[73042helloworld]

This is a biggie!

It is my understanding that when WESTERN PUBLISHING split with DELL and eventually with GOLD KEY, that they failed to renew copyrights on their own material and let it u[p to owners of individual copyright owners to do any other renewals.  This is why DELL FOUR COLOR is able to be used by others.

The also places the back-up features and text pages which have the WESTERN PUBLISHING copyright notice into the public domain (I think).  This would include things like MABU, BROTHERS OF THE SPEAR,  and TWO AGAINST THE JUNGLE which were WESTERN PUB back-up features in TARZAN.

BROTHERS OF THE SPEAR is pretty well known, but the other two are not.  These two I would like to make as compilations and maybe they would be acceptable here as public domain or orphaned items.

Don

[MarkWarner]

Dell is a nightmare and the worst is Four Color ... a LOT of these ARE renewed ... not by Dell but the owners of the property. The Four Colors have been picked over and even if you see one here say Mowgli (from what I recollect is a real example) it does not mean that another one has not been renewed. Same applies to 3 Stooges etc

[73042helloworld]

Accidentally posted the first short part of this but this is what I wanted to say

The three series I was referring to all appeared in the TARZAN.  MABU was a small African native boy who was always getting in into exciting things--his stories were text (2 pages in the early years dropping to 1 later). TWO AGAINST THE JUNGLE was a back-up feature in the first 25 issues about two boys and their adventures trying to get out of the jungle and back home.  The story had an ending and wasn't just dropped.  O the first page of each story was a small blurb stating the copyright was to WESTERN PUBLISHING.  Tarzan was licensed, but the back-ups and text stories belonged to Western it is my understanding when Western never renewed their copyrights.  I get real nervous trying to figure out how to check copyrights, but I sure would like to make two book-size compilations, one for the MABU and one for TWO AGAINST THE JUNGLE.

[narfstar]

Renewal for 1952 and beyond is easy at http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First prior to that ask Mr. Goldenage