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Todd McFarlane Stealth Publishes Neil Gaiman's Spawn Twice

Published Sat, 31 Jul 2010 06:09:13 -0500

Last updated Sat, 31 Jul 2010 06:18:53 -0500

The solicitation was clear;

SPAWN ORIGINS: BOOK ONE HC. story TODD McFARLANE, ALAN MOORE, DAVE SIM & FRANK MILLER art TODD McFARLANE cover GREG CAPULLO. MARCH 17 200 PAGES / FC $29.99 CLASSIC SPAWN REPRINTED IN OVERSIZED HARDCOVER!
With SPAWN, legendary writer and artist TODD McFARLANE unleashed his iconic antihero on the world, and launched the most successful independent comic book in history. SPAWN ORIGINS: BOOK ONE, includes classic Spawn stories written by ALAN MOORE, DAVE SIM and FRANK MILLER, as well as the introduction of memorable characters into the Spawn universe.
COLLECTS SPAWN #1-8 & 10-13

No Spawn #9, written by Neil Gaiman, and at the heart of a dispute over contractual agreements. And part of an as-yet-unpaid debt for publishing and profiting from work without payment to the writer. It's also missing from the Amazon listing.

Yet it seems that the actual book has issues 1-12 in it. Something confirmed by Image partner Erik Larsen back in March.

It looks pretty awesome–and despite previously announced contents– it collects SPAWN #1-12. Hopefully that'll be the norm from here on out. Nice to not have there be missing issues.

Gaiman's name is also missing from the solicitations for the more recently published Deluxe Origins Collection which hoovers up issues 1 to 25, without mentioning Gaiman's name in the solicitations or Amazon listings.

Part of the legal case has revolved around McFarlane using Neil Gaiman's name for publicity and not paying for that. Is this a way to avoid said publicity? By taking his name of the solicitations and not sending him author copies?

Oddly Gaiman's name is listed in the Deluxe Vol 2 listing that collects #26-#50. His contribution here to one issue, #26, was originally written for a previous script and is part of the ongoing legal case.

Of which Neil Gaiman has recently blogged the judge's findings on the derivation of Medieval Spawn/Dark Spawn.

Much as defendant tries to distinguish the two knight Hellspawn, he never explains why, of all the universe of possible Hellspawn incarnations, he introduced two knights from the same century. Not only does this break the Hellspawn "rule" that Malebolgia never returns a Hellspawns to Earth more than once every 400 years (or possibly every 100 years, as suggested in Spawn, No. 9, exh. #1, at 4), it suggests that what defendant really wanted to do was exploit the possibilities of the knight introduced in issue no. 9. (This possibility is supported by the odd timing of defendant's letter to plaintiff on February 14, 1999, just before publication of the first issue of Spawn The Dark Ages, to the effect that defendant was rescinding their previous agreements and retaining all rights to Medieval (Gaiman) Spawn.)

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