Comic Book Plus Forum
Comic And Book Related => Comic Talk => Topic started by: happyhuman on June 07, 2014, 06:22:49 PM
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Hello to everyone, does anyone maybe knows why AC Comics never reprinted Harvey's Black Cat comics?
They did reprint a lot of other Harvey characters (like Captain Freedom and War Nurse). Even their character 'She Cat', who is based on Harvey's Black Cat character has a different color outfit (while they didn't really changed Nightvile/Phantom Lady custom)
The Black Cat comics seems to be in public domain - is there another reason you think they didn't reprinted such an iconic character?
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According to the site's listing of Black Cat issues, it appears the last three, 63-65, are not public domain. The Linda Turner character appeared in each of these 1960's issues. Possibly someone re-upped the copyright or registered a trademark for the character. I have a paper copy of 65, and although I haven't looked at it in years, I believe all the stories are reprints. I could be wrong. Cheers, Bowers
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The character is probably trademarked but the stories are PD
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Those three 1960s issues of Black Cat from Harvey were indeed full of reprints. Lorne-Harvey also put out 10 or 12 issues of Black Cat in the 1980s and 90s that were mostly reprints too.
Best
Joe
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Thank you all for the answers.
It's still strange to me that while the character first appearance and her own series is in the Public Domain and yet the character and her PD stories are not in use.
I mean, her Harvey comics are here, in this website and trademark should not be an issue, like DC's Captain Marvel.
It just make me wonder why that is? even Dynamite and Image didn't use the character and Image had that 'next issue project' that they did and in their Speed Comics issue Black Cat did not appear while she should have been
Its very strange
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Probably just playing it safe. You do not see new Captain Marvel stories either.
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Just as a wee bit more on Black Cat, there were those 2 issues from Lorne/Harvey in '95 which had reprints but also feature a new story in colour by Mark Evanier and Murphy Anderson. The title, and indicia, is, Alfred Harvey's Black Cat, the origins.
There is a comic titled, War Sirens and Liberty Belles, by Lorne-Harvey in 1991, featuring 2 b&w reprints of Black Cat plus reprints of Girl Commandos, Man in Black, Rocket man and Girl, and Shock Gibson (doesn't look much like a Siren or Belle to me).
Forgot to mention, War Heroes classics - same publisher, roughly the same cast list from 1991. All b&w with a Paul Pelletier cover.
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My guess would be potential legal comflicts with marvel comics over the spiderman character of the same name. Just like DC can't publish any "captain marvel" comics due to marvel owning the trademark to the name for their own character (which exists & continues to get published, solely for the purpose of screwing DC out of the name), DC has to publish the character as "shazam". The character also seems to be very similar (especially visually) to marvel's "mockingbird" character, opening another area of potential litigation.