Good news! Despite earlier previous sharp words for how Valiant was handling properties that had reversion clauses for creators, artist Kevin Maguire recently Fb’d that he “is cool” with how they are handling Trinity Angels.
And had a pleasant chat with Valiant CEO Dinesh Shamdasani who gave me all the information I was looking for vis-a-vis Trinity Angels. I am now cool with them.
Maguire had written via various social media and message board comments that he had attempted to acquire the rights to Trinity Angels—which he created for the previous version of Valiant in the ’90s—and creators Christopher Priest and Mark Bright had also attempted to regain rights to Quantum and Woody. Although the original creators contracts held a reversal clause, Valiant’s acquisition by Acclaim and Acclaim’s subsequent bankruptcy left the rights in a jumble, with the new Valiant having a clear claim to the characters, as they purchased Acclaims assets at bankruptcy.
However, there’s still some moral outrage about the old story of creators losing their characters. Valiant’s team has tried to get in front of the story, though, as recounted by Kevin Melrose.
In a March interview with CBR, Valiant’s Shamdasani said the company has spoken with Priest and Bright “about a bunch of different projects — most recently one that I’m super-excited about.” “We have a couple things up in the air with Chris, and we’re pulling to circle back and solidify them now that we have the new series up and running in a place we’re happy about.”
While Priest and Bright have remained silent, Quantum and Woody, the much missed team is not only getting a new series by James Asmus, Tom Fowler and Jordie Bellaire, it’s now getting a weekly webcomic by Asmus and Ty Templeton that will run on IGN for six weeks as a precursor to the Q&W #1 launch on July 10th. It’s not really a webcomic so much as a serialized teaser but…hey Ty Templeton!
Quantum and Woody are a couple of regular guys who become superheroes and have to stay in close proximity to one another in order to survive. The humor of the Priest/Bright original has, we’d say, been pretty influential over the years.
I stopped reading all the Valiant comics once I heard about their less-than-ethical treatment of the rights and I’m not going back. I was only reading for the nostalgia kick anyway, but really, it was pretty hollow. The new Valiant books were mediocre…ok enough to kill some time, but nowhere near as good as the originals.
Shamdasani is not being very honest. Priest NEVER goes by “Chris”, and calling him that is a clear sign that you don’t deal with him and don’t know him very well.
Yeah, because of his name change and all that, he answers to a variety of names (liking some more than others); “Chris” is not one of them.
The art in that page has a lot of personality. This could be a lot better than the pessimists around here are expecting. Hope VEI is indeed compensating Priest, Bright, and the others somehow (money, work, profit sharing, whatever) like they are implying in the quote.
Yeah, the “Chris” thing is definitely a red flag, but it’s entirely possible that Valiant HAS been in touch with him even if it doesn’t look like Shamdasani himself has.
While Priest’s certainly known for disappearing from the Internet for long periods of time, he’s also pretty well-known for his candor. It seems to me that if he and Bright aren’t talking, it probably means they’re still trying to work out a deal with Valiant.
Maguire’s comments also give me hope that this is the case. Valiant has an opportunity to do the right thing here and I’d be thrilled to find out that they’re doing right by their creators — all of them.
I’m still disappointed at the prospect of a Q&W comic without its creators. But not nearly as disappointed I am at the possibility that Priest and Bright might not be in the loop and might not be getting compensation — even for the Comixology editions of the original series. I legitimately hope Valiant is taking care of them, and Maguire’s about-face is very reassuring.
Bright speaks briefly on the subject to Rich Johnston:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/05/31/valiant/
He says, “Our position with Valiant isn’t adversarial. The people at Valiant have been more than willing to talk about what is happening at the company and with Quantum and Woody and with Priest and me. What happens from here is yet to be seen, but everything thus far has been amicable.”
Good news.
Johnston adds: “And I’m told that even though they are not legally obliged to, Valiant are offering to pay royalties to creators on the publication of older work.” He doesn’t name a source for that information but it’s consistent with what we know (Maguire complained about not receiving royalties for the old Trinity Angels stuff, and now he says things are cool).
I still think it’s a little messed up if Priest and Bright aren’t getting compensated for the new series, but it sounds like Valiant’s doing more than it’s legally obligated to and that’s a big step in the right direction.
Good. Now I can go enjoy that Ty Templeton comic.
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