BREAKING NEWS (04/27/2005)... VALIANT SALE FINALIZED!

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 11:37 pm

SolarFan777 wrote:I just spent 20 min. reading this 7 page thread and I still don't know what's going on!

I think a quick summary would be that two parties had rather similar bids and while all the legalities go on, noone can make their official announcements. While we may be biting our nails, I wonder how they feel. We'll see. I think this will turn out very well.

/Magnus

speedracex · Post by **speedracex** » Sat Apr 30, 2005 6:51 am

just when you thought it was over......

gowaltrip · Post by **gowaltrip** » Sun May 01, 2005 5:55 pm

SolarFan777 wrote:I just spent 20 min. reading this 7 page thread and I still don't know what's going on!

Me either, I have gotten behind lately.

Im so confused

shadowmite · Post by **shadowmite** » Sun May 01, 2005 6:06 pm

Finished!

Sounds like very good news. The other bidders do not look like they understand what Valiant is and might have tried to copy Marvel. I did not like the idea of mini series and variant covers so early in the new Valiant. Valiant made the best special editions but they paid for it and the comic world is different now. I hope the new owners tell us what they have planned soon.

DeadshotFan · Post by **DeadshotFan** » Mon May 02, 2005 3:49 am

Okay, I think I follow this. Taddaeo (spelling?) is out. The guys who won have applied for trademarks? But despite all the hoopla Magnus and Solar are not included in this package? And the people who have Magnus and Solar do not really HAVE them so much as they were on loan to Valiant initially? Where is Turok?
Bottom line for me is Eternal Warrior coming back? I have no clue past Valiant issue #46 as to this characters ultimate fate. Not sure I want to know.
Magnus supposedly is due in GN format but what I saw did not look to much like Manning's vision so I doubt I will get to excited.
I am confused.

shadowmite · Post by **shadowmite** » Mon May 02, 2005 4:10 am

DeadshotFan wrote:Okay, I think I follow this. Taddaeo (spelling?) is out. The guys who won have applied for trademarks? But despite all the hoopla Magnus and Solar are not included in this package? And the people who have Magnus and Solar do not really HAVE them so much as they were on loan to Valiant initially? Where is Turok?
Bottom line for me is Eternal Warrior coming back? I have no clue past Valiant issue #46 as to this characters ultimate fate. Not sure I want to know.
Magnus supposedly is due in GN format but what I saw did not look to much like Manning's vision so I doubt I will get to excited.
I am confused.

The people who now won have not applied for trademarks. Didn't they say they were not VIP? I think it is safe to say Eternal Warrior will be back in some form.

Todd Luck · Post by **Todd Luck** » Mon May 02, 2005 4:21 pm

DeadshotFan wrote:Okay, I think I follow this. Taddaeo (spelling?) is out. The guys who won have applied for trademarks? But despite all the hoopla Magnus and Solar are not included in this package? And the people who have Magnus and Solar do not really HAVE them so much as they were on loan to Valiant initially? Where is Turok?
Bottom line for me is Eternal Warrior coming back? I have no clue past Valiant issue #46 as to this characters ultimate fate. Not sure I want to know.
Magnus supposedly is due in GN format but what I saw did not look to much like Manning's vision so I doubt I will get to excited.
I am confused.

Bottom line. If the new owners of the Valiant characters want to publish it we'll definately see Eternal Warrior agian. Solar, Turok, and Magnus are owned by a different company (yes, they were licensed to Valiant for 10 years) and were not part of the deal. Magnus has new graphic novels coming from Ibooks and both Solar and Magnus have recently had hardcover reprints of their old comics from 40 year ago.

riftt · Post by **riftt** » Mon May 02, 2005 5:38 pm

So where are the rights to the actual valiant output? I'm thinking in terms of reprints and trades - who owns the artwork? This is as important to me as any new prospective relaunch.

