Question: Why did CrossGen Comics fall?

[Will Evans]

The properties are owned by Disney now, right?

[LordMikel]

The properties are owned by Disney now, right?

Some yes, but not all.

[Iron Maiden]

I notice owner/founder Mark Alessi died last year.

Back in 2016, the Hollywood Reporter wrote a piece about it's collapse. Alessi was a basically a comic book fan that wanted to create his own comic book company to rival the big two. He was succeeding until his his financial situation took a major hit. A lot of his funding came from his investment in Ross Perot's company Perot Systems. When that company got into trouble, Alessi's money source dried up.

[Grapeweasel]

Not enough Wolverine.

[batnbreakfast]

CrossGen and Valiant have put out great material but comics is a nostalgia driven market (I'm reading Batman/Marvel stuff since childhood) and CrossGen/Valiant doesn't have the numbers to sustain itself through its readers. DC and Marvel do thrive through that nostalgia but seemingly can't get new characters off the ground

[JudicatorPrime]

With no one continuing to publish or write them, aren't they in danger of becoming public domain characters?

[Oberon]

"Ruse" is the one I remembered. I looked it up. That was awhile ago. People are still hoping they come back?

[Comic-Reader Lad]

With no one continuing to publish or write them, aren't they in danger of becoming public domain characters?

No, the characters and the copyrighted stories won't become public domain until 95 years after creation as they were work-for-hire assignments.

However, the trademarks on the titles likely have lapsed since they haven't been published in about a decade.

So, you might be able to publish a comic book titled "Sojourn," but you can't use the characters or the story concepts from the CrossGen series.

This is similar to what happened with Marvel's "Champions" trademark. They canceled the comic in the 1970s, so in the 1980s, Hero Comics came out with their own "Champions" comic, but it had original characters and stories.

Of course, it's the reason why Marvel was able to title a comic book "Captain Marvel," in the 1960s, but couldn't also use the Fawcett-Shazam characters.

[Oberon]

CrossGen... I seem to remember some books from a while back, oh it had to be more than 10, even 15... They were rather unique and interesting.

One was some sort of stage magician and the woman partner had some secret but limited ability. Oh bother, can't remember the name of that or the other interesting ones. Maybe I have the wrong company?