Dennis Mallonee
Born (1955-01-22) January 22, 1955 (age 69)
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Writer, Publisher, Editor
Known forChampions comic book
Heroic Publishing

Dennis Mallonee (born January 22, 1955)[1][2] is an American writer and publisher of comic books. He is best known as the writer of the Champions comics and the founder of Heroic Publishing.

Education

Mallonee graduated from the California Institute of Technology with a degree in economics.[3]

Career

Dennis Mallonee entered the comics profession by suggesting story ideas to writer Bill Mantlo. Mallonee and artist Rick Hoberg developed the format for Marvel's Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series.[4]

At a 1985 San Diego Comic-Con International panel featuring Champions RPG creators Steve Peterson, George MacDonald, and Ray Greer, an audience member asked when the Champions characters were going to be adapted into comic book form. The RPG creators had no plans for such a translation at the time. Mallonee, however, who was already writing several Champions supplements, was in the audience and spoke up that he would be willing to write a Champions comic. Following the panel, Mallonnee, Peterson, and MacDonald discussed terms for the series; among the key points were that all the characters would remain fully creator-owned, and that Mallonee would have creative control of the comic book.[5]

Shortly thereafter, Mallonee approached Hero Games, owner of Champions, to license comic book rights to the characters.[6] Hero Games was actually a licensee themselves, with the characters largely owned by their original players, but the company was able to work with the original creators to get Malonee the permissions he needed; the result was an Eclipse comic book series called Champions (1986-1987).[6]

After the success of the Eclipse series, Mallonee decided to publish additional Champions comics under his own imprint – first called Hero Comics, then Hero Graphics,[6][2] and finally Heroic Publishing. Over the next six years, Hero Comics published about 100 comic books across several series – the most prolific of which were Champions, which centered on Hero Games' Guardians, and Flare, among the most popular of the Guardians.[6]

As Hero Games became increasingly uncomfortable with later changes in tone (including becoming more centered on depicting attractive pinups), some of the characters' owners pulled Mallonee's licensing rights, although Gleen Thain and Stacy Lawrence allowed their characters – Icestar and Flare – to continue under Mallonee's authorship.[6] To avoid confusion, Hero Games removed creator-owned characters that were still being used by Mallonee from new editions of their products. Meanwhile, Mallonee changed the names of other characters in his universe, due to these licensing issues; thus Bruce Harlick's Marksman became Huntsman and his Foxbat became The Flying Fox.[7][6] Over the years, Mallonee developed many original characters as well, slowly pushing his comics further from Hero Games' Champions universe.[6]

From 2009 to 2012, Mallonee and artists Tim Burgard, Gordon Purcell, and Mark Beachum produced a Flare weekly newspaper strip, syndicated by Creators Syndicate.[3]

Champions trademark dispute

Marvel Comics published a Champions comic book series from 1975 to 1978. Since 1986, Mallonee and his publishing entities have used the name "The Champions" for various comic book series adapted from the Champions role-playing game series. In 1988, The United States Patent and Trademark Office ruled that Marvel abandoned its trademark of the name and could no longer use "The Champions" as the name of a comic book series.[8][4][9] Marvel later re-acquired rights to the trademark, publishing a new The Champions series in 2016.[10]

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ Miller, John Jackson (June 10, 2005). "Comics Industry Birthdays". Comics Buyer's Guide. Archived from the original on February 18, 2011.
  2. ^ a b "Dennis Mallonee (b. 1955)". Grand Comics Database. Retrieved Feb 4, 2024.
  3. ^ a b "ABOUT DENNIS MALLONEE". Creators Syndicate. Retrieved Feb 4, 2024.
  4. ^ a b Offenberger, Rik (May 2, 2010). "Publisher Profile: Heroic Publishing's Dennis Mallonee". Firstcomicsnews. Archived from the original on April 9, 2012. Rick Hoberg and I had been working under license from Marvel to put together an illustrated history of the Marvel Universe (which was much less complex in the late 1970s), but for various reasons that project never came together.
  5. ^ Mallonee, Dennis (August 2006). "Twenty Years of Flare". Back Issue!. TwoMorrows Publishing (17): 70–77.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Appelcline, Shannon (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. p. 149. ISBN 978-1907702587.
  7. ^ "Publishers Can't Use Certain Characters". NewsWatch. The Comics Journal. No. 154. Nov 1992. pp. 20, 22.
  8. ^ "Marvel Loses Champions Trademark". The Comics Journal. No. 125. Oct 1988. pp. 7–8.
  9. ^ Cronin, Brian (January 28, 2010). "Comic Book Legends Revealed #245". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on March 20, 2013. Retrieved January 20, 2013. Marvel did seek and was granted registration of the trademark it was using for that title. That registration, however, was not granted until several months after the title had ceased publication. In the mid-80s, on the basis of that registration, Marvel contested registration of the mark Hero Games was using at that time for its Champions role-playing game. The trademark board took notice of Marvel's abandonment of their earlier mark, and cancelled that registration.
  10. ^ Griepp, Milton (August 16, 2016). "ICV2 Interview: Marvel's David Gabriel – Part 3". ICv2. Archived from the original on August 21, 2016. Retrieved August 20, 2016. I think I probably said to Tom Brevoort, I think this book should be called The Champions. And he, of course, got a tear in his 40-something year-old eye, and said, 'it'll never happen.' And I said, 'someone told me I would never get a million unit sales of Star Wars, so we're going to make this happen.' I badgered our legal guys and we got everybody who needed to be involved in getting the name back, and we got it back.

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