Dez Skinn

File:Dez skinn.jpg

Dez Skinn

Derek "Dez" Skinn (born 1951 in Goole, Yorkshire) is a British comic book and magazine editor and author of Comic Art Now (HarperCollins, 2008) a lavish hardback subtitled "The Very Best in Contemporary Comic Art and Illustration" and Comix: The Underground Revolution (Collins & Brown, 2004).

Early career

Dez Skinn was born on February 4, 1951. Following a journalistic stint on Yorkshire's Doncaster Evening Post, Dez Skinn moved to London around 1970 to pursue a career in comics and found work as a sub-editor with IPC for whom he worked on such titles as Whizzer and Chips, Cor!! and Buster. The comics publishing arm of Williams/Warner Bros headhunted him to work for them as managing editor of their fledgling Youth Group. It was during this time he edited titles such as MAD Magazine (UK Edition), Tarzan, Korak, Laurel & Hardy and revived Monster Mag.

The House Of Hammer

The House Of Hammer was a monthly magazine featuring articles on Hammer Films series of horror and science fiction films. Launched in October 1976, it also featured comic strip versions of its films, as well as new material, by creators such as Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, John Bolton, David Lloyd and Brian Lewis. The magazine won numerous Eagle Awards and was hugely successful and with issue 19 received US distribution after an initial one-off compilation issue.

The title changed its name to Halls Of Horror after Warren Publishing had copyrighted the House Of Horror name in the US through publishing a single issue "ashcan" (500 copies, reprinting old Famous Monsters of Filmland material, in an attempt to prevent competition).Halls Of Horror lasted till issue 23 before it was abruptly cancelled, a cover for the unpublished issue 24 is in existence.

The title returned in 1982 from Quality Communications and lasted for 30 issues, plus a Dracula special.

Starburst

In January 1978 Skinn launched the first issue of Starburst as an attempt to take advantage of the growth in the interest of science fiction and fantasy following on from the release of Star Wars. Skinn published it under the company name of Starburst Publishing Ltd. It lasted 3 issues before being bought by Marvel UK when he joined them as editorial director.

The magazine is still being published by Visual Imagination.

Marvel Comics

In 1978 Skinn was headhunted by Stan Lee to help the floundering Marvel UK publishing company. Lee was concerned that sales were dropping and gave Skinn freedom to revitalise the company as he saw fit. Skinn did this by moving the company out of Sevenoaks, Kent and back to London, bringing in his own editorial team (at the expense of losing line editor Neil Tennant, for whom he found a job with his old employers IPC Magazines, on Smash Hits. Tennent went on to form the Pet Shop Boys). Under the collective banner of "The Marvel Revolution" Skinn repositioned the flagging company, renaming it Marvel UK instead of the previously known British Marvel. He launched new titles such as Doctor Who Weekly, Frantic Magazine (subtitled "Number Two in a Field of One", a MAD-imitator which featured very early artwork by Alan Moore and [[Alan Davis]) and Hulk Weekly. All featured new material produced in the UK by British creators. Hulk Weekly is best remembered for reviving Captain Britain, which had previously been US-originated material. This character featured in a fantasy serial starring the Black Knight (by Steve Parkhouse, Paul Neary and John Stokes, with whom he had previously worked on Fishboy for IPC's Buster Comic). He also created and commissioned Steve Parkhouse and David Lloyd to produce a precursor to V for Vendetta in Night-Raven, an enigmatic masked character, set in Chicago during Prohibition.

With news trade confusion over the difference between glossy US and equally glossy UK Marvel Comics, Skinn successfully revamped existing weekly reprint titles such as The Mighty World Of Marvel into a more traditional-looking UK title as Marvel Comic and similarly adapted Marvel UK's Spider-Man reprint title. With Star Wars Weekly he added photocovers and interior text features to widen the comic's appeal. He also boosted the UK monthly output and his line of digest sized Pocket Books also proved successful, inexpensively offering 64 pages each of early Marvel superhero, horror, and science fiction material.

His aim was to use Marvel UK weeklies to introduce new young British readers to the adventure comic concept, weening them off traditional humour titles. They could then graduate to the UK monthlies and/or the US imports, so there were titles available for all ages within the Marvel stable, all the way up to the film magazine Starburst.

Despite lasting only 15 months, Skinn's tenure at Marvel was hugely productive, and in this time he provided the likes of Alan Davis and a 17-year old Steve Dillon their first published work. He also gave work to John Wagner, Pat Mills, Steve Moore, Dave Gibbons, John Bolton, David Lloyd and Alan Moore which gave them greater exposure. Outside of launching Doctor Who Weekly, his best known decision was to return Captain Britain from limbo, first of all as a Black Knight supporting character in Hulk Weekly, then in his own strip in The Mighty World Of Marvel.

Skinn left Marvel in 1981 to launch and co-own a London west end design group, Studio System, working primarily in film and fashion for Columbia Pictures, British Airways, Liberty's, Browns of South Moulton Street and various high profile clients. Notable film work included assigning Martin Asbury his first storyboarding work, for Hugh Hudson's Greystoke. Comics-related work during this period included the 500,000 print run Scalextric model racing catalogue, which was remodelled as a large format glossy comics magazine, starring Speedmaster, written by Skinn and drawn by Ian Kennedy, from a difficult brief asking for "All the Scalextric models to be included, in a Star Wars way but drawn like the old Eagle comic." Two years later he returned to comics full time, reviving Starburst Magazines Ltd, renamed Quality Communications to remind him not to consider quantity his top priority, so he could relaunch House of Hammer as Halls of Horror and start his most influential comic, the anthology title, Warrior.