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:45 am

riftt wrote:So where are the rights to the actual valiant output? I'm thinking in terms of reprints and trades - who owns the artwork? This is as important to me as any new prospective relaunch.

That is very good question. It's been guessed that any usage of Magnus, Turok and Solar, including reprints must be approved by whoever holds Godl Key's trademarks. That limits things unless the legalities are cleared and/or a deal made.

Speking of legalities, I'm sure there's a lot of things to wrap up in a sale like this, but the silence in unnerving. I wonder if something is holding up things more than needed, like these VIP trademark issues.

/Magnus

BodaZoffa · Post by **BodaZoffa** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:58 am

I can't understand why there is so much sparked interest by investors on buying this property when it has been dead for 10yrs. As far as the majority of comic collectors & investors are concerned... Valiant is ancient history.

Now, to those select few (us and a few other collectors) we realize the potential for a Valiant re-launch. But, it investors wanted this property that bad, why did'nt they just buy it from Akklaim years ago. I'm sure Akklaim would have sold.

jedimarley · Post by **jedimarley** » Tue May 03, 2005 4:28 am

BodaZoffa wrote:I can't understand why there is so much sparked interest by investors on buying this property when it has been dead for 10yrs. As far as the majority of comic collectors & investors are concerned... Valiant is ancient history.

Now, to those select few (us and a few other collectors) we realize the potential for a Valiant re-launch. But, it investors wanted this property that bad, why did'nt they just buy it from Akklaim years ago. I'm sure Akklaim would have sold.

I do not understand this either.
I would think it would be faster and cheaper to start a comic book company from the ground up then to spend months if not years in court trying to get the rights to characters that failed twice and haven't been seen for almost 10 yrs.
Investors tended to want to see a quick turnaround on there money.
IMO, I do not think we are going to see any new valiants for quite some tine.

DawgPhan · Post by **DawgPhan** » Tue May 03, 2005 7:37 am

Todd Luck wrote:
DeadshotFan wrote:Okay, I think I follow this. Taddaeo (spelling?) is out. The guys who won have applied for trademarks? But despite all the hoopla Magnus and Solar are not included in this package? And the people who have Magnus and Solar do not really HAVE them so much as they were on loan to Valiant initially? Where is Turok?
Bottom line for me is Eternal Warrior coming back? I have no clue past Valiant issue #46 as to this characters ultimate fate. Not sure I want to know.
Magnus supposedly is due in GN format but what I saw did not look to much like Manning's vision so I doubt I will get to excited.
I am confused.
Bottom line. If the new owners of the Valiant characters want to publish it we'll definately see Eternal Warrior agian. Solar, Turok, and Magnus are owned by a different company (yes, they were licensed to Valiant for 10 years) and were not part of the deal. Magnus has new graphic novels coming from Ibooks and both Solar and Magnus have recently had hardcover reprints of their old comics from 40 year ago.

No not bottom line, they could have very well have bought the characters, but not have the rights to publish anything by them. I dont think that we should get ahead of ourselves..when things are certain we will know.

wrunow · Post by **wrunow** » Tue May 03, 2005 8:56 am

Patience gentleman is a virtue when dealing with issues like this, someone is trying to make a deal on these properties, probably has a game plan already, and needs to make sure the deal is right so the rug can't get pulled out from under him.

We all know how one of the original partners in VALIANT (you know who) lost control because his deal wasn't right, let's give these new people plenty of time so his plans will have a solid legal and financial base.

k_c_collectibles · Post by **k_c_collectibles** » Tue May 03, 2005 10:53 am

wrunow wrote:We all know how one of the original partners in VALIANT (you know who) lost control because his deal wasn't right, let's give these new people plenty of time so his plans will have a solid legal and financial base.

Amen to that!

I hope that whoever won the auction ensures that all the paperwork is in place so there is no chance of legal issues down the road. I just want the characters back in print and done by someone who cares about them like Dino as I am sure he would do them right.

