey-days of the 70’s/80’s/90’s. Companies have become much more hyper-aware of the financial value and importance of securing IP’s as an intangible asset, and the legalities surrounding it have come into much sharper focus as well. I don’t think anyone can get away with as much as easily as they could in the old “hand-shake” days - and I think that creative professionals are also a lot more aware of the power they hold as the ones who create this stuff in the first place, and are more likely to be more careful with what they do on a work-for-hire agreement.

Matt Kindt is a very interesting example of a guy in the modern era who contributed a massive slew of new creative ideas & characters to VEI. It’s a special thing that he was willing to do it freely and give so much to modern Valiant under that arrangement. There are new ideas and characters that come along at the Big 2 still, but they seem to be more limited and I notice a sort of inbred pattern to Marvel titles where every popular character seems to have to go through a phase of becoming blended into another popular character for a stint. “Iron Widow” “Gwen-pool” “Uncanny Avengers” “Red Goblin” etc. etc.

DMG/Valiant/Alien are all relatively small potato indie publishers (that’s not an insult to any of them except DMG, who think they’re bigger than they are [and I’m essentially talking about you-know-who only] - I personally love smaller publishers more than ever these days, otherwise) - I am honestly curious to see how the future of Valiant plays out at Alien in terms of seeing any new characters.

My larger point in all this rambling is that I think there’s a lot more reluctance to get into sticky legal situations in the current environment and level of awareness of this sort of thing, so it seems less likely that we will get the kinds of things you brought up at the start of this post, but I’m not forming a hard opinion against anyone out there potentially being willing to add in new IP elements to an existing licence either. Time will tell in this case.

Indeed, it will.

[grendeljd]

And just to pull another detail from my wife’s experience as a pro illustrator into this discussion - there are times when she is hired to create new posters and/or dvd package art for classic movies. For the posters specifically, it can be a nightmare to land a project if all the licensing isn’t secured tightly.

The rights to the film itself, the rights to the credit blocks, and the rights to the likenesses of any stars of the film all need to be separately locked down. A poster can still get made without likeness or credit block rights, but that is often a death-knell for the success of the poster release. Not always, but often.

[grendeljd]

^also, when I say likeness rights above for posters - I mean that those rights often need to be secured separately for nearly every single famous person in the movie. And even if you have those rights - you still have to run your final art by their reps for every single one of them individually to get approval to do the image.

[ManofTheAtom]

^also, when I say likeness rights above for posters - I mean that those rights often need to be secured separately for nearly every single famous person in the movie. And even if you have those rights - you still have to run your final art by their reps for every single one of them individually to get approval to do the image.

Yeah, I've read about that over the years.

Didn't it originate with Back to The Future 2?

[grendeljd]

^also, when I say likeness rights above for posters - I mean that those rights often need to be secured separately for nearly every single famous person in the movie. And even if you have those rights - you still have to run your final art by their reps for every single one of them individually to get approval to do the image.

Yeah, I've read about that over the years.

Didn't it originate with Back to The Future 2?

I couldn’t say - I don’t have any background knowledge on the history of it, I just assume it’s something that comes with the business. As much as it can be frustrating to land likeness rights and/or deal with the people who approve their use, I have no issue with it being part of the industry. Writers, artists, actors, etc… we would have *no* pop culture entertainment if it wasn’t for the people who have the talent and skill to make it, no matter how much money non-creatives/business people throw at something.

[ManofTheAtom]

^also, when I say likeness rights above for posters - I mean that those rights often need to be secured separately for nearly every single famous person in the movie. And even if you have those rights - you still have to run your final art by their reps for every single one of them individually to get approval to do the image.

Yeah, I've read about that over the years.

Didn't it originate with Back to The Future 2?

I couldn’t say - I don’t have any background knowledge on the history of it, I just assume it’s something that comes with the business. As much as it can be frustrating to land likeness rights and/or deal with the people who approve their use, I have no issue with it being part of the industry. Writers, artists, actors, etc… we would have *no* pop culture entertainment if it wasn’t for the people who have the talent and skill to make it, no matter how much money non-creatives/business people throw at something.

Indeed.

I do remember reading that Glover sued Universal over the use of his image in the sequel, which, apparently, they didn't have the right to use.