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[Andrew999]

Happy Birthday to Frank Bellamy who deserves to have been 103 today had he not died suddenly - and far too young - at fifty-nine.

I remember Frank mostly from his fluid Garth strips in the Mirror and the gripping centre-spreads for Thunderbirds in TV21 magazine.

The Mirror organisation owns the copyright to Garth and is sitting on over 16,000 strips. No collections have been published for nearly forty years. Can someone explain to me again how the current copyright laws are designed to benefit the creator and consumer?

[paw broon]

It doesn't.  Simple as that. There is so much material lying dormant.  Garth strips have been shared in many corners of the internet and are easily found. There are a lot of Tamil versions and Indian comics with Garth available also.
I've mentioned this previously:  some companies don't even know what they used to have and in the case of IPC/AP/Fleetway, it's common knowledge - witnessed by comicbook pros - that material was chucked out willy-nilly, or burnt and some of it was "acquired" by fans and pros alike who were aware of what was happening and were on the spot. Classic disregard for an art form that just isn't appreciated to any great extent in the U.K.

[Andrew999]

Today we mark the 77th anniversary of the first Garth strip:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_(comic_strip)

Odd that there isn't an Avalon Movie Universe that might incorporate Garth, Modesty Blaise, Buck Ryan, Axa, Spider, Steel Claw and others - that could be cool

[Andrew999]

News today that Garth has been dropped by the Daily Mirror - as being 'not appropriate' for a modern newspaper - could someone explain that to me? By the way, shouldn't that be 'inappropriate' - I know we're talking about a tabloid but even so.....