I can wait until all the paperwork is done and everything is good to go. Patience is one of my strong points, well at least MOST of the time...

Chris

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:33 pm

wrunow wrote:needs to make sure the deal is right so the rug can't get pulled out from under him.

I hope that's all there is. If there is anything beyond normal paperwork that could be problems it should be the trademark issue as reported on Newsorama. I'm not sure on US trademark laws. VIP has applications in. Is there any risk they could get those applications approved? Even if they have no chance/intention of actually using the trademarks? Could something happen like in the domain name world, where names can be hijacked?

Hopefully the paper works are being completed as safely and carefully as can be, and the legitimate buyer will be the only one that can get trademark applications approved. For that I more than happily wait. No wait is too long for he who waits for something good. Another possibility would be that things are delayed through for example VIP. I hope not. If anyone can enlighten me on whether there is a legal risk of that, I'd appreciate to know.

/Magnus

k_c_collectibles · Post by **k_c_collectibles** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:59 pm

magnusr wrote:Could something happen like in the domain name world, where names can be hijacked?

I know this has happened in the past. People have purchased the rights to certain domain names with the sole intention of selling them later to the company they should rightfully belong to. I realize it is a "you snooze, you lose situation", but there should be some reasonable solution other than someone getting paid big bucks for a name they don't intend to use.

What I am worried about is that the VIP people will actually get approval for their applications. Then there would be a big *SQUEE* match between them and the people that won the auction over the use of the characters delaying either books being produced or the use of some of the key characters in the Valiant Universe. I have been told by a fellow board member that they don't have a snowballs chance in hell of getting approved, but stranger things have happened...

Just my $.02,
Chris

soundoftheuniverse · Post by **soundoftheuniverse** » Tue May 03, 2005 5:58 pm

The more I hear about these guys and their tactics the more they feel like Marvel, DC or some other big player who's tying to protect their comic line from competition.

This has always been my personal worse case scenario. If it's uncovered these guys are big funny book players I think we can kiss our characters goodbye.

PS. Archi, I read your post and I've got your back. I dunno about 100 letters a day but I will raise a stink to high heaven if some funny book manufacturer thinks they're going to let my Valiant boys rot in their compost heap of unused properties.

wrunow · Post by **wrunow** » Tue May 03, 2005 8:42 pm

soundoftheuniverse wrote:The more I hear about these guys and their tactics the more they feel like Marvel, DC or some other big player who's tying to protect their comic line from competition.

This has always been my personal worse case scenario. If it's uncovered these guys are big funny book players I think we can kiss our characters goodbye.

PS. Archi, I read your post and I've got your back. I dunno about 100 letters a day but I will raise a stink to high heaven if some funny book manufacturer thinks they're going to let my Valiant boys rot in their compost heap of unused properties.

That may be the case with one of the big players sotu, but I doubt it very much, if Q wanted these properties he probably could have bought them with his expense account and not have to gone through all the bother with the trademark crap and the marvel house lawyers would have handled the rest.

ValiantFanSince1991 · Tue May 03, 2005 11:56 pm

Wow, as a hard-core former Valiant fan who (for a while at least) at used to get near weekly packages containing gold book goodies from Valiant and still has 9-10 long boxes containing at least two copies of every (normal) Valiant book published, I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised to hear that John's bid fell through.

No offense to John, but I started lurking over here once a week or so since I first learned in March that the characters were going to be auctioned, and while I don't know a damn thing about these new buyers, I do know that the more I learned about John and his remarkably unambitious plans for the characters that I love, the more disappointed and upset I was.

I mean was I the only one who felt that after waiting so long, these characters deserved a better fate than to seemingly become the personal plaything of some 30-something rich guy who has no real creative experience (being a mid-level marketing guy doesn't mean you know squat about the creative side of things) and was only planning on publishing a miniseries or two a year?

