The Kickstarter for the A1 Deadline Special has announced four of the comics featured in the project are being replaced, following legal objections from Tales From the Quarantine publisher Frazer Brown. The four comics in question were originally created for TFTQ when its Kickstarter ran in 2020, but went unreleased along with the rest of the book.
Editor and publisher Dave Elliott stated, “The creators contend that they retained full copyright on their contributions. Those beliefs are contested by the publisher of TFTQ. Out of fairness and respect to all parties, Atomeka [Elliot’s imprint] are paying these creators to contribute new short works in place of those pages. There is no content connected to the Tales From the Quarantine Kickstarter in this campaign.”
Tales From the Quarantine was an anthology featuring one-page comics by 400 contributors from across the globe, all inspired by their experiences at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which raised £37,185 ($48,434) from 814 backers. After its release went unfulfilled, the numerous complaints that followed, and Brown proved unresponsive to Kickstarter’s safety team, he was restricted from launching future projects on their site. For more on the the backstory, we recommend an entire Bluesky thread from one of the affected creators, Dan Whitehead.
Fraser Campbell, who collaborated on one of the replaced comics with Lucy Sullivan, commented, “While I completely understand and support the decision to pull the strips from A1 Deadline, I take some scumbag trying to steal my work and interfering with my personal business very, very seriously. This will not be forgotten and will not go unanswered. A very interesting Thought Bubble ahead.”
Complicating the matter has been how Kickstarter’s staff have gone on strike, which prompted the decision to pull the comics, instead of appealing to the site. Whitehead noted separately, “If he lodges a copyright claim – spurious as it may be – there’s chance the A1 Deadline campaign will be pulled by an automated decision, and we don’t want to jeopardise the whole project for the sake of this guy’s fragile ego.”
A revival of both Elliott and Garry Leach‘s 1989-92 anthology A1, and Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon‘s 1988-95 series Deadline (best known for being where Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett‘s Tank Girl debuted), the 80-page A1 Deadline Special will also feature old and new comics by Martin, Hewlett, Simon Bisley, Alison Sampson, Rufus Dayglo, Shaky Kane, and Eryk Donovan, plus the late Dillon and Ewins. At the time of writing, it has raised £23,604 ($30,721), well in excess of its £9,000 ($11,713) goal. Between this news, and there still being a week left before it ends, it will likely raise even more.
