Mick Anglo

Michael Anglo (born Maurice Anglowitz, 19 June 1916 – 31 October 2011) was a British comic book writer, editor and artist, as well as an author. He was best known for creating the superhero Marvelman, later known as Miracleman.

Biography Early life and military service Born in Bow, London, of Russian Jewish descent, Mick Anglo was educated at the Central Foundation School and John Cass Art School, both in London.

1947–1952: Martin & Reid, Paget Publications and Arnold Book Company After completing his National Service, he became an author for a small publishing company, Martin & 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. After illustrating the book jacket for one of his own novels, Martin and Reid suggested he develop 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. who appeared for 24 issues in his own title from 1948 to 1951. Arnold Book Company, on stories such as "Captain Valiant" (in Space Comics) and "Ace Malloy of the Special Squadron", while concurrently producing Space Commando Comics, featuring "Space Commander Kerry", for L. Miller and Son, Anglo's studio created "packets" for various publishers, usually comprising the entire content of a publication; and Mick Anglo Limited was incorporated on 21 August 1954 for the purpose of Artistic and literary creation. Anglo and his staff of British artists, including Don Lawrence (who was given his first break in drawing comics by Anglo), Bob Monkhouse, Denis Gifford, Ron Embleton and George Stokes and Janet Rasmussen had a hand in the creation of many British independent comic books and magazines between 1954 and 1963. "I employed a pretty large staff of freelancers: scriptwriters and artists. Most of the artists had just come out of the Forces, and were looking for something to do".

In 1954 Anglo created the character he is best known for, Marvelman. Since the mid-1940s L. Miller and Son had successfully reprinted American comic book company Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, and Captain Marvel Jr stories in the UK. However, in 1953 Fawcett were party to a protracted lawsuit brought by National Comics (now DC Comics) claiming plagiarism of their Superman character. Fawcett cancelled their Captain Marvel titles, leaving Leonard Miller without reprint material for their best-selling British titles. Miller approached Mick Anglo to create a replacement; "One day Leonard Miller phoned and said he wanted to see me urgently. His supply of the American material for the Captain Marvel series had suddenly been cut off. Had I any ideas? ... So I quickly told him I had plenty of ideas, and for my trouble I received a regular supply of work for the next six years." Anglo replaced the Captain Marvel Family with almost identical characters, Marvelman and Young Marvelman.

Initially Anglo drew the titles himself, but later to meet the demand (both were weekly publications) Anglo developed a system similar to that later famously used by Stan Lee of Marvel Comics - he would give one of the artists a loose plot outline rather than a detailed script; the artist would then draw the story, and Anglo would tailor the dialogue accordingly, lettering the work himself. Marvelman and Young Marvelman actually increased in sales compared to their predecessors, with both titles burgeoning a fan club and hardback annuals. Marvelman became the "best-loved and best-known British superhero" In 1956 a third title, Marvelman Family was launched, adding Kid Marvelman (previously introduced as a back-up feature in Marvelman). Between 1954 and 1960 Anglo would be the main writer for all three titles, producing a vast number of stories. However, in November 1959 a ban on importing American comics for the British market was lifted, and the black-and-white L. Miller & Son comics would struggle to compete. From 1960 - with #335 of both Marvelman and Young Marvelman the titles switched to a monthly reprint format, and Anglo began to look for work elsewhere.

Parallel to Marvelman, Anglo had gained further mileage from the Marvelman material; in 1954 Anglo wrote two issues of Captain Universe for Arnold Books, a near-identical character to Captain Marvel and Marvelman. As well as the Marvelman family of titles, in the mid-1950s Anglo took over a number of L. Miller's established American reprint titles, continuing the series Jim Bowie, Annie Oakley, and Davy Crockett utilising both the English artists from his studios and a number of Spanish artists. He also created the character Superhombre for Spanish publisher Editorial Ferma in 1958; the new hero was a third reworking of the Captain Marvel template.

1960–1967 – Anglo Features, Thorpe & Porter Turning down an offer to again work for Arnold Miller, he set up his own Anglo Features imprint from Gower Studios, launching Captain Miracle,;

Anglo then edited City Magazines Ltd's TV series-based weekly comic TV Tornado in 1967 and contributed the short-run strips Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Green Hornet, before returning to Top Sellers and packaging reprints of DC Comics material, including Superman, Wonder Woman and the Batman newspaper strip, for their Super DC anthology series in 1969/1970. co-wrote a small number of cookery books, and was a joke writer for comedian Tommy Cooper. The revival went on hiatus in 1985 following a disagreement between writer Alan Moore and artist Alan Davis, and Warrior was cancelled soon afterwards. The strip had also attracted attention from Marvel Comics over Quality Communications' Marvelman Special (June 1984), which meant when the series was continued by American publisher Eclipse Comics it was renamed Miracleman. In addition to original material and Warrior reprints, Eclipse also occasionally used coloured vintage Anglo strips, for which he would receive royalties - though he recalled Eclipse were "Very dodgy to deal with" and that they "messed it up as usual". between 1993 and 2009, 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.

Eventually, in 2009, Marvel Comics purchased the rights to Marvelman from Mick Anglo having established that Anglo owned the rights to the character. Alan Moore observed "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." Anglo would however die before any of Alan Moore's material would be reprinted.

Marvel CEO and publisher Dan Buckley stated "It is an honor to work with Mick Anglo to bring his creation to a larger audience than ever before." A press release quoted Mick Anglo as saying, "I did not think it would ever happen. It's a wonderful thing to see my creation finally back." A limited series of Anglo reprints - Marvelman: Family's Finest - and a short-lived set of chronological archive volumes soon followed.

Death Anglo died on 31 October 2011 at age 95.