In his 1978 autobiography A Very Funny Business, Leo Baxendale devoted a chapter to what he called "The Great Reprint Rip-Off". He told how in the early 1970s IPC had begun reprinting many of the strips he'd created only a few years earlier, and he never received a penny in recompense. Strips such as The Tiddlers from Wham! were reprinted and renamed as The Horrors. Biff became Sam in Thunder. General Nitt and his Barmy Army became Sir Hector and his Hardnuts. And so on.
This had long been common policy in British comics of course, due to publishers claiming that they owned the material outright, even if there hadn't been a formal contract. It was an eye-opener for me as a reader at the time though, but it prepared me well when I began my own career in comics a few years later. At least I couldn't complain that I didn't know what to expect going in.
Baxendale had been so dismayed by the wholesale reprinting of his old strips that he quit mainstream comics forever in 1975. He'd go on to work in books, newspapers, and self-publish at a time when self-publishing wasn't as widespread as it is today.
Like I said, Leo's book had prepared me to expect similar treatment eventually. If publishers would treat such an important creator as Leo Baxendale like that they'd do it to anyone. Sure enough, by the mid-1990s, Egmont (who had acquired the rights to the IPC comics years before) decided that Buster comic needed to gradually go all-reprint in order to save costs. After a popular ten year run, my Tom Thug strip became the latest to fall to that policy, becoming a reprint strip from 1996 until Buster's final issue at the end of 1999.
A few years later, Egmont decided to save more cash by turning Sonic the Comic into an almost all-reprint comic. Lots of my stories, along with those of others, were regurgitated, sometimes losing the original threads of continuity I'd woven into the stories because they were reprinted out of order.
A few years ago, Egmont decided to do the same with my Team Toxic strips in Toxic magazine, re-using older strips and dropping me as the magazine's last surviving freelancer.
"The Great Reprint Rip-Off" never ends, and has been a part of British comics for decades, even long before Leo Baxendale worked in comics. Now the point is, it's not so much the creators who are being "ripped off", especially if, like myself, we know this is likely to happen.
It's the readers who are being ripped off.
Imagine a kid spending £4.99 for the latest bagged magazine only to find that the story within is one they'd read only a few years earlier. Perhaps they'd be too distracted by the easily-breakable "free" plastic toy to care, but I think some would feel very disappointed. I know I did at that age, unless it was a story I hadn't read before.
Interestingly, I was flicking through the latest issue of Toxic in a shop today. It wasn't sealed in a bag for a change so I could peruse the contents. I was very intrigued to see that reprints of Team Toxic were no longer in there. Instead, there were three licensed strips, possibly American or European in origin. Had there been complaints about the repeated stories? Or perhaps they've finally decided that the "gross humour" of Team Toxic is a bit old hat by 2021? Or that (more likely) stories about snot monsters are unsuitable for the Age of Covid? Perhaps this issue was an exception? I don't know. If the next issue is bagged I'm not paying £4.99 to find out.
If they have decided to drop the reprint then it's a good thing. For one, I'd be relieved that they're no longer profiting on publishing strips without paying me a reprint fee, but more importantly it'd mean they're not ripping off their readers.
As a postscript, I should add that Rebellion, who bought the IPC back catalogue from Egmont (but not including Toxic) do pay a reprint fee. Times are improving...
