Uh-oh. Them’s fightin’ words.
So for those of you who saw the breaking news of Dynamite Entertainment acquiring the rights to Flash Gordon and Mandrake the Magician, the alleged prior owner of the sci-fi franchise says they’re loading for bear with another installment of their Flash Gordon tales.
“Like everyone else, I’ve heard about Dynamite’s plans to launch their own Flash Gordon series,” Ardden Entertainment’s co-publisher (and series writer) Brendan Deneen said in a press statement on Broken Frontier. “I look forward to some healthy competition. I hope they’re ready, too.”
Part of me is a little confused by all this — isn’t the whole point of Dynamite buying the rights is that, well, nobody else CAN print a Flash Gordon comic? Either which way, Ardden had already written four six-issue arcs for their take on the series, and their upcoming Flash Gordon: Invasion of the Red Sword is scheduled for a Fall 2011 release.
May 27th, 2010 at 8:42 am
Hasn’t Dynamite already been a couple of scrapes like these, where they announced ownership of the license before a previous license with another company had expired? Was that over The Phantom? I can’t remember.
May 27th, 2010 at 11:33 am
arddens flash is great and I can’t wait to get hold of the next series. I tried buck rogers from dynamic and thought it was poorly executed both on art and story front. So I won’t be buying 2 flash titles – just ardens.
May 27th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
I feel exactly the opposite, at least artwise, “joeseph.”
I tried an issue of Flash Gordon and found the art downright hideous (enough to make me give up on the book, and I’m enough of a Flash Gordon fan that the art needs to be quite repellent to put me off), whereas I thought the pencilling on Dynamite’s Buck Rogers was quite pleasing to the eye.
May 28th, 2010 at 4:07 am
Dynamite are pretty scummy with their aggressive business tactics.
June 1st, 2010 at 9:31 am
I just wanted to clarify that we are not the “alleged prior” publisher of FLASH GORDON. We’ve published six issues already (seven, if you include the #0) and we’ve published two trade paperbacks: THE MERCY WARS and THE SECRET HISTORY OF MONGO. The first arc was favorably reviewed by Publishers Weekly (among others). We’re under contract with King Features to publish three more 6-issue story arcs:
FLASH GORDON: INVASION OF THE RED SWORD
FLASH GORDON: THE VENGEANCE OF MING
FLASH GORDON: KING OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
And we appreciate everyone who has suppported and continues to support us! We’re a small company but comic books and great stories are very important to us!