From what I can tell, John's been touting his X-O-ripoff Zoom Suit series for months and months and its still not out (and it sounds like there are like half a dozen guys handling the art... a sure recipe for disaster and something that's typically the sign of a "spare time" effort) -- suddenly we were to believe that this guy was going to be the person that would resurrect our cherished characters and bring them back to where they should be?

I know nothing of these new bidders, and in the end, they might be worse, and I mean nothing against John personally, but I'm glad that his Valiant era has been aborted before it even began, I just never got the feeling that, IHMO, he was going to do justice to these characters. As far as I'm concerned, its better to leave them dead as they are now than to publish two miniseries a year... argh.

wrunow · Post by **wrunow** » Wed May 04, 2005 6:47 am

ValiantFanSince1991 wrote:Wow, as a hard-core former Valiant fan who (for a while at least) at used to get near weekly packages containing gold book goodies from Valiant and still has 9-10 long boxes containing at least two copies of every (normal) Valiant book published, I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised to hear that John's bid fell through.

No offense to John, but I started lurking over here once a week or so since I first learned in March that the characters were going to be auctioned, and while I don't know a damn thing about these new buyers, I do know that the more I learned about John and his remarkably unambitious plans for the characters that I love, the more disappointed and upset I was.

I mean was I the only one who felt that after waiting so long, these characters deserved a better fate than to seemingly become the personal plaything of some 30-something rich guy who has no real creative experience (being a mid-level marketing guy doesn't mean you know squat about the creative side of things) and was only planning on publishing a miniseries or two a year?

From what I can tell, John's been touting his X-O-ripoff Zoom Suit series for months and months and its still not out (and it sounds like there are like half a dozen guys handling the art... a sure recipe for disaster and something that's typically the sign of a "spare time" effort) -- suddenly we were to believe that this guy was going to be the person that would resurrect our cherished characters and bring them back to where they should be?

I know nothing of these new bidders, and in the end, they might be worse, and I mean nothing against John personally, but I'm glad that his Valiant era has been aborted before it even began, I just never got the feeling that, IHMO, he was going to do justice to these characters. As far as I'm concerned, its better to leave them dead as they are now than to publish two miniseries a year... argh.

Nice first post, welcome to the boards.

myron · Post by **myron** » Wed May 04, 2005 8:21 am

BodaZoffa wrote:I can't understand why there is so much sparked interest by investors on buying this property when it has been dead for 10yrs. As far as the majority of comic collectors & investors are concerned... Valiant is ancient history.

Now, to those select few (us and a few other collectors) we realize the potential for a Valiant re-launch. But, it investors wanted this property that bad, why did'nt they just buy it from Akklaim years ago. I'm sure Akklaim would have sold.

Cost-effectiveness...

someone trying to get something for nothing...and F with everyone else in the process...

bastiges.... :x

ValiantFanSince1991 · Wed May 04, 2005 12:11 pm

wrunow wrote:Nice first post, welcome to the boards.

Thanks, like I said, in the pre-WWW days, I used to be a huge fan, discussing the titles in probably far too much detail on the Internet's old Usenet newsgroups, contributing to an email newsletter, etc. I really liked the books a lot -- although near the end of VH1, it was hard to stay interested in some of the titles given that they were becoming a shell of their former selves.... it was just painful to watch.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Wed May 04, 2005 1:58 pm

it was hard to stay interested in some of the titles given that they were becoming a shell of their former selves.... it was just painful to watch.

It was painful for all of us.

jedimarley · Post by **jedimarley** » Wed May 04, 2005 3:40 pm

Daniel Jackson wrote:
it was hard to stay interested in some of the titles given that they were becoming a shell of their former selves.... it was just painful to watch.

It was painful for all of us.

It still is painful ...

hocuspocus01 · Post by **hocuspocus01** » Fri May 06, 2005 8:37 pm

any new news on the situation? i hope it gets solved, it would be good to see those books in print again