A slice of History: "Ginger Meggs In Court Case" - Jimmy Bancks & The Strange Case Of Ginger Meggs
Top comics historian and Ginger Meggs fan, Daniel Best (20th Century Danny Boy) writes in 2011 about the legal case below. Here is an excerpt:
In 1949 Banck’s long term contract with Associated Newspapers was coming to an end. Bancks entered negotiations with the strength that a long term strip brings – Meggs had been going for nearly thirty years by this stage and was still the biggest and most popular Australian strip of the period.
Although strongly courted by Consolidated Press, with direct negotiations by none other than Sir Frank Packer himself, Bancks re-signed with Associated Press on the 27th of March, 1949. The deal was for ten years, with a guaranteed income of ₤80 per week, an incredible amount of the time when the average weekly wage was a mere £6/19/11. In today’s terms, Bancks would have been earning nearly $5,000 per week, before tax, a handsome sum in anyone’s language.
In exchange for the money, however, a number of clauses were also built into the contract, including the publication of an annual, and to a licence for the company to use the copyright in the event of the death of the defendant, which basically meant that, if Bancks passed away, Associated Press would be able to claim the copyright of the character and wrest control away from the Bancks family.
Sir Frank Packer completely understood Bancks’ wanting to remain with the newspaper that had fostered him for years, and left a standing invite for Bancks; if ever he wanted to cross over to his own newspaper chain then a deal would be done straight away. The terms of the deal weren’t that complex. Associated Press would publish Ginger Meggs, in full colour, on the front page of the Sunday Sun’s comic supplement and pay Bancks ₤80 per week; in return Bancks would provide Associated Press with an original strip every week for a ten year period, with the contract ending in 1959. Turning out new strips wasn’t an issue for Bancks as he enjoyed the work and had no end of ideas, however Associated Press would find their end of the deal harder to fulfil.
