Unofficial Smegazine book being sold on Amazon

[Richietee]

Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere (As it could be old news the Amazon listing has been up since January 2024) but just incase I wanted to give a heads up about this:

I spotted it a while ago after pre-ordering Titan on Amazon after it appeared in my recommendations at first glance, I assumed it was a fan-made comic collection. Amazon had also recommended a replica of My Incredible Career, so didn’t think much of it and ignored

Then it popped up on Reddit, and turns out it’s something else entirely… something that seems pretty damn scummy to me!

From what’s been said it’s a collection of Smegazine strips that have been reprinted (I can’t tell if they are using the usual PDF scans) with a very low-effort cover and zero copyright information whatsoever. 

As I haven’t seen a copy in person, so I could be mistaken, but it certainly doesn’t appear to be official in any way (Who’s the £40 going to?)

It’s a shame, because I’d absolutely love to see a professionally produced Smegazine compendium. I’d happily pay £40 (or more) for that!

Topic

[Warbodog]

Making the out-of-print comics available on archive.org, torrents and the like is a public service, but this is out of order.

I compiled .cbz or .cbr image archive files for each respective series and posted them on here once (Red Dwarf stories, Mr Flibble, etc). I wonder if someone’s just printing those or did their own compiling.

The time-capsule news and interviews are the best bits of the Smegazine anyway.

[Warbodog]

According to a review, it says “printed in Great Britain by Amazon” inside, so it looks like the seller’s using a direct printing service. Amazon says it charges sellers an £0.85 fee + £0.027 per page for standard colour printing (£0.0598 for premium colour – think they’re using that?), which for 350 pages would work out around £10.25 in costs (£21.60 for premium quality). If that reflects what’s happening here.

[Ian Symes]

This sort of thing will happen if a copyright holder downright refuses to release official versions.

[Dave]

This sort of thing will happen if a copyright holder downright refuses to release official versions.

I assume that if it’s anything like a lot of other UK comics and magazines, the rights issues for the various bits of Smegazine content are very complex and it’s probably not seen as worth the money to sort them all out. Which is frustrating but understandable.

The flipside of that though is that nobody seems to be too bothered about pursuing the unofficially-hosted versions of this content (although a physical printed book is a slightly different deal to archived PDFs and could conceivably attract more attention).

[Frank Smeghammer]

I appreciate that it’s morally and legally wrong but is there anywhere else you can buy a quick and easily physical complication of these comic strips?

I’m considering buying it

[Podey]

I appreciate that it’s morally and legally wrong but is there anywhere else you can buy a quick and easily physical complication of these comic strips?
I’m considering buying it

There’s a comment on the Reddit thread saying it’s reduced in size, making some of the word balloons difficult to read, just FYI.

[Dax101]

I feel like if they were going to release the comic strips from the Smegazine into a book it would have been in the late 90s. Since it never happened id say the chances of anything official is probably extremely unlikely

[International Debris]

If it’s not actively taking money away from the original artists, and the people doing it aren’t taking in a massive profit, and the quality is good, I have no ethical issues with it.

[Podey]

If it’s not actively taking money away from the original artists, and the people doing it aren’t taking in a massive profit, and the quality is good, I have no ethical issues with it.

Same, but I’m not sure the third clause is being fulfilled here. 

There was a fan-made Sonic The Comic graphic novel collection that began releasing a few years back collecting remastered scans of the pages that was obviously created with love, I don’t get that vibe from this.

[Dave]

Yeah the reproduction here looks pretty muddy. It feels a bit low-effort.

[Warbodog]

Bear in mind there’ll be about 20 pages of Androids which reduces its value considerably.

[Dax101]

No one has time for effort.

[Kris ‘Drivaaar’ Carter]

I’ve been trying to get a reprint collection of the Smegazine strips off the ground for years with no luck. Through my Transformers and Doctor Who work, I’d managed to get a few contacts rolling at IDW Publishing on the US, and BBC Books (as it was back in the day) and Titan Publishing. I’d pitched up various idea for straight reprints, and reprints with new material in the back, and other variations starting back in 2010. There was always the consensus of “This is a nice idea – there’s no audience to justify the effort”. Very frustrating. 

It’s also a rights nightmare. I’d first approached Rebellion. Fleetway Editions originally published the mag, and they were bought out by Egmont and eventually the bulk of their back catalogue ended up at Rebellion. But after talks with their rights department, they don’t have the Smegazine, and don’t know who does.

Egmont originally bought out Fleetway before carving up the back catalogue, and they don’t know anything about it either, which is a) frustrating again, and b) insane. Theres just no paper trail readily available.

When Rob and Doug had divided up the rights for RD, Rob could do comics, and I had a few meetings with him about it, but it seems even GNP don’t actually know what the dealio is. Rob was also very keen on making new comics, and not reprinting the old anyway, but my arguement was let’s use the old to help springboard the new. Anyways…

I assume the original editor Mike Butcher miiiight have an idea, but who knows. The original art files are likely gone/unobtainable/mostly destroyed/in private hands. So any collection would have to be high res scans of the published materials done with some care and attention…. Which also takes time and money. And which this half arsed effort is obviously NOT doing.

It’s something I’d LOVE to do, and edit the collection, but it’s just…. Ugh. Super bloody unlikely.

