Team Toxic are back... but is it a flying visit?

Imagine my surprise today when I flipped through the latest issue of Toxic (No.399) in WH Smiths to find that one of my Team Toxic strips was reprinted in there. The reprint is from issue No.287 that I did back in 2017 so most of the current readers won't have seen it before. However, it's a pity that although 99% of the strips I did for Toxic were stand alone stories, they've chosen to reprint Part Two of a three parter! Hopefully readers won't be too confused as it's quite self contained. If they are baffled, don't blame me!

I did Team Toxic for 17 years for Toxic right from issue one in 2002 to issue 317 in 2019 so there's a lot of material they could use if they wished. (They already reprinted several stories a few years ago.) There's no reprint payment of course. Standard policy in British (and American) mainstream comics is they can reprint as much as they like and we don't get a penny. (Viz was an exception as they did, and hopefully still do, pay for reprints.) I can't complain as I knew the score going into this business thanks to reading Leo Baxendale's It's A Very Funny Business back in the 1970s. Sadly it was this "no fees for reprints" policy that made Leo quit mainstream comics in 1975 and who can blame him? 

It's hardly a surprise though. Remember that the British comics industry was founded on unpaid reprints, when Alfred Harmsworth created Comic Cuts in 1890 and filled issue 1 with cartoons nicked from other publications. In that instance, he had no rights to the art and had to commission new material pretty quickly going forward. Even so, he made sure that the publishers held the rights to material commissioned and that policy hasn't changed since.

It really should though, shouldn't it? No wonder today's new creators opt for self publishing or working with book publishers who offer a better deal.

Anyway, if you're interested, you'll find that Team Toxic strip in Toxic No.399, out now. It's the only story in the magazine, despite the publishers now calling themselves 'Story House Egmont'. The rest of the 36 page mag is taken up with brief features and activity pages relating to the latest games, genre movies etc. 

And it comes wth a cover mounted toy 'Archery Set and Fidget'. All for £5.99. 

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