Mick Anglo

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Mick Anglo bigraphy, stories - British comic book writer, editor and artist

Mick Anglo : biography

19 June 1916 – October 31, 2011

Michael "Mick" Anglo (born Maurice Anglowitz, 19 June 1916 – 31 October 2011)Holland, Steve, "Who’s Who in British Comics", Comics World #43, Aceville Publications Ltd (Sept-Oct 1995) was a British comic book writer, editor and artist, as well as an author. He is best known for creating the superhero Marvelman, later known as Miracleman.

Marvelman/Miracleman revivals

Anglo had little to do with the revival of the Marvelman character in 1982 by Alan Moore for Quality Communications. Dez Skinn, the editor of Warrior, in which the revived series appeared, said "He wasn’t crazy about our revamp, but he really didn’t care either way." Eventually the Marvelman revival was terminated after legal threats from Marvel Comics over Quality Communications Marvelman Special (June 1984), which was composed of Marvelman reprints from the L. Miller days, and Eclipse Comics publishing of the stories, renamed Miracleman, for the American market. The character became "mired in a legal quagmire" for 25 years, preventing further reprint or new character development opportunities. The situation was not helped by ownership doubts, not clarified by Anglo’s contractual relationship to L. Miller and Son and their status as a company.L. Miller and Sons Ltd, as the company was named in 1963, were assumed to have gone bankrupt in 1966 when they ceased publishing, although in fact the company was simply wound up on Sept. 24 1974 –

Eventually, in 2009, Marvel Comics purchased the rights to Marvelman from Mick Anglo, together with the rights for the 1980s Miracleman revival. having established that Anglo owned the rights to the character. Alan Moore is on record as saying that "I’m very happy for this book to get published — because that means money will finally go to Marvelman’s creator, Mick Anglo, and to his wife … The main thing is that I will feel happy to know that Mick Anglo is finally getting the recompense he so richly deserves."

Marvel Comics press release at the time quoted Marvel CEO and publisher Dan Buckley as saying "It is an honor to work with Mick Anglo to bring his creation to a larger audience than ever before." The press release quotes Mick Anglo as saying, "I did not think it would ever happen. It’s a wonderful thing to see my creation finally back." Marvel have since announced that the first release of Marvelman material under their imprint is Marvelman Classic Primer #1 in June 2010, featuring an interview with Mick Anglo at 93, and a cover drawn by him; which will be followed by reprints of the L. Miller Marvelman stories in chronological order.

Notes

Biography

Born in Bow, London, Mick Anglo was educated at the Central Foundation School and John Cass Art School, both in London. On leaving school he freelanced in fashion and commercial art until 1939, and first drew cartoons for SEAC, the official army newspaper for South East Asia Command in 1942, then for newspapers in Singapore in 1945. After completing his National Service, he became an author for a small publishing company, Martin and Reid, producing westerns, romance books and crime thrillers with titles such as "Guns & Gamblers", "My Gun Speaks For Me"/"Muscles For Hire" (1951), and "Broadway Glamour", under the pen-name Johnny Dekker.a number of sources mistake Anglo’s pen name "Johnny Dekker" as the character name for one of his fictional detective characters He also drew a small number of short humorous comic strips for the publisher John Matthew during 1946, and for two other companies, Rayburn and A. Solway in 1948. After illustrating the book jacket for one of his own novels, Martin and Reid suggested he developed strips for their comics line, and he worked on their comics imprint between 1948 and 1950; editing the line and writing and drawing western, adventure and science fiction strips and titles. He also produced a number of one-off stories contemporaneously with his Martin and Reid work for Paget Publications, one of the smaller British comics imprints of the day; producing short run, often single issue, titles containing a number of stories. Although contributing mainly short humor strips, Anglo’s creations for Paget Publications included an early British superhero, Wonderman, who appeared for 24 issues in his own title from 1948-1951.