[Frank Lewis]

If it’s not actively taking money away from the original artists, and the people doing it aren’t taking in a massive profit, and the quality is good, I have no ethical issues with it.

True.

Plus some of this is (in no particular order), Educational/Weird/Funny.

[Technopeasant]

Not much of a comic reader (except for comic strips), but admittedly would be more inclined with a physically printed collection. You know, if it were done well…

It would however prompt Valnet to publish a dozen clickbait articles headlined as “Red Dwarf Returns With New Release” as they do for any genre show comic tie in.

[Podey]

I’ve been trying to get a reprint collection of the Smegazine strips off the ground for years with no luck. Through my Transformers and Doctor Who work, I’d managed to get a few contacts rolling at IDW Publishing on the US, and BBC Books (as it was back in the day) and Titan Publishing. I’d pitched up various idea for straight reprints, and reprints with new material in the back, and other variations starting back in 2010. There was always the consensus of “This is a nice idea – there’s no audience to justify the effort”. Very frustrating. 

It’s also a rights nightmare. I’d first approached Rebellion. Fleetway Editions originally published the mag, and they were bought out by Egmont and eventually the bulk of their back catalogue ended up at Rebellion. But after talks with their rights department, they don’t have the Smegazine, and don’t know who does.
Egmont originally bought out Fleetway before carving up the back catalogue, and they don’t know anything about it either, which is a) frustrating again, and b) insane. Theres just no paper trail readily available.
When Rob and Doug had divided up the rights for RD, Rob could do comics, and I had a few meetings with him about it, but it seems even GNP don’t actually know what the dealio is. Rob was also very keen on making new comics, and not reprinting the old anyway, but my arguement was let’s use the old to help springboard the new. Anyways…
I assume the original editor Mike Butcher miiiight have an idea, but who knows. The original art files are likely gone/unobtainable/mostly destroyed/in private hands. So any collection would have to be high res scans of the published materials done with some care and attention…. Which also takes time and money. And which this half arsed effort is obviously NOT doing.

It’s something I’d LOVE to do, and edit the collection, but it’s just…. Ugh. Super bloody unlikely.

I’ve done some work for Rebellion on 2000AD as an artist and toyed with the idea of reaching out to both parties to see if some kind of crossover could be pitched to run in the prog several years back (not that I would ever have been put on such a thing, if it happened). It almost certainly would have been a “no” from Rebellion so I can’t say I regret not asking but such a shame more comics never ended up happening if there was willing.

[Doomitron]

Out of an absence of conscious or good sense I bought this, I’ll report back my findings if anyone’s interested. I’ll be disappointed if all the contemporary advertising is missing since that’d be pretty neat, knowing this is a shitty bootleg I’m a bit hopeful they’ve been kept in. 50 dollars is highway robbery especially for an omnibus that’s cutting cost to avoid blowing up the full panels.

[Ian Symes]

From what I can tell, it’s just the comic strips, so not even any of the articles, let alone the adverts. But I await your report with interest!

[Doomitron]

Red Dwarf: Just The Strips™

[Technopeasant]

Ian only reads it for the articles.

[Doomitron]

Book came in today. Sadly it is just the strips, none of the promotional material from the time or interviews. For that purpose it’s okay, I can read the writing well enough even though it’s been condensed on the page. I haven’t found any printing errors so far but maybe that’ll change as I go through the book. Also felt like mentioning I actually cancelled this but my girlfriend noticed and reordered it for me, but because of that she got it on sale now and I saved 15 bucks so there’s that.

[Dave]

The page size looks pretty small compared to the original magazine, but the reproduction actually looks surprisingly good there.

[tombow]

Lister gives birth in the Smegazine?

[Warbodog]

At least they got the spine the right way around.

[Podey]

At least they got the spine the right way around.

shame about the words “Red Dwarf” and “The Comic”, though.

[Warbodog]

I forgot that I have a few ‘Printed in Great Britain by Amazon’ print-on-demand books, because I bought them on eBay instead (Basic Fantasy RPG Adventure Anthologies). They’re cheap enough in the first place though, at £4.50 for ~100 black and white pages (colour and a higher page count would cost more, but not that much). They made them affordable, since the PDFs are available online anyway, much like the Smegazine, except this is actually their own material. That’s how you do it.

[tombow]

if it was £20 I’d probably grab it

[Technopeasant]

If it were free I’d grab many.

[tombow]

if it were 1.50 I’d probably ask me Mum

[Frank Smeghammer]

If it bleeds, we can kill it

[Technopeasant]

If you prick it, does it not bleed?

[Nick R]

[Frank Smeghammer]

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son

[gerrydelasel]

Where can I read the PDF scans?

[Doomitron]

Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

[Technopeasant]

Smegazines

[gerrydelasel]

[Technopeasant]

Has anyone uploaded PDFs that are just the comics though?

[Warbodog]

These are in .cbr, which is my preferred way to read comics (or .cbz). Basically image archives for a CBR reader that you can also rename as .rar and extract.
https://www.ganymede.tv/forums/topic/smegazine-strips-collected/

[Technopeasant]

Wonder how much more expensive it is to just pay a printer to make a book from those versus the Amazon bootleg.

[gerrydelasel]

You mean make your own bootleg? Print on demand is pretty cheap yeah, I use it all the time. Best guess £20-ish.

[Author]

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