Warrior

Warrior was first published in March 1982 and ran 26 issues to January 1985. It was a title where all the strips were creator owned, something unique in the British comics industry at the time. The title was a mass of creativity, creators such as Alan Moore, David Lloyd, Alan Davis, Brian Bolland and Garry Leach created and worked on many memorable stories. These included Marvelman, V for Vendetta, The Spiral Path, Axel Pressbutton and Father Shandor, Demon Stalker.

When Warrior was cancelled, many of the unfinished stories were completed by various US comic publishing companies. However several of these stories had problems being completed due to the complicated issue of just who owned what; the most famous example of this is Marvelman.

Quality Communications

After Warrior ended, Quality Communications and Skinn carried on being involved in comics publishing for much of the remainder of the 1980s. First of all they helped repackage several stories from Warrior for Eclipse Comics, including Marvelman. Skinn also supervised US reprints of 2000 AD material which were recoloured, these reprints continued till 1989.

In 1990, Skinn produced the first issue of Comics International, a monthly comics news and reviews magazine which has enjoyed great success to the present day; Issue 200 of Comics International appeared in November 2006. A press release was issued by QCL in December 2006, stating that Skinn had sold Comics International to Mike Conroy for an undisclosed sum. Comics International will relaunch in January 2007 from #1.

He also published one issue of Toy Max, a magazine for toy collectors; this did not find a readership, due to a lack of newsstand distribution.

Controversy

Skinn is a controversial figure, with several creators (most notably Alan Moore and Mick Anglo) alleged on gossip websites to have major disputes over ownership of characters. Skinn states he not only commissioned but also helped, as editor, create V for Vendetta with Moore and Lloyd, as well as still being involved with the rights of the character. In the V trade paperback published by Vertigo Comics, Moore acknowledges Skinn creating the name "V for Vendetta", Moore having been using the working title "Ace of Shades", and that Skinn was involved in the start of the series.

Similar gossip involves Marvelman, where Skinn states he owns part of the character, even going as far at a comic convention in Bristol to state he has documented proof of this. As yet, this proof remains unseen, outside of it being shown privately to Neil Gaiman's lawyer. Skinn, an easily accessible figure through his current publishing, admits being amazed by never being asked directly to prove his assertions and adds "They probably find it more fun to speculate wildly".

Skinn has also been accused of breaching copyright, through the publication of Comix: The Underground Revolution (2004), a work in which Skinn is identified as author. Writing in The Comics Journal 263 , Patrick Rosenkranz, author of Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975 (2003), alleged that Skinn had "extensively ''borrowed'' from Rebel Visions, helping himself to quotes from many interviews" Rosenkranz had conducted. Rosenkranz also noted that "Comix reprints seven of my photographs without my permission ... Our lawyer agrees that move crossed the legal line." Rosenkranz further commented that complaints were made to the effect that Skinn had "swiped (copyrighted photographs) from the late comic journalist Clay Geerdes" on The Comics Journal message board. Skinn reportedly responded to these claims, stating that "No theft was intended".

While Skinn admits subcontracting parts of the book to meet Chrysalis's tight deadline, he denies using what he describes as the pedantic Rosenkranz tome, although he cannot speak for contractors.

Following Rosenkranz's editorial, Trina Robbins contacted The Comics Journal via e-mail, published in issue #266, in which she noted that she wrote Chapter 6, "Girls on Top?". " I was not credited ... Dez e-mailed me with a request to contribute a chapter on women in the under-ground ... I did get paid for it ... one usually expects to be credited for what one writes".

Skinn believes that to have credited Robbins, when the chapter was primarily about her, would have made the piece too biased and adds, "A credit was never discussed, it's the Chrysalis way. I'd helped on previous books for them with no credit and that was talking about other people!"

The Comics Journal later followed up these claims in #268, in which it revealed that whilst Skinn and the estate of Clay Geerdes had quickly reached an amicable settlement, Skinn and Rosenkranz had failed to reach an agreement, Skinn noting "I discovered he was again attacking me … I emailed him saying he was jeopardizing possibility of a settlement". Skinn concluded the matter had reached an impasse, stating "He ignored me, the comments ran online. Ergo total negotiation breakdown."

However, both the American and United Kingdom publishers of Comix: The Underground Revolution noted that it was Skinn, as author, who was contractually bound to gain clearances for using copyrighted material, with British publisher Chrysalis noting that upon learning of the alleged breach of Patrick Rosenkranz's copyright, they "immediately tried to contact Dez Skinn about this and asked him to sort it out. We have not heard back from him yet but we will continue to chase him". Skinn acceded the responsibility was his: "the commissioning publisher's contract throws everything and anything problem-wise back at me".

Skinn agreed to settle 50% of Rosenkranz's demand (more than ten times the amount the commissioning publisher paid for visuals) through Comics Journal publisher Gary Groth (who allegedly told Skinn that Rosenkranz could be difficult to reason with) on the understanding such a settlement would be covered in print, as Groth had made news of the dispute in his own magazine. Despite payment being made upon receipt of invoice, no such coverage has appeared and promised copies of issues containing Rosenkranz's outbursts and subsequent coverage have yet to be released.

Further controversy came in the wake of Skinn's speech at the 2006 UK Eagle Awards, when it was reported that Skinn claimed that 2000AD, the UK's last remaining mainstream comic, would "be liquidated within a year", and that the Judge Dredd Megazine did not deserve its award. Both claims were denied by 2000AD's owners and editorial staff; likewise, Skinn denies having mentioned 2000AD during the speech, despite having admitted it in his subsequent apology.

External links

• Comic Expo website
• Quality Communications website
• Dez Skinn interview