Star Trek Comics Go ‘Round and ‘Round
According to CBS Consumer Products, the entire Star Trek comic book oeuvre from 1967 through 2002 will be released on a single DVD-ROM disc this September 1st.
The disc, produced by Graphic Imaging Technology, will contain everything published by Gold Key, Marvel, DC, and Malibu. This includes work by Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Dave Cockrum, Tom Sutton, Mike W. Barr, George Pérez, Tony Isabella, Peter David, Robert Greenberger… pretty close to a Who’s Who of comics creators of the past couple decades.
IDW and ToykoPop are the current Trek comics publishers, but their works are not included on this disc. It will be available at big-box electronics stores and wherever better DVD-ROMs are sold.
Interesting. I wonder if any of the creators on those books will get any "residuals" from this "reprint" of their work. So far I haven't been contacted, and I drew a few mini-series for Malibu and a series of issues for DC (and my address hasn't changed since then). Hmmmm…
Residuals? You expect residuals? Like Spock said "Comic book professionals are not logical.
What did your contract say? Did it have royalties and were they restricted to then-extant mediums, or were all future reprints included, or was that question not addessed at all?I would assume that whatever deal you originally had would carry over; if there was no mention of as-yet-unavailable (at the time) media, i'd guess it might be a crapshoot, uless it specifically said something along the use of "all future use".
I would suspect that because Malibu no longer exists there will be no royalties. Even if there are, I would suspect you might only get enough for a few cups of coffee.
Whether Malibu exists or doesn't, someone is handling their properties and the original contracts are l;ikely to be applicable – if you can catch them.
Contracts are frequently voided when a company goes through bankruptcy. That's one of the reasons to bother going through a bankruptcy filing.
Price?
Good question. My high school journalism teacher would have flunked me.It wasn't in the press release, but Amazon is selling it for $49.95, or $69.94 if you bundle it with Jughead Bronze-Age Stories. Now there's a great fit…
September 1st is Labor Day, so more likely the 2nd.And , hey, you forgot to mention Rob Davis. ;-)
I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for someone to pay me for this reprint of Perchance to Dream. Then again, that's the joy of work-for-hire on licensed comics….Heck, at this point, I'm just glad to see my first-ever Star Trek fiction being readily available again…..
My contracts at Malibu (bought out by Marvel, btw…) had a clause about reprint royalties (I'll have to dig in my files to see if I still have the darn thing and the exact wording on rights). But I'd tend to agree that the cup of coffee remark is probably correct, though it would be nice to be contacted by the publisher. It will at least be nice to see some of my Trek work in print again even if it's digital and not dead trees.
Did the contracts cover new media back then?
They did at First Comics, Rick. For what that's worth. Then again, First was just about the only house that didn't do Star Trek.
I found one of my contracts, or "Talent Agreement" ("Creator" in this case being Paramount- now Viacom)… (clause 20 (c)):"…Talent acknowledges that the Creator, or Malibu, or both, may exploit Talent's Contribution to the Series in any and all media, worldwide, in perpetuity, without permission for which the Talent shall be paid in accordance with this Agreement."And then there's this (clause 6(e)): "One hundred (100%) of the fee percentage in 6(a) will be paid for all income received from publication or licensing of publication rights of the Series to other publishers."Six (a) talks about "returnable", "non-returnable", "black and white", copies and also talks about fees kicking in after certain numbers sold (25,000 copies). This might be hard to parse for something that's not a pamphlet sold on the direct market and we're probably back to barely paying for a Latte with proceeds. But according to this I'd be entitled to something after those sales figures were met. However, Malibu was also savvy with their voucher for payments after Marvel bought them and sorting that "contract" out in addition to the "Talent Agreement" would probably cost more to litigate than I'd ever win, IF I won.